Forces of Hordes

GRYMKIN

THE WICKED HARVEST

 CREDITS
President Sherry Yeary Chief Creative Officer Matthew D. Wilson EXECUTIVE Director William Shick
Director of Operations Jason Martin Director of Publications Michael G. Ryan Director of Legal affairs Brent Waldher

WARMACHINE Graphic Design Director Lead CONCEPT ARTIST Studio Modeler licensing & merchandise
created & designed by Laine Garrett Nate Feyma James A. Thomas Coordinator
Matthew D. Wilson Wendy Vermeers
lead Graphic Designer CONCEPT ARTISTS Digital EngineerS
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Jason Soles Roberto Cirillo Marco Segovia Jack Coleman
Graphic Design & Layout
Development Manager Robert Mickschl Tom Garden Luke Sheridan Infernals
William Schoonover Jessy Stetson Johan Grenier Stuart Spengler Chuck Elswick
Ainsley Yeager David Sequeira Painting & Terrain Manager Travis Marg
Additional Development
Matthew D. Wilson Dallas Kemp John Morin
Jack Coleman sketches & doodles
Gilles Reynaud
William Hungerford Laine Garrett Sculpting Director Staff Painter
Jeff Olsen Dallas Kemp Ron Kruzie Brendan Roy ProOfreaders
Will Pagani Jessy Stetson Staff Sculptor Matt Goetz
MINIATURE PAINTERS
Doug Hamilton Dan Henderson
WRITING Manager Art Director Dallas Kemp
William Hungerford
Matt Goetz Mike Vaillancourt SCULPTORS Brendan Roy
Michael G. Ryan
Victor Hugo Campelo
Senior Writer & Continuity Cover Illustrator Hobby & Terrain Specialist William Schoonover
Douglas Seacat Andrea Uderzo Michael Jenkins Michael Archer William Shick
Fausto Gutierrez Lopez
Writers ILLUSTRATORS Photography Jason Soles
Steve Saunders
Matt Goetz Hardy Fowler Javier Garcia Urea Robert Mickshl
William Shick Dave Greco Irek Zielinski Jessy Stetson
Additional Writing Jake Gumbleton Senior Project Manager
Dallas Kemp Nstor Ossandn Studio Manager
Gabriel Waluconis
Andrea Uderzo Geoffrey Konkel
Zachary C. Parker Project Manager
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Editorial Manager
Dan Roman Michael J. Mulligan
Dan Henderson

ADDITIONAL STAFF SUPPORT

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manager Jackson Wood Convention Manager JR Godwin Convention Coordinator James Arbuthnot Social Media CoordinatorS Valerie Herron,
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Special thanks to all of our FANTASTIC playtesters!

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2
 contents
Forewarning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Piggybacks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Twilight Sisters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Glimmer Imp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Once upon a time. . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Witchwood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Chapter 1: Humanity Enslaved. . . . . . . . . . 10
Trapperkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Chapter 2: Rebellion against God . . . . . . . . 18
Lord Longfellow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Chapter 3: The Hells of Urcaen . . . . . . . . . 22
Lady Karianna Rose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Chapter 4: Birth of the Grymkin. . . . . . . . . 24
Death Knell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Chapter 5: The Old Witch. . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Gremlin Swarm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Chapter 6: The Wicked Harvest Begins. . . . . . 36

Defiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Games of the Wicked: Rules & Scenarios. 112

Grymkin Rules: Arcana. . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
The Child. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Theme Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
The Dreamer & Phantasms. . . . . . . . . . . . 50
State of War: Defiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
The Heretic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Scenario: Grymkin in the Fog. . . . . . . . . . 121
The King of Nothing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Scenario: Harvest the Wicked . . . . . . . . . . 122
The Wanderer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Campaign: Barons Balance Due. . . . . . . . 124
Zevanna Agha, the Fate Keeper . . . . . . . . . 58

Nightmares. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Model Gallery . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Cage Rager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Gorehound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Painting Your Army. . . . . . . . . . . 133
Frightmare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Skin & Moans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Crabbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Rattler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Grymkin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Dread Rots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Hollowmen & Lantern Man. . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Mad Caps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Cask Imps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Murder Crows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Neigh Slayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

has been
Justice 3
denied.
4
 . .
ill be opened .
w
r eyes
Soon y ou

Forewar ning
T he mysterious beings known as grymkin have long stalked the fringes of civilization,
their gruesome deeds immortalized in folktales and superstitions passed down from one
generation to the next as warnings against a sinful life. While scholars may dismiss such tales
as flights of rural fancy, the truth is that the threat of the grymkin is very real, especially to
those who live outside the stone walls of the great cities.

The supernatural grymkin comprise a diverse assortment of creatures, each with their own
particular prey for which they hunger. From the vile trapperkin that snatch children from their
beds, to the moldering gourds of the dread rots, to the volatile cask imps that are the bane of all
drunkards, each grymkin has its own ritualistic habits that define its nature just as much as its
physical form.

While in the dark past the various grymkin have posed a threat to those unfortunate few who
might have randomly crossed their paths, the arrival of the Defiers from Urcaen has brought the
grymkin together like a clarion call. Together with fantastic and powerful creatures born from
the nightmares of the Defiers minds as they were tormented and twisted in the hellish landscape
of Urcaen, the grymkin are now poised to unleash the Wicked Harvest upon all of humankind.

Leading their armies of grymkin, the Defiers are like demigods, capable of untold feats of
power, and they thirst to destroy all that bears the stain of the god Menoth. These potent
beings were once mortals who spurned Menoth and his gifts, rebelling against his oppression
and the inevitable corruption they foresaw his civilization spawning. For this they were
cast into the hells of Urcaen, doomed to an eternity of pain and torment. In time, however,
the Defiers learned to harness their curse, and now they have returned, ready to tear down
Menoths walls and rip out the black seed of his corruption from the heart of humanity.

Within the pages of this tome are scrawled the disturbing truths and hidden histories of the
grymkin and their masters. Should you be brave enough (or foolish enough) to expose your
mind to these long-hidden records, consider yourself forewarned, for all that you have come to
take for granted will be shaken to the very foundations. You will learn why it is wise to fear the
dark, why no wall will save civilization from its ultimate fate.

Just in reading these first words, you can feel the change within you. The roots of corruption
that have overgrown your soul are being cleared away by the burning light of the truth. Wait.
Do you hear that? That is them scratching at the very walls of the world. The Harvest is coming,
and coming now. Soon your eyes will be opened to the lies of Menoth, and you will see the stain
his false gifts have left upon this world of meek and corrupt cowards.

Stride forth from the shadow. Bring your sickle and claim your bounty. Become a harbinger
for the Wicked Harvest, and let humankind reap what it has sown.

Will Shick

5
O NCE
UPON a

TIME ...
O nce upon a time, the Maker of Manthe Hunter of the Wurm,
the gigantic Masked God Menothstalked Caen. In the shadow
that his looming shape threw on the still-forming world and after the
passage of his burning footsteps, the first mewling men and women
crawled forth from the foaming waters to seek shelter in lands that
were new and untamed. Humanity watched as their towering Creator
abandoned them to the hungry and thorny world, chasing after his
ultimate prey. He did not hear as they called out to him and prayed for
guidance. He simply left them behind.
Perhaps Menoth did not want to hear them because he wished only
to hunt the Great Beast that prowled in the tangled forests and flashed
across the rocky peaks of the new world: the Devourer Wurm. It was
the ever-changing beast that gave the wolf its fangs and the lion its
claws. The Beast of All Shapes and the Creator of Man waged a never-
ending war with one another, both unable to overcome the strength of
their opponent. Consumed by his desire to win this unwinnable war,
Menoth had no time for trifling concerns like humankind.

So the wild folk learned to live without their Maker, hiding in caves
and cutting their own path through the snarled realm in which they
had been left alone. They gathered into families and clans, and those
clans grew into tribes. In time they were spread all across the land
living, hunting, and striving together against the unforgiving world.

Humanity was freethinking then and uninhibited. Each and

every one among them was able to hunt and love and die on his or
her own terms. They wandered where they pleased, keeping only
the possessions they truly needed to survive, having no interest in
amassing great piles of useless things.

The Maker set forth, to this place and that

his spear seeking the Beasts flesh .
He left his childre
n hungry, forced to
forage and hunt .
But they
are the b
Theyve ta etter hun
sted the ters.
flesh of th
eir prey a
s he never
will

7
 These first people lived within the pulse and thrum of the primal
world. Every day was a new opportunity to explore and experience
Caen. They learned their strength and tested their cunning. All
lived according to their own desires and needs. They told stories
by moonlight, sang songs in the blackest depths of the night. Their
spirits became strong because they had survived, wise because they
had learned from one another, and fierce because the weakness was
purged out of them by the uncompromising world. What they seized
from the world they savored, and their songs rang out beneath the
moons and stars. When they died, their souls left their flesh behind to
be untethered and free. Bone to bo
ne an d blood to
blood
until the spirit soars
After a time, the glint of these released spirits and the raw vitality
of the wild folk living on Caen drew the eye of the Maker away from his
hunt. When he witnessed what his creations had become, the Masked
God began to crave the pure essence lying hidden deep within their
marrow. Menoth hungered for their souls.

Menoth knew he could not simply reach out and claim them, for all
of humanity had a buried strength that could rattle the oldest oaks and
grind mountains down to powder. If these free people discovered that
power, they might unite against him, or they might reject him in favor
of other gods, such as the distant maiden who danced across the stars.
They might even kindle their own power to become gods of their own
making.

Already many of these mortals had turned to the worship of

Menoths foremost enemy, the Great Beast. He saw this jealously, as
the hunters praised not his name but that of the Devourer Wurm. The
hungry serpent would not hesitate to claim their spirits when they
passed from the world of the living to the land of the dead. Worst of all,
beyond even these worlds a greater darkness greedily waited, and like
ravenous spiders that hide between the walls, the dwellers in this outer
darkness were eager to add human souls to their collection.

8

The Masked God
began to crave the
pure essence lying
hidden deep within
their marrow.
Menoth hungered
for their souls.

9
 Chapter 1
Humanity Enslaved

F earing the loss of his creations souls, Menoth devised a cunning

plan to convince humankind to willingly become his servants. In
Urcaen, the land of spirits, he built a vast and breathtakingly beautiful
city. All souls who could reach its gates would be welcomed inside to
inhabit its streets and structures and there become an army beyond
any conceived of by mortal minds. It was a city built to expand to
accommodate all who could and would arrive across the vastness of
time. Soon it was sprawling larger than a continent, bordered by high
Welco
walls of alabaster stone clad in bronze and shining gold.
me, w
to yo elcom
ur ca e This city would become home to all the souls Menoth could lure
ge!
You have
built it to him. Some came to him unbidden, drawn to their creator by some
all your
days.
inner need for his cruel neglect, but not enough to sate his appetites
not enough to guard the monumental walls and perform the necessary
labors of his city, not enough to serve as soldiers and slaves in the
endless war against his adversary. His greed and gluttony were
boundless, and so he devised four clever gifts to draw his abandoned
children back to him: the Flame, the Wall, the Sheaf, and the Law.
Some would say any true and kind father would have given such gifts
to them without a price or, better, would have simply helped them
discover these gifts on their own.
The Maker devised these gifts so the wild folk would worship him
and abandon their uninhibited and primitive ways. He sought to instill
in them a fear of the land and its beasts, a fear that would stay with
them even beyond their deaths. Then when they died and their souls
passed to Urcaen, all those who claimed the gifts would be trapped

10
in his city and become his eternal warriors. Their power would be
chained to his purpose forever.
Perhaps the Masked God thought of these gifts as a true blessing.
He himself had never been comfortable in the unsettled places; even
the wind and rain angered him. It may be that when he looked upon
his forgotten children, he wanted to make amends for abandoning
them for so long. But a god looks with a gods eyes, not a mortals, and
the Maker did not see how receiving his gifts could be a poison to their
spirits, how it would chain them to one another and rob them of the
freedom that made them clever and strong.
In time humankind would hold dominion over one another and
would desire more power still. Each bit of it they claimed would stain their
hearts, until what had been a beating, hot-blooded muscle became a dark of what
in g y s hadow
d
and charred chunk of coal. Menoth offered his poisoned gifts, and many A a heart should be
claimed them. His priest-kings were the first to taste the poison, and they
joyfully distributed it to all who could hear their honeyed words.
The first gift Menoth offered to his children was the Flame, and
many said, Feel! Now the cold wind will not bite when we lie down to
sleep, and the light will drive back the shadows, for in the shadows we
see so many hungry things eager to taste our blood. And so they took
the gift and built fires to chase away the shadows of their imagination.
They constructed hearths of stacked stones and cut down trees to feed
the flickering flames. They stopped wandering, for who would want
to stray far from the light, warmth, and comfort of the hearth? Those
who took the Flame soon forgot how to see by star and moonlight,
deepening their fear of the night.
Next, Menoth gave to them the Wall, and they said, Look! Behind
our walls, we are safe from the wolves in the nighttime and safe from
our neighbors in the day, for who could breach a wall built of such
stout and sturdy stones? And so those who accepted this gift labored
to build more walls, carving the land into pieces, and they fought to
keep one another outside of the walls they called their own. Any who
crossed these walls they named as trespassers and spies, and they
killed such intruders for refusing to abide by the web of walls that
Menoth trapped them in.

11
 And then Menoth gave them the Sheaf, and they said, Taste! Now
our stomachs will no longer ache from hunger when we are clumsy
hunters and our prey eludes us. And so some of the people plowed
vast fields and sowed grain, which they ate until they were fat and
lazy, learning to prefer even mealy bread to the flesh of beasts hunted
honestly and freshly killed. Those who toiled in the field became reliant
on those who bore spears to protect them, and so they became servants
to the lord with the most spears. The grain they harvested was taken
from them, and thus were links added to the chain of slavery.
Last, Menoth gave the gift of the Law to his people, and they said,
Listen! Now we no longer need to wonder if we are good or if we are
evil, if we are wrong or if we are right, because Menoth has given us
the Law. We must only obey! Some among them learned the Law,
surrendering the need and the right to think for themselves. They
came to see how much better they were than the others, how only
cruel punishment could hope to bring the wicked back to the path of
the righteous. Some cemented their authority over the rest, gaining
the power to decide who would live behind which Walls, who would
be warmed by the Fire, who would feast well on the Sheaf, and who,
by the Law, would be made kings and queens over all others. And
those held in the highest regard were the priests who spoke praises to
Menoth, who took credit for the bounty given them.

The Unchained and Unbowed

Thus civilization was born and soon in turn gave birth to Icthier.
Cinot, founder of this city, was in truth the first and greatest of
Menoths lickspittles, a priest who did more than any other to
further spread Menoths poison. All in Icthier would bow before him,
surrendering their freedom, their thought, and their very souls.
But not all those who were offered the Gifts were so eager to
hand over their freedom. A few saw through Menoths promises; they
knew that what he offered was poison. Decrying his gifts, they said,
Keep your Flame and your Wall, your Sheaf and your Law! You would
enslave us in this life and in the next. You would steal our freedom and
force us into your city to serve you. Look how it destroys those within

12

They knew that
what he offered
was poison.

13
 it! They are senseless and fat, greedy and lazy. The only gift you offer
us is the rot of corruption! And so these few, brave, free men and
women spurned the gifts of their Creator.
The first to rebel was the Child. Menoths laws placed the parents
above their children, and they were expected to devise and enforce
petty rules about what was acceptable and what forbidden, what could
be done and what shouldnt. The Child hated these laws because they
prevented her from doing what she wanted for no good reason at all.
The Child chose to be defiant and would not obey. Her soul gleamed
with the wild power of untamable innocence and the rage of youth.
Her angry screams deafened any who would tell her what to do, so
much that they couldnt even hear their own thoughts. No wall or
the toll dictate could contain her. Never would she accept the slavers chain.
Her cry was others:
on eth nce.
to summ c a ll of Defia
th e There also came the Wanderer. The walls the people built were
made to keep others from wandering, to keep them out of certain
places. A road served as a different sort of limitation, dictating a set
and finite path chosen by whoever laid its stones. The Wanderer did
not accept such constraints on his freedom. An individual should be
at liberty to walk wherever he pleases, so the Wanderer moved with
no regard for these barriers whether erected by mortal or god. He
discovered he could blaze new and impossible paths that no other
man could fathom, and when he dared follow them he could journey
to places beyond imagining, even into the otherwise intangible stuff
of dreams.
As Menoths laws sapped others of their powers of imagination,
one woman rejected the laws he wrote defining what is and what
isnt. The Dreamer wanted nothing to do with the reality Menoth had
created, and she refused to accept it. Instead she dreamed up wholly
new realities to reside in, realities so vivid and vibrant that the world
around her began to take on new and fanciful life in its envy of what
she could imagine.
All but last was a man who rejected not only Menoths gifts and the
society that came with them, but all other people and everything in
the world as well. He hated Menoth for his creation, hated humanity
even more, and hated the way Menoths laws drew people together

14
and encouraged them to mind one anothers business. He wanted
nothing more than to be left alone by all, to live as a hermit. His spite
and enmity were so absolute that the very bodies of those who came
too close to him would begin to wither and ache. Animals and plants
would shrivel and die if they lingered in his presence. His desire for
solitude became itself a force of nature, dividing him from all else. In
time he sat alone on a barren plot of earth as the spiteful despot of his
own empty realm, a self-satisfied King of Nothing.
The defiance shown by these rebellious ones enraged Menoth. It
was not just their rejection that galled him but also how, in turning
their backs on their Creator so irrevocably, they had discovered the
greater power residing within their own individual souls. If others
also discovered this, the god would be undone. His plan had been so
clever and his gifts devised so cunningly, but these petulant humans
had tossed them aside without a thought. Menoth desired a tool to
drag these disobedient creations back to his worship. Failing that, he
intended to end their lives in a way so terrible that it would serve as a
curse and warning to any others with the temerity to refuse him.
A gift
of fire
of a d built
And so Menoth kindled the power within the most devout of those ifferen
t sou
rce.
who had accepted his gifts and abided by his laws, and these were
elevated as priests and kings among humankind. They struck out
across the world, emerging from their cities to put the torch to all of
the Creators children who chose to act against him. The priest-kings
and champions of Menoth led their armies and cleaved through the
savages beyond the Wall. Their names were uplifted as golden pillars
of the civilized. After Cinot arose Golivant, Khardovic, Thrace, Belcor,
and Geth. But there was one who came before even Cinot, one who was
erased and stricken from all records. He was first. He was the highest
and became the lowest. His name is gone, replaced with a word that
transcribes his very essenceHeretic.
The Heretic was a priest-king who blazed like the first light of
dawn, beating back the shadows in Menoths name. He carved a bold
path along which were left countless hamlets that would one day grow
into cities, and those cities would in turn grow into kingdoms. His
light cast a long shadow that eclipsed even Cinot, whom he knew and

15

We are born of
thine own flesh!
Whatever ye can
will, so can we!

16
 instructed. Indeed, much that is credited to Cinot should be cast at
the feet of the Heretic instead. By Menoth himself he was guided in
erecting the grand city of Acrennia, and he soon expanded civilization
to the north and west, spreading the fires of Menoth.
As his legend grew, however, the Heretic saw the divine for
what it truly was. Looking at his own self-supremacy and all that
he commanded, he realized all mortals have within them a touch of
divine power. He learned that his might had not been bestowed upon
him by Menoth but rather that the god had simply kindled that which
was always there within. The Heretic knew himself to be singular
and special, and he began to dream that beneath the mask worn by
Menoth was hidden a face identical to his own. But in this revelation
he also saw the world as flawed and ill-made; Menoths gifts were but a
gilded cage meant to distract humanity from the truth that they were
all enslaved in death. If he truly was the inheritor of power to rival
Menoths own, the Heretic knew he must reshape the world into a new
Only
new e form and shatter the chains of bondage.
yes w
pierce s ill
uch dece Most of all, he saw that Menoth was not a just god. Menoth did not
ption .
punish the wicked, those who wielded his Gifts like weapons against
their neighbors, nor did he reward those who selflessly cared for others
with no material benefit to themselves. Instead the god rewarded only
obedience, punished only defiance. The Heretic was the first to have
the scales of deception fall from his eyes, but he would not be the last.
From that point forward the Heretic refused to wield his power in
the gods name, bending it instead to his own purposes. He would not
remain Menoths puppet, knowing himself to be his Creators equalif
not his superior. He harnessed his own divine might and stoked the
spark of godhood within him to a roaring flame.

The Heretic raised his face to the heavens and bellowed at his Creator, Ye have
cast us in thine own image! We are born of thine own flesh! Whatever ye can
will, so can we!

17
 Chapter 2
Rebellion against God
Once we marched against the walls of Icthier
But Menoth strode to battle impervious to our spears.
He burned our flesh and spurned our souls
And banished us to haunt these stones
So linger now our spirits here.
Ancient Menite rhyme of Acrennia

S pitting in the eye of god, the Heretics disobedient and defiant

message spread like wildfire. Others throughout Acrennia were
drawn to him like moths to a flame, and in time the Heretic sparked
the fires of a rebellion. Those who joined him were not merely the
superstitious or cowardly but true individuals who wanted to return to
their lives free of Menoths demands and the gifts he thought to offer
humanity.
There were some who took to this rebellion with swords and
spears, following the Heretics blazing path as he rolled over many of
the villages he himself had once nurtured. His army marched on the
first city, Icthier, ready to tear down the oppresssive edifice Menoth
had made.
Two of the defiant ones, the Child and the Wanderer, joined
the Heretic as he prepared to destroy Menoths bastion. The others
rebelled in their own ways. The Dreamer drew deeper into her chosen
realities, spilling echoes of her dreams out into the world. The King of
Nothing withdrew even further from all other living things, his aching
need for solitude becoming so great that even others could feel it.

18
 Menoth could not stand for this rebellion; he could not abide one
of his own, to whom he had given such power and authority, rising
up against him. So the Creator summoned his unfathomable power
and let loose his fiery wrath. The Heretics city he smote with an
earthquake, rattling the stones of Acrennia and cursing the land to be
poisoned forever after. The leaders of the Heretics armies he burned
to ash, condemning their souls to wander helplessly through the rubble
of their city. The rest he bound in agonizing chains of burning brass
and forced them to watch their champions receive divine castigation.
For the Child, the Wanderer, the Dreamer, the King of Nothing, and
the Heretic, he reserved his cruelest punishment. One by one he looked
down on the Defiers as they demonstrated their refusal of the gift of
civilization he had bestowed upon humankind, and he proclaimed:

Who
are these who dare
refuse me? Who is
this who claims to be
my equal? I am the maker of man.
I am the Giver of the Flame, the
Sheaf, the Wall, and the Law. For
your insolence, you will face a world
without my mercya just reward

for defiant children such as you!

19
 And as Menoth smote the world, he cracked the barrier between
Caen and Urcaen like the shell of an egg, opening an ever-widening
fissure between the lands of the living and the dead. The Defiers
looked down into the howling abyss, into the endless churning wilds
of Urcaen, where spirit beasts tore at each other with their spectral
talons and teeth.
By the power of the Maker of Man, the Defiers were cast down, still
alive, into the hell of Urcaen, a place of spirit where no living things
had ever stepped. It was, and is, a world where their special gifts and
extraordinary natures would avail them nothing, where the hungry
spirit beasts of the Devourer Wurm would torment them with tooth
and claw. There the Defiers would not age, nor could they die, for time
did not flow as it does on Caen. Their tortured bodies would endure
suffering beyond comprehension across an eternal cycle with no
ordered cycle of day and night to mark times passage.
But the Heretic, the last of the Defiers to plummet into the chasm,
spat a proclamation at his Creator as he fell, a prophecy set against
the rotten fruits of Menoths work, a curse from the accursed. Bound
together with the others by his disobedience and refusal of Menoth, he
issued a prophecy and declaration against Menoths great works:

20

Since this land was first turned
for the bounty it would grow,
Stood fast one truth thatallmortalmenknow,
Choose ye wrong or choose ye right,
Feed ye darkness or feed ye light,
At the end of your days,
you shall reap what you sow.

And with the Heretics direful words, the five Defiers vowed to
return to Caen someday. They knew the power of their own souls would
eventually free them from their prison, and when that came to pass
they would rattle civilization and snuff out its corrupt, black heart.
They would punish all who accepted Menoths gifts to the detriment of
others. They would reap a Wicked Harvest from humankind.

21
 .
s sting
fee l th e spirit
and
en now,
s of Urca oes
the fi e ld anderer g
Oh walk
kn o w s w here the w ry far b
elow
No one w e all sin
g
h im th ere, so ve
him call
So for t he can hear us f Urcaen ,
now
.
Tha
w a lk th e fields o w h at we sow
O h a ll r e a p
We sh

Chapter 3
The Hells of Urcaen

T he world of the dead was not made for the living. When first the
Defiers arrived in the infinite expanse of the spirit world, they were
tiny, vulnerable things, unable to defend themselves against the hungry
roaming spirits of that place. They tried to fight against the beasts of
Urcaen, but even with the talents they had honed in life they could not
hold back the agonies of hell. When they tired and could fight no more,
the mercurial hunters of the spirit world would fall upon them.
Even the Defiers own thoughts betrayed them. When they
collapsed in exhaustion from their endless running and hiding, they
were overtaken by terrible nightmares. Given power by the essence
of Urcaen, their nightmares had solidity and will, birthed whole and
hungry from their minds. For unnumbered years, the Defiers had not
a moment of peace. But though they were forgotten and abandoned to
their fate, their inner resolution remained.

Time in hell warped the bodies and minds of the Defiers. Endlessly
they suffered at the claws, teeth, and blades of their tormentors. Their
fears were given life anew to chew at their flesh and slowly took on
new and stranger bestial forms. Torment was the Defiers crucible,
burning away any weakness or fear they may still have had and
replacing it with toughened scar tissue. Their minds grew inured to
the terror and agony, though the only defense of a mind exposed to
such things is to become uniquely mad. Each moment of suffering
made them stronger, more able to withstand the coming tortures.
Mortal ages passed on Caen, civilizations rose and fell, before they
e moans,
rose out of pain and fear and madness. e r a tt le , hear th cage.
th Hear nking
the cla
dread
ful baying,
hound s bale
Hear the gore defying ye must pay!
for
22
 Through this process of spiritual destruction and rebirth, the
Defiers learned to further harness and shape their unique powers.
They learned to control the spirit world around them, treating the
landscape of hell as a canvas for their dreams to work upon. They
learned to shackle even their own nightmares and force them to yield
to the Defiers incomparable wills.

Though they were together, they walked their own separate paths
through the darkness. As their minds and spirits had been remade by
the trials of hell, the Defiers discovered that their bodies, the true flesh
that clothed them, were subject to their own control.
Spirit and flesh had become one. The pain the
Defiers faced in Urcaen could only be
deadened, not eliminated entirely,
but in time they learned to endure,
even as they planned their eventual
escape. They were no longer condemned to
hell: as they embraced their diverse powers,
they became hells masters.
 Chapter 4 Whispe
rs in th
e shado
Birth of the Grymkin dark tales of
their m
ws
ten-told
eanings
mere few now
stori unders
es, di tand
m and

T
old
hose who bore witness to the Defiers acts of rebellion, and those
who watched as Menoth cast them into hell, remembered those five
ungovernable souls and shared stories of their disobedience. They retold
the legends as cautionary tales to their children. In the light of crackling
logs or swinging whale-oil lanterns, the Defiers stories spread in quiet
whispers and drunken rants. Across the bogs and fields of the world, the
legends of the Defiers grew and changed over time, as tales of those who
foolishly stood like oaks against the burning wrath of a god.
Grandmothers stories and fathers warnings came down through
the generations like the white tendrils of a weed, taking firm root in
the fertile soil of imagination. Generation after generation spun these
tales, wheedling out fireside epics with their hushed words, always
adding to the legend and embellishing it. Though they were told as
warnings, in many of these tales was a hint of admiration for those
who rebelled, drawn from long-buried dreams of lost freedom.
Away in their prison, the five heard the tinny echoes of the tales
that grew around them. They supped on those fables and mopped up
each honeyed word with the crust of childish fears, rejoicing in the
sweet flavor it offered them in their trackless confinement. The Defiers
seized the stories with greedy fingers, pulling in each new-spun tale
and holding it tight, basking in the comforting warmth it spread in
their aching meat and frozen bones. In turn, they passed their own
stories back to those able to hear them. Through dreams brought on
by fevers, the Defiers whispered clarity into the minds of storytellers.
To the unquiet imaginations of certain men they showed visions of the

24
hell they inhabited. And so, as the stories from above helped to shape
and refine their appetites and bodies, they fed their own stories back
to the world of the living to magnify their legends.
As years went by and the stories grew and multiplied and changed,
the Defiers caught sight of others doing what they never could: passing
through the veil that separates the world of the living from the world of
the dead. These were the souls of the deceased, who took a road barred to
the Defiers on the way to their afterlife. Each pious soul hoped to arrive
safely in Menoths ever-expanding city in Urcaen, while others wandered
lost and doomed in the trackless wilds, never to find their final reward.
It was the wayward souls that drew the attention of the Defiers,
especially the Heretic. By their very nature these lost souls felt inexorably
drawn to the Defiers, their wandering paths not as directionless as they
thought. Tales told of the Defiers on Caen had paved unseen roads to their
realm in hell, routes of least resistance opened by the fears and doubts
of those who were wicked in life and whose fates were already linked by
the legends of the five. Men and women who had committed sins against
their fellows feared facing the Defiers after death, and that fear forged an
unbreakable chain pulling them to their inevitable punishments.
Urcaen had never been kind to the impiousto the doubters, the lax,
the selfishly cruel and the lazily greedy. Such souls arrived in the afterlife
far from the realms of the gods and there became easy prey for monstrous
creatures, forced to run from myriad horrors dwelling in the shifting
expanse of Urcaens hell. In their terror they took what seemed the easiest
pathdown rocky hills, along cleared trails through chattering woods,
following the banks of icy rivers. All of these paths took them straight to
the Defiers, who waited for them in vast dreamscapes they had carved
for themselves. Each of these wayward souls was seized and scrutinized,
laid bare by the Heretic or another of the five who read the history of their
lives and transgressions engraved into their very being. Lives were peeled
back year by year like the layers of an onion, revealing secret hopes, deep-
dwelling fears, and long-buried regrets and humiliations.
Examining these souls, the Defiers confirmed the truth of
the conclusions they had drawn at the outset of their rebellion:
mortals had been marred by the foul fruits that thrived in Menoths

25

Mortals had been
marred by the
foul fruits that
thrived in Menoths
civilization.

26
civilization. Drunkards, cowards, liars, cheats, the vain and jealous,
all twisted by their shallow lives. The Defiers saw what each soul was
truly made of, and with the power they had seized, they saw fit to pass
judgment on them. The Defiers acted as a fractured mirror for the
spirits before them, reflecting their iniquities. In those reflections
the souls saw themselves as the wretched beings they were, having
lived their lives at the expense of others. They had wielded the Gifts
of Menoth like weapons, using them purely to better their own selfish
lives. In the plight of their victims, the Defiers saw a reflection of their
own unjust suffering at Menoths hands, and the righteous anger
of the five helped to fuel their transformation. The essence of the
wayward souls was reshaped to better match the sins within each.
That which is dead cannot normally live again, but the powers of the
Defiers allowed these spirits a different sort of afterlife, one that would
They
eventually permit a return to Caen. Fueled by the Defiers judgments, have s
uffer
and so s e
the natural laws that preserve a souls coherence were overwritten and hall we d,
all.
replaced. This gave these spirits new and grotesque bodies and minds,
utterly removed from their past lives. Hearkening to the old stories that
cautioned against the very sins for which they had been judged, and guided
by the Defiers mad dreams, these souls took on wholly new forms. Each
was bound up with some old story or legend, a folktale or childs rhyme.
These became the grymkin. The Defiers discovered that grymkin
were not as firmly bound to Urcaen as either the Defiers themselves or
the ordinary spirits of the dead. Each time a new soul crossed from the
land of the living into the realm of the dead, its passage left a temporary
pinprick in the barrier between these worlds. These small gateways soon
closed of their own accord and were too small to allow the passage of
anything in return, especially the powerful Defiers; in this, their own
magnificence betrayed them. Yet grymkin, with their peculiar and
chimerical forms, could slip through the smallest pinprick with ease.
Every time a dead spirit passes, there is a small chance a grymkin will
leap back into the world of the living, balancing the scales.
The Defiers instructed the growing throng of grymkin to lie in wait
for these small doors to open and to return to Caen at every opportunity.
Sometimes many souls tumbled through at once, such as at the height of

27
 a great battle where death was thick, and a throng of grymkin could rush
back through the other way. The Heretic studied these passages with
a scholars eye. Nights when the moons were dark or the stars aligned
in certain ways let more powerful grymkin through, as did the deaths
of innocent men and women who fell victim to Menoths cruel justice.
More failed to cross than succeeded, but each who made it through was
a small victory, a way for the Defiers to change Caen, however indirectly,
and to pave the way for a greater reckoning to come. Grymkin used the
wars of humanity to their own advantage, slipping through unnoticed
like bilge rats stowing away in the hold of a great ship.
And so, over the long years of the Defiers imprisonment,
numerous grymkin crossed over from Urcaen. Each was filled with
a desire to bring mischief and danger to the world of the living,
to invoke fear and nightmares, to punish the wicked. They felt
.
r..
t d
de
ou an
or

compelled by their very natures to seek those whose souls had been
th s
wi rles
be

marked by the same corruption that defined their own shaping.

um
...n

Each kind of grymkin hungered for a certain flavor of sin, a specific

variety of blemish and weakness. Sin called to sin. Murderers sought
out murderers and thieves sought out thieves. Some grymkin even
possessed the power to transform others to become like them,
spreading their nature like an infection.
The seemingly capricious ways of the grymkin inspired yet
more folk stories. Those who happened to witness the grymkin
claiming their victims would share their tales, delighting in the
madness and the macabre, savoring these dark parables of morality
and punishment. In time, through trial and error, rustic peoples
learned some of the rules grymkin must abide by, their often peculiar
vulnerabilities. These too were shared from father to son, from mother
to daughter, down through the years. As cities rose and grew, pushing
back the dark forests and hidden places where the grymkin lurked, the
truth behind these tales was slowly forgotten. But hidden within most
nursery rhymes and bedtime stories were hints of truths about the
grymkin, though not their origins or deeper purpose.
The grymkin sowed the seeds of the Wicked Harvest for centuries,
seeds the Defiers and their army of nightmares would reap when the
time was right.

28

The grymkin sowed
the seeds of the
Wicked Harvest for
centuries.

29
 Chapter 5
g
free
ods t the ne
w. The Old Witch
ld n
t o reve
She se to p

T he key that would unlock the Defiers eternal prison first began to
take form long, long ago. In the earliest of days, far in the north
in the barren lands of ice and biting wind, something keen-eyed and
razor-taloned lurked in a cave. It watched as Menoth walked the world
and saw the first people of the north as they emerged from nothingness.
When it was hungry it would sneak out in the night and snatch one
of them, dragging the corpse back to its cave where it would drink the
blood and chew the bones. After a time, the thing in the cave began to
appreciate the northern folk for more than the flavor in their blood and
meat. It began to savor the strength of their spirits and to relish the taste
of their ambitions and dreams. It learned to appreciate the vintage of
their fears. It saw the merits of influencing them.
Gradually, this being took on a new form, one which more closely
resembled humankind. Emerging from the shadows of the cave, it
walked among the northerners as a stooped and weathered crone,
garbed in a cloak stitched together from the time-worn hides of
countless kills. It had come to learn the tongue of the northerners
from their screams and their whimpering pleas. It learned the name
the people whispered when they spoke of it, and it found the name
pleasing: Zevanna Agha. In time they would come to know her simply
as the Old Witch. She became a sort of steward of the northmen,
bearing a strange affection for them and an unutterable link to their
bloodlines. She saw how Menoths gifts could be put to another use,
to make her favored northern tribes flourish. She encouraged them
to build up their cities, though she cautioned them to always remain

30
rooted in the wild places. Almost alone of beings on Caen, she walked
in both places comfortably.
The Old Witch had seen the Defiers stand against Menoth and had
listened to the Heretics pronouncement as they were thrown into the
hells of Urcaen. The unmistakable ring of prophecy prickled at her
ears. The Heretics words were more than mere words. The oath the
Defiers swore that day was a pact that would be burned indelibly into
their souls, fueled by their hatred for the corruption that spilled out of
Menoths civilization wherever it grew.
This act caught the attention of the Old Witch, but she is ever
cunning, always scheming, devising ways to turn the fate of the world
to her own ends. And so she stowed away the memory in her vast
library of thoughts and dreams and left it there until a need for it arose
in the world.
That need came with the creatures of the outer darkness, things B
lac
ks
neither of the physical world nor of Urcaen but from a lightless n
sw akes
im e
place beyond them both. Greedy for the power of human souls, these mi ntw
ng ine
in d,
beings of shadow have long probed their fingers into the lands of the a
oce vas
an t
living, offering promises and power in return for that which they lik
eo
il
covet the most.
Long after Menoth locked the Defiers away, a young woman called
Thamarwho turned out to be not so different from the Defiers
themselvesand her brother Morrow discovered the power to ascend
as a god. When the Orgoth came and put the people of her lands to the
whip and chain, Thamar was asked by her brother to make a pact with
the sinister oathmakers dwelling in the dark beyond to empower her
people with sorcerous gifts.
The bargain she offered these entities demanded a payment that
Thamar knew could never be paidone which might threaten the very
nature of the balance between Caen and Urcaen. Like the Old Witch
of the north, this self-made goddess knew the Defiers waited in hell.
She knew that when they ultimately escaped, they would be anathema
to the degenerate humans the creatures of darkness need in order to

31
32
thrive. So, with the dark masters from beyond eager to bargain with
her and unaware of the fate that awaited them should the Defiers one
day be freed, the woman agreed to their terms.
As decades and centuries spun forward, as the wheels of heaven
turned in the sky, the dark masters did find people in the world who
were as foul and greedy as they, and they made inroads into the world
through shadowy pacts with these men and women. Such wicked
humans were living testaments to the warnings the Defiers had
uttered, proof in the flesh of the seeming flawed fruit Menoths gifts
had wrought.
While the weakness in humankind that Menoth introduced may
have helped precipitate the dark masters finding open and vulnerable
The
souls, the unfathomable threat stood clearly apart from Menoth. Even Defi
ers
s
like hu tir
in hell the Defiers paid heed to the fragmented stories that reached ngry w
olves
within th
their ears. They stirred, taking note of events in living history for the eir cage.

first time since their imprisonment, and they watched the influence of
those bound to the darkness spread.
In time, the number of those willing to pledge their souls to the
dark masters swelled. The greed in their hearts, fed by the luxuries
their power granted them, grew until they were willing to swear it all
away for more power, more wealth, more comfort in life. Hiding at the
fringes of the settled places, they worked in shadow toward their own
ends, but all the while they gave their dark masters the opportunity to
look upon the world of mortal men. With clear eyes, these inscrutable
beings scouted the lands and prepared to claim the world and all
human souls as their own.
Zevanna Agha foresaw the darkness that was coming and knew
that she alone could not stop it. As the number of its agents piercing
the barrier between worlds grew, she knew she faced an apocalypse.
The armies of humankind had grown vast, and they commanded
weapons built of technology married to magic, but even the greatest
mechanika and the mightiest champions would be inadequate to face
the horrors shaped by the outer darkness.

33
 So too would the armies of the wilds be insufficient. For too long
they had torn at one anothers throats. They had learned to wield might
and magic and to command terrifying beasts, but they were too easily
distracted with old squabbles and schemes to help hold the darkness back.
Instead, the Old Witch turned to the Defiers. If she threw open
the doors of their eternal cage, whatever they had become, whatever
emerged into the physical world once more, would tear at the roots of
the Iron Kingdoms to find the corruption within. The murky border
between civilization and the wilds was a common hiding place for
wicked men and women working in the shadows. If the Defiers set
loose their harvest, they were certain to claim the malfeasants who
were the greatest allies the dark masters had on Caen. As the grymkin
took their toll, they would provide a warning to others who might fall
to similar corruption.
Set ba But it would be a painful harvest they claimed. The wicked would
ck the
clo
tick by ck:
tock reap what they had sown as the Defiers punished them for their
misdeeds. In unleashing them upon the world, Zevanna Agha would
be injecting poison into a sick body in the hope that it would kill the
deadly parasites within before it killed the patient. And despite the
work of the Wicked Harvest, there would always be corruption in the
hearts of humans. There would always be an abundance of foolish
mortals seeking power. But the Defiers and their motley throng could
slow the encroachment of the darkness into Caen and give her more
time to prepare for its arrival.
The Old Witch considered all of this, weighing the benefit of
having such potent allies to fight the darkness against the trouble and
chaos the Defiers would bring with them. Finally, she made her choice
and threw open the doors of Urcaen. But the witch was canny and
always made sure to stack events in her own favor, so she carefully set
aside individuals who would one day help her drive back the Defiers
and their children should their menace prove to be greater than their
aid to her and her designs.

34
35
 Chapter 6
The Wicked Harvest Begins

Z evanna Agha scoured the world for clues about the Defiers to
help her as she worked to set them free. She captured grymkin
and pulled them apart in her claws to discern their makers marks.
She consorted with madmen who claimed that voices in the walls
spoke to them unfathomable truths. She watched from a distance
to
She came many as witches danced and howled around blazing fires, holding crude
so
of us . . .
totems of the Wanderer and the Child. She listened to the scattered
prophecies of fortunetellers and sages, hearing within their
divinations occasional seeds of truth. Everywhere she looked, she
found scraps and hints left by the five.
Piece by piece, the Old Witch pulled together her plan. With a
host of minions she had cajoled, bribed, and manipulated, she would
build a great device to rip at the warp and weft of reality. With it she
could pull open a tear between the worlds. The most difficult piece of
the puzzle was to find a means to communicate with the Defiers, to
find the hidden patch of Urcaen they claimed as their kingdom. While
she could force grymkin to obey her will, their capriciousness was so
deeply rooted in their essence that they proved useless as messengers
to reach their creators. She required a mortal conduit.

The solution came in the form of a young noblewoman. Driven

mad by loss and grief, Lady Karianna Rose resided in an institution
for the insane. Her breed of madness had drawn a flock of invisible
grymkin to her side. She treated the little things like her own children,
who were now dead in the grave. The love she felt for her grymkin was
genuine, and they would do anything for her in return.

36
 Zevanna Agha whispered into Lady Kariannas dreams. The
hopes and fears spawned by these whispers affected her grymkin
companions and were eventually perceived by Defiers, especially the
far-roaming mind of the Dreamer. At times a death was required
to allow a grymkin to return with a cryptic message to its greater
masters, which seemed to the Old Witch a small price to pay. In this
indirect way, these ancient and unknowable powers conspired through
the sleeping babble of an insane woman.

The Old Witch had other conspirators to assist with the completion
of her great machine, foremost among them the founder of a secretive
group dedicated to investigating the supernatural. The device they
built combined Zevanna Aghas cunning with the power of mortal
ingenuity, and its completion enabled her to crack open a gateway to
hell through which the Defiers could return to the world at long last.

When the time was right, Zevanna Agha pierced a hole in the
veil between worlds, and out of that portal strode the Defiers. They
emerged with a deep and primal hunger that reached down to their
very souls, a burning need to fulfill the promise they had made so long
ago to reap their due from the debased hearts of civilized men. The
world was much changed since their banishment, but the corruption
they foresaw resided in every corner of the land.

The Defiers had much work to do, but they would not be alone.
The moment the five emerged from hell, every grymkin in the world
felt an irresistible tug. They abandoned their mischief, leaving cruel
tricks half-finished and clever traps unsprung, and journeyed to
meet their makers.

The W i ck e d H a r v es t
had begun.
37
 T he Dreamer
T he Child
T he King of Nothing

Gremlins

Skin & Moans

Cage Rager

Rattler

Twilight Sisters

The Heidrun Lady

Karianna Rose Death
Knell
sin o
f pri Agrona

leave de Lantern
s yo Man

perf u ug
ect s ly. R
kin u ub y
off u ntil our Hollowmen
nder it pee
you ls
r fin
Glimmer Imp Trapperkin
gers
.
 y
so
ht
sig
T he Heretic

e a our
in .
T he Wanderer

r f of y
ga
T he Old Witch

u
yo
ac
k o rob
ou
o
ny
rl nt
oo
oo
sp
ull
eve
Ad
nn
ca Gorehound

Frightmare

Crabbit

Lord Longfellow

Witchwood

Mad Caps
Dread Rots

Pig gybacks Neigh Slayers

Cask Imps
 DEFIERS
There are no beings on Caen, living or dead,
which are like the Defiers.

40
 There is
a place w
here we
will go
That only
the Defier
s know.

They wait
for us far,
far below
And we shall call them master.

Sin
ce their banishment to hell, the original names of the Defiers have been lost to a fog of
myth and superstition. Instead, they are most commonly identified by the fundamental
concepts that each represent: the Child, the Dreamer, the Heretic, the King of Nothing,
the Wanderer. In backwater communities, however, and among other superstitious folk who for countless
generations have told their tales, the five are called by myriad names. To the swampies of northern Cygnar,
the Heretic is known as Father Stoneface, while to the Kossites of Khador he is gyordi listoy, or The Proud-
Faced One. Legends of the Defiers can be found in all corners of western Immoren, and the local stories
about them are obscured by an accidental conspiracy to cloak the truth of their origins in mystery.

The tales of their defiance of Menoth have
been misattributed, altered, and reconfigured over
thousands of years. Not even the Defiers themselves
can recall the exact details of their lives or of the
transition to their new existences. The pain they
endured fractured their minds, and in scraping
up the pieces they have allowed fragments of the
legends about them to join the disjointed mosaic
of their memories. They choose for themselves
the parts of the stories they like and hold them as
absolute truths. Even when their stories clash and
contradict each other, the Defiers cling to these
tales. Since their wills can bend mortal memory and
reality itself, separating truth from fiction with the
Defiers is almost impossible.
In the days that followed the banishment of the
Defiers, those who viewed them as great spirits
or angry gods gathered together. Rural folk in
some isolated regions see the five as dangerous
and powerful beings and will attempt to placate
them and avoid their attentions. Countless remote
communities have modest shrines to one or more of
the Defiers, garlanded with trinkets and offerings
intended to ward off their wrath. These gestures
please the Defiers: the pleas of frightened travelers
stopped at such a crossroad shrine or the cautionary
nursery rhymes cooed by a grandmother to her
grandchildren might not be true worship, but the
Defiers bathe in it as if such words were prayers.

42
 The Defiers are both the authors of the Wicked
Harvest and its singular masters. Each commands a
diverse legion of grymkin and a host of nightmares
pulled from Urcaen into the world of the living. No
dissension exists among the ranks of the Wicked
Harvestthe will of the Defiers is absolute and
incontestable.
There is no true leader among the five. Though
the Heretic styles himself as the foremost of the
Defiers, in truth they are equal in power over the
grymkin. They have little need to debate matters,
for the eons they spent together in hell allows each
one to know the desires of the others. They have
their own distinct plans and agendas, and they tend
to give each other leeway even when they disagree.
It is rare for them to truly work together, though
it is even more rare for one to stand in the way
of another. When a conflict occurs, the one who
disagrees with the others will go off for a time to
pursue his or her own agenda but will always return
again. Urcaen forced them together for so long that
not one of them, not even the King of Nothing, is
ever truly apart from the others. They can feel one
anothers presence no matter the distance between
them, whispering into each others minds and
dreams with but a thought.
The one pursuit in which they are absolutely
united by purpose is the Wicked Harvest. Nothing
can shake them from punishing the wicked among
humankind, from forcing the corrupt to reap the
fruits of their foul labor. But they are not united in
vision. Each defied Menoth in a unique way, and
each desires to reap what is due according to his or
her own whims. The Heretic despises the faith of
Menoth most of all and wishes to see its choirs made
mute and its temples ground to dust. The Wanderer
loathes the walls of human civilization more than
anything else and would see them flattened, and the
Child would see all mortal children freed from the
chains of their parents subjugation by making them
orphans. The Dreamer, in her unbroken trance of
somnolent visions, secretly desires that all humanity
 would join in her everlasting slumber. Hating all
creation and everything in it, the King of Nothing
seeks to render Caen a vast field of nothingness,
devoid of man, beast, and his fellow Defiers alike.
Each Defier is an ageless creature of
unfathomable power that borders on godhood.
They have transcended the limitations of the flesh
to embody the nature of their individual defiance.
Even their own bodies are a reflection of this
essence, deceptive to behold. Some, like the Child
and the King of Nothing, inhabit bodies that look
weak and frail, but they nonetheless command a
strength that can lay low the mightiest champions
of the living world. All of this is the unwitting gift
of Menoths punishment. Urcaen burned away their
weaknesses. It molded and refined them. In the
millennia of their imprisonment they learned how
to wield the power that resides in their souls, and in
so doing they magnified that power immeasurably.
Some of the Defiers, like the Dreamer and the
Wanderer, had in their previous lives shown only a
timid echo of the forces that they would command
once they walked Caen again. What they did in
those days was done by pure reflex and instinct, not
design. All of them have since had the opportunity
to embrace the true arcane strength in their souls.
They have tested and taught one another to coax out
that inner strength. Now, each of the Defiers has
the power to replace the fabric of the real world with
things that are far more pleasing to them.
All magic, be it the systematic arcane arts
of the Iron Kingdoms or the unbridled sorcery
44
of the wilderness, is an expression of willpower
over reality. Magic coaxes reality into doing the
impossible, whether summoning a mystic storm of
ice or commanding the very earth to split asunder.
The power of the Defiers approaches that of the
gods in its ability to remake the very substance of
the world, at least for a time.
When the Defiers wield magic, they allow a
shred of their nightmare reality to bleed into Caen.
The Defiers twisted dreamscapes bubble and churn
to the surface like infectious madness. The trees
curl around the five, and the ground heaves beneath
their tread. Reality is reshaped into forms that are
more pleasing and familiar to the Defiers, taking
on the cast of their own individual patches of hell,
softening to their subconscious desires and their
conscious whims. To face one of the five, one must
first pass through an impossible world that obeys
only the fancies of that Defier.
Though this power is impressive, the Defiers
are at their most terrifying when someones actions
align with or violate the invisible, mystical rules
written on the Defiers own souls. Like the grymkin
they created, each Defier is bound up by their denial
of civilization. As they were shaped and reshaped
in hell, as each of them embraced ever more tightly
their own identities and powers, these strictures
became ingrained deep in their very nature. The
rules are countless and obscure, unknown even
to the Defiers themselves, but if someone in their
presence breaks these supernatural codes, a Defiers
power bursts forth to shake the world to its core.
 The Old Witch is not counted among the Defiers,
but she is similarly immortal and draws on ancient
powers related to her nature and her ties to the
northern lands. Her power also has rules known
only to her and can flare to greater strength under
special circumstances. Like the Defiers, Zevanna
Agha is a creature of legend and folktales, and her
clawed fingers touch the nightmares of humankind.
Without her, the Defiers may have remained in
Urcaen, the promise of the Wicked Harvest forever
unfulfilled.
To show their gratitude for loosing them from
Urcaen, the Defiers have given the Old Witch
authority over a host of grymkin and nightmares.
She in return uses grand arcane devices to punch
holes through reality, allowing new armies of the
Wicked Harvest to tumble into the world. Only
the Old Witch has this power. Should Zevanna
Agha ever turn her back on the Defiers, they know
she could one day condemn them to Urcaen once
moreor worse, trap them on Caen with an ever-
dwindling host by their side.
45
 Th e C h i ld
Do you remember being scared, Dolly?
When he threw us down into the darkness?
All alone in the dark. . .
NESS
THAT WICKED MAN THREW US INTO THE DARK
TO PUNISH US, JUST BECAUSE WE BROKE HIS
HATEFUL RULES!
But we found a safe place to hide. didn't we?
ling
And you protected me, Dolly, from all the how
things in the dark that made me cry.
They hurt me. Dolly...
THEY MADE ME SCREAM AND CRY!
But you kept me safe when I was scared.
And we learned to make them suffer.
And now we make the rules.
AND I WONT LET ANYONE HURT ME
EVER AGAIN!
Never, ever again.
Now it's our turn. Now we are the strongest.
We will do whatever we want.
us.
And we will break anyone that tries to stop

48
 The&DPrHAeNaTAmSMser
ality.
lif e, u nhindered by re
waking
ntethered from nd
.
She drifts freely, u
a m
she dre nd un
s b o u
She is the Dreamer, and a
unbi dden
both
H er d
reams a
re not luci
d, but formless a
nd ever changing,
and she
Floats upon the swirling eddies of emotion they stir up.

All things of the waking world are to her ju

st
distant echoes, half-he a r d an d
half-re
as she mem
passe bere
s fro d,
mo
ne d
rea
mt
o th
e r en
e w o rl d ar o u nd h ext
.
She shapes th
spontaneously,
pwalker s
attended by an army o s l e e
f ns.
b eri n g visio
and slum
who share in her gr

her power to shape

Among all of us,
Mom and alter the world is second to none.
and e nt to
with mom
out e nt
eve she
res n t hin birt
hap kin hs
ing g sh Phan
it i e al
ters tasm
nt o
wh the ve s and
im ry fl fan
sic e tas
al sh
and o f th
ies
,
spec ec
orr
tac up
ul ar f
t,
orm
s.

50
 o ro
the
eful.
ams are peac

at
er dre
Not all h

g
p ests
,

win
t e m

m g l.
ik e
el

sou
e ar as when she remembers the

a
Som

n
r
early days of our time in hell.

ou
r

of y
o
When she passes through such nightmar

Aw
es,

ows darker,
the world gr in time
an h
d e a v i n g
shaking
ath.
with her frightened bre

When
she goes
to w ar
against the rott
en heart

on
f Me not hs creati
o
with the
Wicked Harvest,
she
doe
sn ot fig
ht
s
her dream
s
she allow s
a k e t he armie her.
to r e m t
ains
set ag

with us,
n o t sp eak often
e r does
Th D
e r e a m ed somniloquy
,
h isp e r
as a w
en sh e does, it is
and wh
But we hold her sleeping speech as prophecy,
for on
e often finds
the truths
of the world hidden

amid the fiction of

D r e a m s.
51
I am the Heretic, a name
that I now embrace,
for it is the name
you gave me as you stood in fear
of my judgment. I am proud of
Now I have unmasked myself for all to
see. You may yet hide in his shadow,
but I will burn it away with a font of
ceaseless light. How can you conceal
the black corruption to which you have
given yourselves when I have torn
down your walls? Show me how you
my heresy, for it was heresy that will cleave to the slavery you so desire
defied the system of a slaver, a when I have defaced your writs of law
pompous parasite. I am theHeretic and cast their pages to the winds?
and I come for you all. And what will you do when I have
snuffed out the last of your flames
Free again to walk the world, I will and lie waiting in the darkness? Those
show them with my radiance the few among you who are worthy will
truth hiding behind Menoths lies. He discover the power dwelling beneath
may be the Creator of Man, but I am your mortal visage. Those who do not
his Perfector. There were none before will be ground to chaff.
me who so perfectly understood the
truth behind his deception. The others I am the Heretic, a name that I
now embrace, for it is the name
refused his so-called gifts because they
held no luster for them. I alone tasted
the sweetness of the benefits those you gave me as you stood in fear
of my judgment. I am proud of
gifts could offer, but also the taint of
corruption that lay within, no matter my heresy, for it was heresy that
how well Menoth thought he was
hiding it from me. defied the system of a slaver, a
Am I proud? Am I boastful? pompous parasite. I am the Heretic
I have torn away the mien of fragility and I come for you all.
that I was shaped with to reveal the For generations unnumbered we
proud godhood within. Look upon have listened to the cries of your
me, all you mewling children who still souls as they slipped from life into
cling to Menoths works, and tremble. death, and we have selected our
We who have suffered in hell, we who pick of that rich harvest as they
rejected his construct whole-clothwe pass between the worlds. Do you
are coming for you. We will mete out think your secrets are unknown to
such terrible punishments upon you. us? Are you swifter than the winds
We, whom you named Defiers, as we of winter? Are you more clever than
were ourselves unjustly punished for the shifting tide? Without your
revealing the lies of the Masked God. poisonous gifts to prop you up, why
Menoth may have lied to you with would out of
you believe that you can twist
our grasp?
honeyed words to rob you of your
freedom, but I tell only the truth. I am the Heretic, a name that I
The whole of mankind is stained by now embrace, for it is the name
his corrupt system. Everywhere the
spread of civilization creeps, the stain you gave me as you stood in fear
grows ever darker. In the fertile soil of my judgment. I am proud of
of a mans heart, the roots of that my heresy, for it was heresy that
corruption are tangled and thick, and
we are the reapers who come to tear defied the system of a slaver, a
them out. Not one of you will endure pompous parasite. I am the Heretic
this harvest of the wicked, not one of and I come for you all.
you has escaped our notice.
 The las
t thing
nothin you ll
gness feel is
and it
three p comes
arts. in
 ,
pted his dreams in the night
There once lived a little man who hate The cries of the owls interru ke He thre w
d everything He hated the sun and when he was awa . , but still
the moon and the stars He hated the . and gnats whined in his ears at th e in se cts
. beasts of the world and the fish of d swatte d
the sea Most birds nests an
. of all, he hate
d his fellow m stones at the nt So the little man swore to the
world:
violent and stupid, and he an. They wer they would not rele .
e
wanted nothing more thannoisy and greedy , e and I will
of them to go away forever for all er fo r it . Come too clos
ff
. rb me will su
All who distu r very core!
hurt you, deep in you
So the little man set out from the first city into the wilds. Everyone around him
, it held power. The grass died When the
said this would be the death of him, for surely the beasts of the His oath was made and ve le d u p and .
gs sh ri ing but
wilderness would tea her living thin ntain and noth
r him to shreds But w ilt ed, and all ot de d do w n th e m ou
the spi l
tefu little man was ha d fa , ly alone, an
so full of malevolence and enmity. that cree
echo of his de to take its place, he was finally tru
great wolves tha even the ca me , a kin g of nothing .
t stalk the forests silence emperor of emptiness

his meat would be left him be, for the
bitter and make the y knew ry own
d dying tree his ve
m sick that the gnarled an

. Lo ok ing up , he sa w
sprouted an apple.
On a tall, lonely mountain he found a barren patch of land with
nothing more worthless wooden throne had
than a small dy Bending down the branch, he took a bite. Its taste was
A place I can ing tree , and
be left alone he thought , At tongue .
. la st! bitter ashes on his

But even then the world Satisfied, the King of Nothing settled back and
would not give him peace folded his arms,
.
alone at last.
55
 Put
a r
oad roam. The
bef
r ever I will
ore and f o
me zon
and
h e hori
there e t
s nowher ho m
e I wont go. S w
ThE
Wanderer land, for those who nev
e t he

r
p

u
w

pen
an de

o
r

s an d
wi
ll n
ever understand. By lanterns

t
glow

r
Ill

m pa
m ak

r a
e

your
my path and light my

art
ap
ak

hem pay . If at the c

ake t rossr
wend

I ll m oad
s
ing

live
s
we
ir
wa

the
y,

ith
should meet,
and

w
l w me,
al

ho t p
ry to sto
.
oy
p

rj r.
ra

ou e
y

y ang
yo

lose ou
r
u

lf.

u
r

yo y se
e no

t lose ur
rs u yo
t
o ose
my
y
o go.
n l
f oe , ls
e
a
h u
n ot
o
for t
T y
c a n
n
here run I
h e
is no a n
T
where you c

56
 57
ot hold me; your gates wont
cann s lo w
hey m
ls t e do
w al
w

ur
n

. Yo
.I

free
ve

der
wan
br

and I must
oken free from pri
son
for
to rove and
ra

mb
le round
. Il l br
r,
ere

an d
e W
m th
I a
eres not
hing good in s e se
tt l ing down, no pleasure there for me, becau
 a A g h a ,
Zevann K e e p e r
the F a t e
An old womans work is never done, is it, little crow? I strug gle and strive to keep them all safe,
and what thanks do they give me? What thanks for watching the clocks of the world and winding
them back up when they have been neglected? What thanks for my constant vigil and my careful
plans? Nothing but more work to do, and the weaklings moaning because to save the body we must

i know the pain

cut off the limb. Look at the Wurmstone I let them have! Thousands of years it waited, and when
the time was right I showed it to them to help them kill a dragon, to weaken the southerners, to
leave the Dragonfather bleeding on his island. Wasnt I clever, little one? A little bit of pain for

these defiers
all, a bit of blood lost all around, but now that clock is turned back once again.

I know the pain these Defiers will bring to the world once I let them loose. Many will die, oh so
many, even the ones I watch over here in the north. "Zevanna," they will cry, "Zevanna, you have
released death upon us! " I am not a fool. I know what this path will bring. They do not comprehend

will bring
what fate awaits them if I fail to act. If I can slow the others down even for a day, yes, even for an
hour, by letting the Wicked Harvest loose, I will smile as I open the door of their cage.

Have I not always acted in the best interests of these men and their little empire? Of course I have,

to the world
little bird. No matter if their lives are too short to see the scope of my work, their minds too tiny
to understand its complexity. I will keep doing what I must. I will let a little poison into the blood
of this land to kill the parasites deep in its belly. Not much, you see. Just a little, just enough,
so one day those who are left behind can survive. Perhaps their childrens children will look back
and comprehend.
once i let them
The machine is nearly complete, little one! Every bolt and gear is ready, and the gate he bears will
soon be thrown open. Tall and proud he will be, and atop him I will walk with the Defiers for now.

loose.
I will point their grymkin where I must. Youll see. We will use them to keep the others back, to
weaken them before they can slip into the world. I doubt we can stop them altogether, because men
are stupid, greedy, simple things who cannot be trusted not to bargain away their souls at the
first chance...

... Oh, no, not you, little crow. Theres still time for you to impress me. Just dont take too long.
You arent my only option. An old one like me must stack the deck of fate in her favor and must
never put all her faith in only one path.
58
 NIGHTMARES
The original nightmare beasts
were given flesh the very moment the
first Defier dreamed in Urcaen.

62
 Whence comes th
e
Flesh of a nightm
are?

It makes its ow
n.

E
merged from hell to stride alongside the Defiers is an army born of their darkest tormented dreams.
Given bodies of flesh and blood, these nightmares are bonded to the ones they once preyed upon.
The horrifying capabilities of these beasts were honed by millennia of hunting their creators across
the wastes of Urcaen before being bound to the Defiers will. Despite the fact that they now obey the Defiers,
the physical bodies and essence of these supernatural creatures are a reflection of the deepest, most secret
fears of their five progenitors.

The generative power of living souls in the spirit
realm caused the Defiers dreamstuff to solidify
into bones and flesh, chains and teeth. Perhaps
the nightmares gave the formless and hungry
spirits of the void shapes they could adopt. Perhaps
they needed no such aid to take living forms. Not
even the Defiers could ever know for sure. All they
understood was that each night of sleep brought
with it a fresh host of horrors.
The Defiers mortal minds and therefore their
dreams were strongly affected by the chaotic and
malevolent landscape of Urcaens wilds, which
in turn are said to be a manifestation of the
Wurms own dark dreams. Slumber brought only
nightmares born from the unyielding fear they
experienced, and those nightmares were enhanced
by the underlying malice and cruelty that permeated
the Devourers hunting grounds.
Twisted and mercurial in their earliest
incarnation, these nightmares had protean forms.
They were shifting entities of shadow and noise that
bristled with cruel weapons. Over time, however,
they began to wear the skins of the Defiers worst
fears. Each new night of fevered dreaming imbued
them with greater power and form.
The Wanderers nightmares were filled with
restraints and cages, so his dreams would bind and
cage him. The King of Nothing had nightmares of
being trapped among babbling, mindless crowds, so
his dreams were garbed with murmuring faces and
pulled him in close. The Child dreamed of hungry
shadows that chased her through the wilds and
ugly things that mocked her fears. The Heretic saw
the masked face of the Creator glaring at him and
remembered when he had felt compelled to rend his
own skin in supplication. His proud hate was made
manifest in a threshing beast of metal and flesh.

64
 In the beginning, each Defier could recognize Though the Defiers were exceptionally powerful
the beasts created by his or her own dreams. They individuals, they struggled to fight the hellish
bore clear marks to tell of their origin. As the creatures that endlessly tormented them. The battle
nightmares hunted their creators and tortured was futile. The nightmares were too strong, and
them over uncountable centuries, though, these the five too fragile. And even if they did manage to
tormentors became the nightmares of the other destroy one of the beasts, the next night the Defiers
Defiers as well. This mingling of each Defiers own themselves would give birth to a dozen more, worse
unique essence further strengthened and defined than those that came before.
the nightmares. In time, the influence of a given
Defier became less distinct. The beasts became an
amalgamation of all the Defiers fears, empowered
by the collective terror that inspired them.
It was then that the Defiers realized the full horror
of Menoths punishment. Though they could not die They could
in Urcaen, they remained mortal and thus remained not escape...
bound by mortal needs. No ephemeral food or drink
in the spirit realm could give them sustenance, leaving
them perpetually thirsty and starved. Their need
for sleep ensured that hungry nightmares forever
stalked the Defiers through Urcaen, chasing them
from one haven to another. When one of the horrors
they spawned caught one of the five, it tore viciously This was Menoths ultimate punishment, a fate
at flesh and soul, leaving deep scars that burned worse than death, meant to be inflicted throughout
and ached for ages, even though their bodies healed all eternity upon the arrogant humans who had
with inhuman speed. No matter the severity of their spurned him. For all his power, however, Menoth
wounds or the intensity of their anguish, the Defiers fell prey to the same flaw that had given rise to the
were denied the mercy of deaths release. Defiers in the first place: a belief in his infallible
might and an underestimation of the power within
The Defiers considered splitting up and going
their once-mortal souls. For while the Defiers were
to the far corners of Urcaen, hoping that the beasts
prisoners, he failed to realize how they would bend
might leave one or more of them alone in favor of
their minds to the task of escaping from his prison
the others. But when they tried, they were harried
how even this torment would itself, in the fullness of
and corralled back together, for the nightmares
time, strengthen them.
were stronger when they could draw on the sleeping
dread of the whole group and thus desired the
Defiers to remain united.

65
 Each of the Defiers would be needed to break
free of their torments, though they did not at first
acknowledge their mutual dependence. The Heretic
saw that of all of them, the Dreamer suffered the
least from the nightmares. As the energy of Urcaen
slowly and subtly altered the Defiers, she never
woke and instead descended into a kind of constant
sleepwalking reverie. Rather than the horrendous
nightmares the rest of them birthed, she instead
created weaker and less haunting dreams of
baffling shape, small and fragile nightmares that
the horrifying things the others dreamed of would
feast upon as eagerly as the Defiers own flesh.
The Heretic cast the Dreamer out. He believed
the constant stream of half-formed notions,
daydreams, and tepid nightmares that formed
around her would draw the attention of the larger,
hungrier beasts. These lesser dream-creatures
would provide the greater nightmares with
nourishment as they clawed at the Dreamers flesh,
burned her with acid, fed their monstrous hatred by
tormenting her floating, inert form.
His plan may have helped abate his own
suffering, even if it could not extinguish it. But
he was not the only one working in secret. As the
nightmares closed in on the Dreamer, they failed
to notice the small form of the Child creeping up
on them in the dark. The Child had grown tired
of fear and weary of pain. Over centuries, she
had whispered in the Dreamers slumbering ear,
describing a companion who would keep her safe
in this awful, unforgiving world, a protector who
would do her bidding. Brazenly, she strode up to the
nightmares as they descended on the Dreamer and
taunted them to draw their attention.
Sensing fresh prey, the nightmares turned on
the Child and attacked her. Wracked with pain
under their slashing claws, she howled defiantly for
her new friend, calling out for it by name: DOLLY!
The Childs cries caused the Dreamer to conjure
up the Childs desired companiona powerful and
terrible beast that utterly loved the Child as much as
the Child loved it. Fueled by a rage that echoed the
Childs own, the monstrous Dolly waded in among
the hungry nightmares and laid waste to them,
breaking their bones and rending their flesh with its
massive talons.
As Dolly crushed and lashed at the host of
nightmares to protect its beloved Child, the other
Defiers saw opportunity. The Wanderer snatched
the King of Nothing and took an impossible step,
dropping them both amid the awful melee. The
aura of withering misery surrounding the King of
Nothing weakened the nightmares, letting Dolly rip
them apart with greater ease.
The Defiers watched with joy as the nightmares
fell. Even the Dreamers lips twitched in a lazy
smile when the last of their collective torturers lay
vanquished on the ground. One by one, the Defiers
confronted their nightmares when they were
most vulnerable and, seeing them in broken heaps,
robbed the nightmares of their power. And one
by one, the Defiers leashed them through force of
will. Though they remained manifestations of the
Defiers deepest fears, they had been changed. They
had become instruments to unleash those fears
upon a world that had bent its knee to Menoth.
67
 Once the Defiers learned to control their
nightmares, they had a weapon to fight back
against the wilds of Urcaen, to carve out a realm of
their own within the land of death. The nightmares
acted as the guardians of the Defiers home,
beating back the wild and shapeless predators of
the spirit world.
Though the nightmares heed the command of
the Defiers, they still assume the shapes of their
inception. Each bears a reminder of their creators
original nightmares, of the dreams that gave them
life. To look on the form of these beings is to gain
insight into the secret fears of the Defiers.
Each nightmare is a reminder of the torments
the Defiers suffered in hell; each stokes the flames of
their rage at Menoth, who put them there. They feel
no kindness for Morrow or his worshipers either, as
they enjoyed a safe and peaceful domain in Urcaen
while the Defiers suffered endless torment. When
the enslaved nightmares wade into the fray at their
masters behest, the Defiers can drink deeply of the
emotions of carnage and fear that they produce. This
draught is one of the few repasts that is refreshing to
them, and it allows them to continue working their
madness on the world.
68
Even so, the nightmares sometimes revert to
their old behaviorit is, after all, indelibly writ on
their blood and bones. When one slips the leash
and returns to its old ways, it wantonly slaughters
anything around it in a mad search for one of the
five to attack, resuming its thousand-year-old hunt.
The nightmares remain one of the only things
that can cause lasting harm to a Defier. If there is
anything left that the Defiers fear, it is the moment
when a nightmare they thought they had enslaved
turns against them.
Some claim to have heard one of these
nightmares hungrily whisper the name of a Defier
not the new name of Heretic, Dreamer, or Child, but
the old one, the name a mother once murmured
while rocking her babe to sleep. For despite all the
power they command, despite their transformation
from mortal flesh into their present forms, each is at
core still human.
And each
still knows fear.
 o n e ,
, l i t t l e f
b a c k a l e o
l ie a t

s
h e a r

r
an d

mo n s t e
69
 ca g e
ra ge r
Thundering and ponderous and ten
timbers thick, this beast stuffs
its cages with the bodies of the Drunk on the fear of
the wicked,
wicked for its masters harvest. the Defiers sculpt
the world
Within this confinement their according to their
dreams.
torments mount, and the
cage rager ferments
the wine of their
sweet terror to
feed to the
Defiers.

caught
r stom ps from one priso ner to the next with no thought save a deep hunger to punish. Anyone
The cage rage grymkin
et suff ers a fate wors e than deat h as they are tormented by the leaping, gamboling, laughing
in its gibb
minds
t, their bodies are drained, muscles withering and
of the Wicked Harvest. Served up as a grymkin feas
, till only old
in their cages, stripped of life and love and hope
twisting. These prisoners are left to waste away
bones are left behind.
What are you w
orth,
70
 Two
gold
coin
sw
teeth here
once eyes

Gorehound wer
e.
and

Keep away from the shadows, child, for the gorehound

hunts far and wide at its masters bidding. As it stalks
its prey, its long tongue tastes the air for the sweet taint
of corruption. If you draw its attention, there is no hope of
escape no matter where you might hide, no matter how far or
how fast you might flee. For you see, the gorehound does not
travel on the roads of mortal men but on hidden paths wending
between worlds. There is no wall that can slow it down, no gate
that can keep it out.

If you hear a soft chiming in the night,

the gorehound
comes for you. A bell hangs from the bea
sts collar,
and it is the gentle call of this bell tha
t you will hear
when it comes for you in the dark. You
alone will hear
its ringing, and if you listen too long it
will drive you
mad even before you are taken by its
grasping hands
and slashing teeth.

71

to
me d in
ja m
a s s .
g l at
s of o f me
rd ce
sha ly pie
ick
as

the hung

Lie to th
just a d
in the m

e others
ry night
inner bell
adman s

. Every w
mares a
that call
fairy ta

tmare ord is
nd lures

Frigh s to
les.

And every little boy and girl knows to be scared of the frightmare. Though the windows and doors may be locked up
tight, the frightmare can peer through the smallest keyhole to see children hiding in their beds. At night you might hear
it scratching at the doorpost as it tries to find a way in, or it might loose a hoarse and ugly shriek in the distance that can
strip your skin and melt your bones.

a bit of
id of, child. Layer upon freakish layer, all stuffed into
The frightmare contains everything you should be afra
tmare is
and held by britt le bone s. Peel one face away and the next one bubbles up to horrify you. The frigh
flesh
writhing
toothless and ugly old man, a nest full of spiders, a
a screeching mother eager to punish her children, a
the same rotting skin.
mass of poisonous serpents-all wrapped together in
The w
72 eight
of it
 SKIN & MOANS
But also beware, my child, the wailing cries of the
most of all, stitching them into a gory drape. But its
Skin & Moans. A cloak stitched together from the flesh
victims are not given the gift of death. Their sallow
of the cursed covers its gore-slick muscles and its
visages are left to moan and groan in a thin-voiced
jealous heart. Born without a face to call its own and chorus as they fuel the creatures insatiable greed
envious of what others have, it strips bare to add ever more to its
those unfortunate enough to cross its macabre shroud.
path with wicked, curving blades.
Should you ever
Like a skilled tanner, it hear its keening
selects only the best moan upon the
cuts of flesh to midnight air,
add to its bloody flee, my child!
hide. It prizes the Flee with all your
faces of its prey strength, lest
it be your face
the Skin & Moans
wears.

ot
ta ke ro
that
a r e all
Lies e a rt .
ur h 73

in yo
ke
ike a
en t
, e
e
ve
r

wi
ry m
w

n
Crabbit
her

d i
o
n
e
m
gs
o
en t
b

p
li

i
v

r
t
i

a
o
w
l or
n
ists

all the slavering,

Beware idle fancies, child, for of
lie

e,
the shadows to tear flesh from bon
a

sharp-toothed horrors that lurk in

t
c

look upon them.

oiled
o

not all seem as such when first you

the

s can be
ve lea rn ed , ev en th e most amusing creature
s ha
rmers and field worker ing almost to
As many unfortunate fa kis h be as t bo un ding in the fields, seem
, pin
u ever see a smallish
deadly dangerous. If yo er my words.
ga me s, ho ld ba ck an d be wary, and rememb
invite you to join it in its

For if it be a crabbit, with ears

that flop and claws that click, it
will bounce and gambol and appear
quite foolish...but only a fool
would let it draw near. Its teeth
are as sharp as its appetite for soft
pink flesh, and it loves the taste of
a naughty childs bones most
in all the world.

as arm s.
bs to ser ve
broken lim
74
Two
 Rattler
And should you stay safe the live-long day, child, listen close before you sleep:
Rattle, clatter, clank.
The sound of the chains that wrap the rattler comes ringing out in the deepest darknes
s of the night.
As wrath binds up the hearts of men, so this beast of maddened hate is draped with
unbreakable links. Lured
by murder and rage, the rattler collects a bloody debt at its
masters command. Once unleashed by wicked
hands, this creature of chains and fury
demands a grisly toll. Nothing can stop
its slaughter but the death of every soul
around, for only when all lie dead does
the creature fall back to the darkness to
await its masters
next summoning.

So swear, my dear,
that from this day you
will never raise your hand
in anger nor allow rage to
rule your heart. Promise me
that you will be kind and true to
all you meet, and always hold your
temper at bay. Should you falter and
lash out with spite, you may be
doomed to hear in the gloom the
approaching rattle of chains
and the scraping screech of
metallic claws.

75
 GRYMKIN
True grymkin first emerged out of
Urcaen long, long agolost souls
reshaped by the Defiers judgment.

78
 S
ince the first true grymkin came into being
ages upon ages ago, they have dwelled in
both Caen and Urcaen. They are the source of
countless folktales, legends, and nursery rhymes
stories created by grieving families who lost loved
ones to the mischievous and dangerous grymkin.
Some of the most legendary among them are
known by many names, and figures such as the
bewildering Twilight Sisters and the enigmatic
Lord Longfellow have haunted Caen for hundreds
or even thousands of years. They travel from place
to place to sate their never-ending desire to punish
their human playthings. The longer a grymkin has
dwelled in the world of men, the more legends will
have formed around it and the more powerful and
dangerous it becomes.
all ls
are sou The first grymkin were lost souls reshaped by
We lost
the Defiers passing judgment upon them. Their
powers, appetites, and even physical bodies are a
reflection of the taint upon their spiritual being,
the stain left by corrupt civilization. When the
power of the Defiers caused the grymkin to be
remade, their wicked ways sculpted their flesh to
serve as a warning and a punishment to all who
indulged in such sins. This warning is written deep
in the body and soul of every grymkin, though few
mortals who encounter them realize it. To those
who are blind to their own corruption and sin, the
acts of the grymkin seem haphazard, random, or
simply mad. But each grymkin was molded by the
burden of iniquity on a soul, punishing a spirit
that had claimed Menoths gifts and used them for
wickedness against its own kind.

80
 Before the Old Witch loosed the Defiers from
their prison to begin the Wicked Harvest, the
grymkin on Caen were guided only by their own
instinctive desires, shaped by the supernatural
laws by which the Defiers remade their corrupted
souls. Utterly without conscience, each grymkin
acted based on its unique appetites. They reveled
in tricking and tormenting the unwary traveler
and the greedy banker, in bringing suffering to
the glutton and the drunken lout. Random as they
seemed, each grymkin collected its toll with great
care. Usually they hunted on the fringes of society,
drawn by the simple stories people told about them.
Some still walked among the cities of Menoths
creation, hiding in plain sight and picking their
quarry with great discrimination.
The grymkin choose their prey and imminent
progeny based on certain sins sprouted from
corruptions soil. The dread rotsharvesters of the
grymkin who transform their victims with a leering
pumpkin headwere born from the iniquities of
corrupt and greedy farmers of the Iron Kingdoms
who would let their neighbors starve if they could
not afford their goods. Murder crows were once
corrupt bureaucrats, thieving from their neighbors
through the larceny of graft. Hollowmen arose Dumb
Jack
Head in
from those who abandon their fellow soldiers in a sack
Must
be all
wartime, while the grotesque piggybacks were that r
um
greedy gluttons who grew fat on the backs of
others toil. The insane mad caps, drunken brewers
of the Wicked Harvest, were alcoholics whose
drunkenness and neglect caused the deaths of BON
ES
innocent victims. Pig CRACK!
on y
Look our
wha back
t yo
u 've
become
!

81
 All of the grymkin are shaped by the macabre
and ironic stories that also guide them. These
tales contain secrets reflecting the nature of the
corruption that led to the grymkins genesis. But the
stories also have within them the means of evading
the fate of becoming a grymkin. These acts almost
always require sacrifice. For instance, a farmer
in danger of becoming a dread rot can avoid his
punishment by destroying the crops that are his
livelihood, and a glutton who faces transformation
into a piggyback can escape that fate by sacrificing
his material wealth to live as an ascetic.
For some sins, particularly those which caused
harm to numerous others, the only acceptable
sacrifice is ones own life. Some grymkin, like the
murder crows, will allow their prey to end their own
lives to evade existence as a grymkin. When faced
with the horrors of that fate, however, many find
it a price easy to pay. Deep and untarnished piety
to one of the gods is the only reliable way to avoid
the grymkins reapingthough this entails what
the Defiers would scorn as enslavement to a higher
power. When face to face with the grymkin, even
the most religious man may feel his faith quail and
crumble, for every mortal has hidden shames or
forgotten darkness.
The punishments the grymkin mete out are
broad in scope. Some are content to simply harm
or disfigure sinners for their misdeedslopping
off the fingers of a pickpocket or stealing the voice
of a loudmouth. Others require a more substantial
punishment and are not content until they claim the
lives of the transgressors. The first grymkin, who
punished the worst sinners, would not be content
with something as simple as death, however, and
would always induct a sinner into their own ranks.
The Defiers had given them the power to bring their
own kind into the flock, and so the first few grymkin
in the world of men spread, passing the reward
and curse of their timeless existence to others
throughout the centuries.
Perhaps the most horrifying of all grymkin
are the imps and gremlins. Imps of all varieties
are crafted from the weak and pitiful souls
transformed in the presence of the Defiers. Their
fate is to serve in the most mindless roles, given
over to the most basic and rote behaviors, such
as the drunken bouts of the pathetic cask imps.
Gremlins arise from souls that have committed
no sins, such as those of young children lost in
accidents caused by the drunks who are in turn
condemned to become mad caps.
When the Old Witch unleashed the Wicked
Harvest upon Caen, the grymkin were drawn
inexorably to their freed masters. From the
corners of the world they came in countless
numbers to act as the reapers of the Wicked
Harvest, imposing their toll upon all of
humanitys corruption and iniquity.
83
 Dread RotsPatch"
"Out of the Pumpkin
A Midlunder folktale
ed
, very bad man. He was a lazy drunkard who squander
Little Ansel's father was a farmer, and he was a very good
hers and sisters to toil in the fields. At night, when
away all his waking hours, forcing Ansel and his brot
l's father liked to sneak into his neighbor's fields to
people are tucked safe and sound in their beds, Anse
sow weeds and smash crops.
ath a
er with a bushel of half-rotted produce hidden bene
One day, after Ansel's father had cheated the groc kin,
of fine fruit , a pump kin bega n to grow just outs ide the family's tiny cottage. It was an odd little pump
layer kin with
it looke d like it had a smal l, scru nche d-up face growing on its rind. Ansel's father looked at the pump
for
would grumble between swigs of cheap liquor.
disgust and a touch of fear. "It is an ill omen," he
leering,
the pump kin grew , its twist ed little face grew as well, spreading out until Ansel thought it looked like a
As were new.
g skull- the sort older child ren carv ed in pump kins to create lanterns on nights when the three moons
smilin and
Anse l told his fath er this, the beso tted man went out into the fields with a bottle of rum in one hand
When had
ing bran d in the othe r, ravin g that he was going to burn his own crops because the blight of "dread rot"
a flam
drag their reeling father back inside.
poisoned them. Ansel and two of his brothers had to
vine kept grow ing, its roots sprea ding out wide from the cottage, reaching across all of the crops
The pump kin broad
skull-face shifted, turning from a wide smile into a
them and field s. And as the gour d grew , the expre ssion on the
be right about the curse of dread rot. Patches of
disease
rea his fath er migh t
p. L and angron the corn and the beans, on the squashes and the sunflowers, and as their crops died off one by one,
n. Anse l bega n to think
mh
y frow
arve etspread
st .
do
hape n pump kin was an omen. He thought about picking up a torch to
It Ansel grewfather had attempted-burn all the crops and hope against hope that the curse of the rot would be
the miss
r ju
more cert ain that
stly iswhat his
give lifted by next harvest time.
rd f n
or th
when
too late- for his fath er, anyw ay. On the last warm and windy night before the harvest,
eir the other farmers slept soundly to prepare for the toil ahead, Ansel's father lay awake, frightened and fretful, till he
But little Anse l was
te y
ear bled outside to smash the pumpkin to bits.
s of could take it no longer. He grabbed his axe and stum
atio nge figures emerged from the tangle of pumpkin vines
that
n. T But when he stepped out of the door, a group of stra
hey as a stron g plow hand, and they all carried a reaper's tool-
ved the hous e. All were tall and as musc led
had surrounded
long pitch forks with shar pene d tines , scyt hes with well-honed edges. In one hand they held
er th sickle s with deep -bell ied blade s,
animal were trapped inside. And each had a
and
if a dying
an bulging burlap sack s that shud dered and dripp ed with red, as
god pumpkin in the place of a head, with a face set in a
snarl just like the skull-pumpkin by the door.
s, and clubbed him on the head, knocking him unconsci
ous.
They were grinning as they grabbed Ansel's father the big
of the door as one of the hideous assailants lifted
Ansel and his siblings watched through the cracks him and
on his father's head. Vines quickly tangled around
skull-pumpkin from the ground and smashed it down the
had been his father picked up his axe and walked with
through him, and Ansel trembled as the thing that
others into the darkness.
his father
the crops blazed, he wondered if he would ever see
Ansel decided that night to burn all the fields. As his father
grew up to be a wasteful, lazy, spiteful farmer like
again. And it soon became Ansel's fear that if he
one day.
had been, the two of them would indeed be reunited

84
Hollowmen &
Lantern man
As you walk the path of war, my son, be true and never stray.
Stand with your commander and your brethren in the fray.
Soldierings not easy; you will suffer, you will quake,
But wayward soldiers doom themselves to a harsh and dismal fate.

When a light shines on the battlefield, a kind and welcome glow,

Beware, my cherished one, that is a way you should not go.
A lantern may call out to you with warmth and seeming cheer,
But if you walk toward it you will lose your soul, I fear.

For there you will find waiting a baleful lantern man

Wholl draw you in with brightness and make you join his clan
The men who march forever, the men whove lost their lives,
Pitiable souls wholl never more see children, home, or wives.

They say hed been an officer who led his men astray,
Who turned them from the foe they faced, as he his oaths betrayed.
His company, good soldiers all, did nothing but comply,
Abandoning comrades in armsbut he led them off to die.

His lantern is enticing, its glow so clear and bright.

It shines out in the deepest dark to push away the night.
But he who hoists that lamp aloft is the dust of long-dead dreams.
The lantern man makes promises whose truths arent what they seem.
Hell lead you far from honors path and toward his fateful lie.
Hell lure you upon a frozen lake where you are sure to die.
Hell walk you through a blackened bog to be certain that you drown.
Hell shine his light into your eyes as you are sinking down.

And once you perish at his hand, a hollowman youll become,

Eternally in uniform and ready with your gun,
A soldier who forevermore will fight a senseless war,
A dusky shell of what you were, whom righteous men abhor.

And now the lantern man must claim all those

who war evade,
So if you see him,
my dear boy...

I beg you,

turn away.
mad caps
Stoke the fires and heat the pot
Bubble, bubble boiling hot
The sweet elixirs almost done
To whet the whistle and please the tongue

Ah yes, our drunken revelries

Have brought on countless miseries
But we have paid for what weve done
For now were mad caps, every one!

Add your voice and sing along

Sing the mad caps brewing song
More ale will soothe you, that we vow
Drink it all, aye, drink it now!

Never mind the things we do

Just quench your thirstits all for you
Youre not afire, now dont be daft
Take a swig and wear the cask!

Quick, go get her fore shes gone

Not that wayshes there, moron!
Plug your ears, boys, here he goes
BOOM!
And one more sot is meat for crows.

Traditional brewers song of the Olgunholt

 t c onfuse
Don ns as
a c t i o
their
i n g but
anyth what
ce f o r
justi o n e in
ave d
you h
life.
your

Cask Imps
Well! Kick me out of my own house, will
they? My own house! And for what? How
am I supposed to lift my spirits without
taking in some strong spirits, eh? Whos that
gonna hurt, I ask you? No one, thats who. Not
my fault if the only bit of joy I can find in this
world is at the bottom of a glass.
Huh. I dont remember there being a tavern here.
Was a bare alley just the other day. Sounds like
theres plenty of a good time inside, though. Better
than Im having out here. Why look at you, little
fellow! You are a wee one, arent you? And what drink
are you selling? Gods be, Im thirsty.
Ooooh, I dont feel so good. Belly feels like its on
fire. Could you maybe stand still when you talk,
pretty please? Whole rooms spinning. Am I crazy
or is this place getting bigger by the drink? All right,
one more, just to get my legs steady and my eyes
right. Say, werent you smaller before? Or maybe
I was larger? Either way, these clothes are way too
big for me now. Cant even dance in em.
Oh, youre too kind. Ha! A barkeep and a tailor in one!
I dont mean to tell you your business, my not-so-
wee friend, but how am I supposed to dance when
Im inside this barrel. Sure, my legs are still free,
I spose. No, youre right, youre right. Okay, one
more drink, just to put out this fire in my gut!
I dont feel...dont feel so...oh, its so hot in here.
So very hot. I feel likesay, this looks just like my
house. Dearest? Are you home? Ioh gods, it
burns. I feel like Im going to...
going to burst
89
 Murder
Crows
From the journals of Bolden Peterton, Professor of Mental Maladies and
Diseases, Royal Cygnaran University

While we may be wont to ascribe Speaking with several townsfolk, I

the outrageous claims of those learned this nervous wretch I bore
touched by madness to medical witness to was a stark contrast to
abnormalities, we must be careful the man Oliver Sween had been
not to judge too hastily. In a worldprior to whatever affliction had
where the avatars of gods walk befallen his feverish mind. Mr.
among men, where ghosts are Sween had been a personage of
seen reveling on city streets, and distinctive bravado, a man who
where priests perform miracles commanded respect from anyone
daily, can we really diagnose with he met. Yet in a matter of mere
any certainty which madness is weeks he had deteriorated into
born of superstition and which is a simpering wreck. According
truly born of more sinister means? to a local aldermen, Mr. Sweens
condition was no sickness but
Consider, for instance, the curious rather an ancient punishment
case of one Oliver Sween, tax for his abuse of his political
collector for the hamlet of Galhold appointment; this official further
on the northeast border of averred that a like retribution
Widowers Wood. I encountered had claimed the life of another
Mr. Sween during a clinical round in Sweens position, who was
of the area for my book, Mental found dead hanging in Galholds
Maladies and Malfeasances. When I square with a confession of
first met him, Mr. Sween seemed embezzlement pinned to his chest
overall in fine physical health for along with a statement that he was
his age. However, he had been ready to join the crows.
suffering from severe attacks of
panic and a crippling anxiousness I later learned from Mr. Sween
while outdoors. The man could the unnatural specters that
scarcely venture twenty feet afflicted his mind were no vague,
before becoming frantic and haphazard entities; indeed, the
shouting at invisible beings he visions that tormented him
was convinced were stalking him, were very specific and growing
perched on rooftops and tree more numerous by the day. He
limbs wherever he might go. described their appearance as
some grotesque cross between
man and crow. These beings
 Ever
yw
bell ord
tha is j
nigh t ust
call ad
tma st inne
mad res o the r
man and hun
s f lur gry
airy es i
tal n th
es. e
stared down from hooked beaks As the flock tore at him,
with unblinking eyes, and their I discerned through the swirling
gaunt arms terminated in confusion of ink-black wings the
wicked metal talons. At the time shapes of what appeared to be
I found his description of these men, yet I knew they were not.
shades most peculiar and, to my They had great sharp talons in
professional shame, quite absurd. place of hands, and hiding their
faces were masks with hooked
It was only days later that I beaks and empty black eyes.
discovered that what had beset These figures moved like spirits
Mr. Sween were far more than through the birds swarming
hallucinations. As dusk darkened around the town center, the
to night, I heard the unmistakable tattered cloth of their cloaks
cawing of crows outside the remaining unnaturally still
tavern where I took my supper. despite the chaotic beating of air
The sound grew progressively around them. I will never forget
louder, until the world was the sound of Oliver Sweens final
drowned out by it. I rushed to bone-rattling scream as, I can
the door to see what could be only assume, his theretofore
happening outside, but was spectral tormentors finally laid
physically arrested by the burly their claim to him.
innkeeper. Suddenly I heard Mr.
Sween crying out from beyond in Not until dawn had broken the
the town square, soon followed by next morning did anyone dare
a panicked banging at the door. step foot outside their houses
Mr. Sween screamed, begging us and walk beneath the open sky.
to let him in. Despite my protests, All that remained of Mr. Sween
the innkeeper would not budge, was a pile of bloodied rags and
and the door remained barred to the macabre orbs of his eyes,
the luckless tax collector. pecked free from their sockets
and left behind. Since that day
With no other recourse available, I have paid special heed to the
I watched from the frosted glass more fantastical claims of the
window to at least gain some unfortunates who have fallen
sense of what transpired. Before under my care, and my library
my eyes, a massive murder of remains stocked with as many
crows set upon poor Oliver books on folklore as it is with
Sween, pecking and tearing at his books of proven medical science.
flesh as he cried out in agony.
 st .
. L e t th em harve
Let them reap

N e i
Slayersg h
Clip, clop, clip, c
lop, you hear us d
Clip, clop, clip, c rawing near
lop, your eyes gro
w wide with fear
Our lances sharp,
our steeds are re
ady
Form your ranks a
nd stand you stea
dy
Clip, clop, clip, c
lop, you'll die and
we will cheer!
Neigh Slayer W
ar Chant
 Excerpt from The Peas
ant King
Piggybacks
(an Ordic folktale)
ughts dried up farmers
ers had none. When dro
Vasco knew luck when oth n. When famine and dis
ease
lds , Va sco s som eho w felt the cool touch of rai
fie numerous.
scos grew more virile and
struck others herds, Va
s lands and herds until
t up all of his neighbor
Over time, Vasco bough first his neighbors were
not
of the entire valley. At
he was the sole owner ir fortunes see me d
y to ha ve him as lan dlord, for under him the
unha pp d over their ho s.use
ulo usl y tur n an d pro sperity once again settle
to mirac e and deed the name of
d they to worry if by titl
After all, what need ha
in place of theirs?
kind Vasco was written
il even the truest
ld: easy comfort can spo
But be warned, my chi noble and pure,
did Vascos heart, once
heart to wickedness. So ttony. He began to think
hed with greed and glu
become foul and wretc n as his servants, and
bors as his workers, the
of his friends and neigh which he made his
y as litt le bet ter tha n the simple livestock on
finall were crushed
Slo wly bu t sur ely , the good people of the valley
fortunes. bright and beautiful
able appetites. The once
beneath Vascos insati pair.
ce of darkness and des
farmland became a pla
of his neighbors
mo re tha n ten yea rs of this oppression, one
After of aid. Vasco, dressed in
and hungry and in need
approached him, dirty you, hag! I have taken
all
ffed at her. Away with
flowing golden cloth, sco
I desire from your kind.
fronted him, her
the mi ser y he ha d wr ought, the woman con
Knowing t upon him.
she placed her judgmen
voice shrill and harsh as
l, but you have spiced
the blessings of our toi
You have feasted upon light gleaming in her
you r wi cke dn ess and greed. With witch
them wi th ow may you reap
ust a fin ger tow ard him and pronounced, N
eyes, she thr
what you have sown!
pen. His swine, squealing
dd enl y a gre at tum ult arose from Vascos hog
Su lked toward him as
sla ugh ter er s day , ros e up on two legs and wa
as on the fleshy bodies. His heart
ely able to support their
men, their stubby legs bar own ponderous body did
not
sco tried to flee, but his
overcome with terror, Va his fields.
golden robes snagged in
carry him far before his
y trampled him into
rts and squ aw ks the pigs began to sing as the
Amid sno rough, bestial throats:
words of men from their
the mud, screaming the
th piggy fat
Now plump and soft wi
gys back
The wicked man on pig
did sow
So shall he reap what he
wi ll ben d him low
The weight of sin
s back, and the
lar ges t of all of the bea sts clambered onto Vasco
Th e Beneath the pigs
h a strip of soiled cloth.
others bound his eyes wit proud back bent,
strong legs bowed and his
great weight the farmers d and wretched on the
Vasco became as crooke
and the once honorable s the fate of the
ome within. And such wa
outside as his soul had bec r their sins upon
e of all piggish men: to bea
Peasant King, as is the fat
their backs for all time.

93
 Twilight
In
times gone by, a band of highwaymen
set upon a young and foolish lad as
he journeyed to bow and scrape to his
fathers lord. The callow fool escaped, but not
before he caught a bullet in his soft belly.

As the young man lay whimpering over his

wound in the shade of a quaking aspen tree,
two womenone a beauty, one a crone
approached him from the wild wood. They
were the Twilight Sisters.

You were foolish to come out here alone,

said Heidrun, the young and beautiful
sister. They all warned you this would
happen, that youd stumble upon some
fearsome beast or wicked men and just like
that, your blood would be spilling out all over
the cold forest floor. Even those who wished
you well knew youd soon see your end.

Save your dying words! I know your story

well enough. Ive seen it a thousand times
before. But your story need not end here,
careless traveler. My sister and I have many
gifts. We can restore you. We can heal your
wounds and reverse this felicitous fate. We
will require of you a small bargain, however,
for our magic does not come without cost.

I will allow you to sip from my goblet of wine,

and you will be restored to health. All I ask for
in return is but a pound of flesh, or a limbI
care not which. That is all. A quick chop of the
cleaver and you will be healed. A second chance
at life!

"So, do we have a deal?

crushes my b
ones. The tas
96
te of fear and
confusion
 e. The w eight o
is anymor

S isters I cannot d
o th

In
times gone by, a band of highwaymen set upon
a young and noble boy as he journeyed to the
house of his fathers lord. The youth escaped,
but not before the cruel highwaymen had shot him
in the gut.
As the young man lay dying in the shade of a
quaking aspen tree, two womenone a beauty, one
a croneapproached him from the wild wood.
They were the Twilight Sisters.
Oh, look at you, you poor unfortunate soul,
said Agrona, the old and ugly sister. How
dangerous this world is. How uncaring. Here
you lie, a noble traveler just trying to get
from one place to another, now bleeding your
last upon the cold earth.
Hush! There is no need to spend any more
of what precious life remains to you on words.
My sister and I know your story well. We can
see it in your bones and in the blood that
pours from your wound.
But your tale does not need to end here,
poor traveler. My sister and I have many gifts.
We can restore you. We can heal your wounds
and reverse this cruel fate. All we require is
a small bargain, for our magic does not come
without cost.
You may partake of my gruel, made of all that
slithers and croaks, and you will be well again. All I
ask for in return is a but a kissand that forever
after you will love only me.
Is that not a fair exchange?
eve
ry
mo sts r
me
tw ent

nt o
th

i
ec
wh

t
ob
ere n

97
liv

e
io
 pmI remmilG
.ma I ereh tub ,uoy tops ot elba eb tnow I eye eno htiw taht kniht uoY .rorrim eht ni nam elttil ,uoy gnihctaw m
?ma eye ereh ,yas I dluohs rO I
ehT .rorrim eht ni ereht eruoy elihw peels tnac I .kcab emoc ot uoy rof tiaw I elihw ekawa em peek spleH .uoy rof tsuj ekoj elttil taht etorw
.thgis ym yawa poocs dna dil eht rednu noops elttil ruoy hsup lluoy wonk I )!ti gniyas ot desu teg tsum !eye !eye !eye( seye ym esolc I tnemom I
evah uoy esuaceb seye ym deen uoy oD ?feiht eye elttil uoy ,meht tnaw uoy yhw taht sI .nwo ruoy saw ti ekil eye ym gniraew uoy was
?weiv fo tniop hserf a morf dlrow eht ta kool ot tnaW ?nwo ruoy fo enon I
I ,eno tsrif eht tog uoy woh stahT .eye ym fo renroc eht fo tuo uoy hctac ot evaH .rorrim eht ni yltcerid ezag ot ton luferac eb tsum
eht gnirb noitcelfer ruoy waS .thgit pu dekcol tsuj ydob elohw ym dna ,ecaf lufituaeb ym gnirimda saw I nehw ereht uoy waS .wonk
?I did ,retfa edis taht fo tuo erom hcum ees tndiD .erised uoy tahw pu poocs dna nwod noops
I
hctap enO ?owt em evael uoy lliw ,eye rehto eht ekat uoy fI ?ti si ,em rof hctap eye nA .nwo ruoy fo ekoj elttil atfig ruoy deciton
kool em sekam ti yas neve thgiM .ti ekil neve thgim seidal emoS .eye ym revo hctap a htiw nam emosdnah a eb llits nac I .em deniur tnsah
!eya-eyA .etarip gnirad a ekil
I
doog sa tsomla si lliuq A .neht ,resolc emoC ?esnepxe ym ta rethgual ruoy niatnoc tnaC .moor eht ni uoy raeh I .pmi elttil ,uoy raeh nac
devohs nep ym ekil uoy woh ees dna ,pmi remmilg elttil ,em no pu gnipeerc peeK .rorrim eht ni ereht uoy fo remmilg a ees nac I .efink a sa
dluohs eye rehto ruoy erehw
I
Witchwood
Gaze not upon the Witchwood, child.
Do not accept her gift.
The ripe, red fruit is but a lure
to draw you to her swift.
Look to the tree behind her,
such an old and angry thing.
Its bark is like an old mans scowl,
and it bears a hempen ring.

Within that knotted necklace, child,

a witch did dance her last.
Encircling her charming throat,
it closed her life up fast.
But not every witch thats put to death
will stay forever dead.
Her soul, if innocent, may become
tangled in rooted threads.

And she may rise again to tempt

Was
those who caused her death, anyth
accom ing y
Whispering to them stories plish ou
this r ed wo
with a soft, alluring breath.
ewar rth
Telling tales of friends betrayals,
a bitt d? It
er cro is
she beckons: come near, come near!
as te p. Bitt
So the tree can rend their bodies ars w er
the se ept u
and drink the liquor of their fear.
a . Bi pon
ashes tter a
s the
of a b
prom roken
ise sp
shatt read
ered on a 101
hea
 Trapperkin

Do n
ot t
ry t
evad o
e yo
chas ur
tisem
ent .
 Its claws can rend a moonlit stone, its teeth can slice through steel and bone
And any child whose soul it claims shall never see the sun again.
But if thine heart be free of sin, why should ye fear the trapperkin?
For only those with evils brand are taken by its grasping hand.
Morridane folk rhyme

bited
e Th or nw oo d Fo re st ha s become the quietest inha
in th
The hamlet of Czerbolge , pe rh ap s in all of Cygnar. Every child in
e of that wi ld pla ce
village in the great expans
Czerbolge is gone. This did not happen all at once, but night after night they vanished.
Each morning, more mothers and fathers would discover crude wooden figures tucked in
beds where their sons and daughters had been sung to sleep. It took but two
months to
erase a generation from that village.
The hollow-eyed villagers
blamed the disappearances on

trapperkin,

small fiends drawn

from local myth.

These imps are said to

squ open impossible do
a ors, doors
fles lid la that shou
ld not exist
hb ir w sudden , letting t
Sto e f ore h ere ly and hem app
ries scr , ac r o oms silentl ear
of t a pin c ord h . P aren y i n the sle
exp rap elp ts ar eping
lan g a i n less e childre
atio p e rki n dt g to c hild h a unte ns
ns nh an t he ren d by
for ave n ing tale hav the n
its p a ru ari t h s, t e be otion
aren naw s en eir he en s that
ts m a bef s k tra n a their
ay b yo ore in pp tch
e as r ad in o i nto e r e d aw
ham row the lea kin fe ay t
reali ed t nin r ru the eds o so
ty th o ad go ral r. u me
at C m ra c o po
zerb i t. Ye chi m mu n the
olge t th ld t nit ir
is em ere hat i es,
strick pty o is n o t her as u
en by f the o av
a horr ir la oidi wis nlik
or no ugh ng t ep ely
one w ter a he c eris
by whi ho liv nd t hilli hed
spers o es the heir ng in a
f grym re can cries ma
kin com expla ; it is nn
e in th i n a way e a town er
e nigh x c e pt
t.
(Excerpt from Czerbolge: The Town without a Child)
103
 Lord Longfellow
Lord Longfellows Masquerade from Tales of the Grym
There once was a young and handsome baron who lived
in unmatched luxury. His lands were fertile, his family
rich, and his household blessed with an abundance of
good fortune. He dwelled in a sweeping estate and loved
to host grand masquerades and galas to entertain his
highborn friends.
One year there was a great drought. The fields dried up
to dust, and the barons peasants began to starve. The
baron could easily have sold some of his finery to buy
food for his desperate people, or opened his storehouses
to give them a portion of what he kept, but he selfishly
waved off their plight.
The peasants are fat from many years of plenty, he said.
And my friends have come to expect my hospitality. So
the commoners continued to suffer.
One night, when the moons hung bright overhead like
dewdrops in a spiders web and the peasant children
cried in their beds with aching, empty stomachs, the
baron hosted yet another great masquerade, more grand
than any before, to mark the coming of his twentieth
birthday.
Lords and ladies from all around were in attendance,
but none was commented on as much as the mysterious
Lord Longfellow. Wearing a porcelain mask, a stylish hat,
and a broad coat of fine silk, he was the very picture of a
dashing rogue.
Who is this, the baron wondered. I do not remember
inviting a Lord Longfellow. So when his cheeks were
hot from too much wine, he approached the mysterious
gentleman and demanded to know his full identity.
The answer came as a dry and dusty whisper, like dead leaves
scraping on an old coffin lid: I am Longfellow, the hungry
lord of the shadows. I am the patient master of the web.
The drunken barons guts turned to water at the sound
of the voice behind the mask, but he could not show his
fear. He demanded to see Longfellows invitation.
I am invited by the weeping of the mothers and by the
cries of their children, was the rasping reply. You have
neglected your duty to those who depend most upon you.
104
You insult me in my home! the baron cried.
I make no apology for it, the visitor said calmly. You
are a venal and useless man who has squandered his gifts
and let others suffer for his vanity. Noblemen are the
worst of all, for they hold themselves above all others.
Furious, the young baron challenged Lord Longfellow
to a duel. The other guests clapped and walked to the
gardens to watch the duel, but as they walked Longfellow
pulled the baron aside and lifted his mask to reveal
himself. His eight eyes glittered in the torchlight as his
six twitching limbs played along the grips of fine pistols.
I am Lord Longfellow, and Ive come to collect my toll.
No living man has defeated me. If I gun you down, then
my business is done and all the rest can go. Deny me this,
however, and all the noble blood here will be spilled, but
I will leave you be for the rest of your days. What say you,
baron?
The baron gulped, then looked at all the plump and
powdered faces of his gathered friends. Truth be told,
he thought, their company was not that pleasurable,
their conversation tedious and dull. To give his own life
for theirs seemed not at all fair to him, and after a brief
pause he gave his answer.
Longfellow threw off his broad coat and tossed his mask
aside. His gleaming pistols filled the air with fire and
death, and in moments all the lords and ladies lay in pools
of spreading crimson. Then Lord Longfellow was gone.
When the sun rose and the peasants saw what the
baron had done in the night, they hauled him off as
a murderer. His trial was swift and his punishment
harsh. When the sun next rose, he was standing on the
gallows, ready to swing from a rope like a spider from
a silken thread. But before the trap door fell, the baron
saw in the crowd a lord wearing a silken cloak and a
mask of porcelain. The roguish figure tipped his cap as
the young baron fell...
aw
ay
 o p u p the
You p r
s o f d eceivers
dream
k y o u own
n
and thi
I t i s a lie.
them . lie.
It is a

Two gold coins where

eyes and teeth once
were. Two broken lim
bs
to serve as arms.
Lady Karianna Rose
Once, when I was young, I lived by the sea with my daughter, my sons, and my
husband. There each morning I kissed my husbands brow and the cheeks of my children,
for I loved each of them so much that my love was ink in water that bloomed over the pot
to splash on the page of each day. Their prosperity was the whole of my heart.

Had it been possible, I would have stopped the clock each second I was with them to
prolong my bliss and elude the unknowable fortunes of the future. But I was too happy
and they were too perfect, and so our blessed life caught the milky eye of cruel Fate.
Wicked and jealous Fate could not abide our happiness: with a great fire fueled by its
withered black heart, it stifled the laughter and joy of our perfect home.

The flames melted gold, shriveled roses, cracked slabs of fine marble, though I cared
not about these things. My heart shattered for my beautiful little family, trapped within
and beyond my reach, and the screams I loosed as I threw myself at the fire would not
blow it out. All I held dear turned to ash on the wind and blew out to sea. I was left with
no husband, no children, no home.

My aunts and uncles took me in, blubbering their condolences. At first they were
concerned and caring, but soon they could not hide their consternation at my grief. They
passed me from house to house, their stunted hearts unable to comprehend how perfect
my children had been or what it meant to suffer loss such as mine. I wailed and shook
and clawed at their jiggling throats to rip out the half-hearted pities, clawed at my ears to
dig out their worthless words.

In time they all tired of me and sent me from their sight, far from their hearths
where I might be forgotten. Alone I drifted, my chilled heart empty, and I felt less than
nothing as, finally, keys turned to lock me away, no longer an inconvenience to the
world. I might have died in that place, so pure and crushing was my despair.

It was then, in my cold and lonely prison, that an old woman came to my side and
offered the respite I so desperately required. In place of what I had lost, she offered a
new purpose to fill the void in the pit of me. She gave me new children to whom I could
attend. They came to me then, the little lost ones, and I claimed them as a mother, and
in exchange for their love offered my own devotion. For each child taken from me, I was
rewarded with a hundred more, and even now they gather, for I am their solace in this
world that cares for them not.

They are so beautiful, my children, their laughter so magical, their tricks so very
clever. They adore listening to my songs, and we play such games together as I never
thought I would play again. Watch them now, dear. They have such a delightful game in
store for you.

Patient Transcript 1335, Septen 7, 609 AR.

As recorded by Dr. Alcott (found dead Septen9, 609AR).

107
 Death Knell
I remember the day clearly, the drab overcast and the steady rain. A bank of thick evening fog settled
about the hills and crept into town on a slow breeze to caress the glass of shop windows and swirl over
cobblestone streets. I was standing in the tavern doorway with ale in hand when I first heard the ringing
of the death knell.

It creaked down the main road, a rotting memory of aging wood. Taxed by its towering load, a knock-
kneed nag pulled the well-laden cart down the pitted street, threatening to topple its cargo at our
doorstep. It hauled not just corpses, but coffins too, moldering and freshly pried from the earth. Feet
propped upon the footboard, the hunched driver seemed a robber baron of the dead.
A strange little man, he rode with his hat pulled low and his slender knees pulled close, and it was his
hand that held the slender pole from which hung the ornate bell. The bell tolled as the jostling cart crept
down our thoroughfare. It rang out through the fog and encroaching dark, louder and clearer than a
church bell, and I felt it in my bones. My body went cold as the cart passed me by, and the flowers upon
the sills withered and died.

Ahead of the teetering cart ambled a throng of little beasts with pointed ears and tiny claws, playing lively
music for the dead. They made faces and danced jigs and offered foul gestures to mock the crowd that had
gathered. My neighbors laughed at these little ones, and a good few followed the procession onward as it
guided them to the end of town and beyond...never to return.

For my part, a lump had grown in my throat, and I remained silent as the grave. My gran always told me
th is
o
not to laugh when the corpse cart rolls by, nor to speak, nor even to mutter or breathe, for the hunched
n n ot d
driver upon his coach keeps his eye out for those living who might soon join the dead.
Ic a
e w eig
o r e. Th b
n y m m y
a hes
r u s
it c
 GREMLIN SWARM
MINION GRYMKIN SOLO
Nothing in all the world attracts the attention of gremlins like the hiss and clank of
a warjack treading across the battlefield. Mischievous and malicious to the extreme,
GREMLIN SWARM
SPD STR MAT RAT DEF ARM CMD
6 2 2 2 13 12 1 these grymkin delight in rooting around in mechanikal constructs with the intent of
causing as much damage as possible solely for their own amusement. More than one
damage:5
jack marshal has found his or her warjack inert or walking in loose circles only to
PC FA
base:LARGE
find a swarm of gremlins had taken up residence within the machine.
3 2
The annoyance caused by gremlins is matched only by the sense of mystery
Minion This model will work for Circle, Legion,
Skorne, and Trollbloods. surrounding them. As with other grymkin, extraordinary zoologists know little
GREMLIN SWARM of their origins and can make even less of their motivations. Rather than allowing
Incorporeal
themselves to be hired for use during conflicts, gremlins are far more likely to simply
Stealth
Annoyance Living enemy models within 1 of this show up at battles that include large numbers of warjacks or other mechanized
model suffer 1 to attack rolls. weaponry. Rumor has it that during Ords Second Expansion War, a gremlin swarm
Apparition During your Control Phase, place this
model anywhere completely within 2 of its current tearing into the systems of jacks on both sides of a river skirmish brought the entire
location. battle screeching to a halt.
Man-Sized This model is treated as a small-based
model and occupies the space from the bottom of its Gremlins are elusive by nature and are capable of vanishing into thin air at a
base to a height of 1.75.
Mischief When an enemy warjack or battle engine moments notice. Even should an army discover an infestation, removing these
begins its activation B2B with this model, roll a d3. On tricksters from the machinery they inhabit can be nearly impossible. The only reliable
a roll of 1, the warjack or battle engine suffers 2SPD
that activation. On a 2, it suffers 2 to attack rolls that deterrent for gremlins to date is the presence of cats, which can see through their
activation. On a 3, it suffers 2 to damage rolls that
activation.
invisibility and have a natural inclination to hunt them. It is for this reason that many
Sabotage (HAction) Target enemy warjack or battle mechaniks often keep cats within their jack shops and foundries. As the number of
engine B2B with this model suffers d3+3 damage gremlin sightings continues to rise and the nations of the Iron Kingdoms produce
points and cannot have damage removed from it for
one round. When damaging a warjack, choose which more impressive and complex warjack technology, mechaniks serving in the field
column suffers the damage.
may well begin adopting the same habit.

110
 There is n
o fixing or
changing
this. You
already p have
urchased
this with
the coin of
your sins
. Do not
try to ev
a
chastisem de your
ent
try to es . Do not
cape your
punishme
nt .
 Games of
the Wicked
Some certain rules at least
there must be among even such
lawless creatures as these.

112
 Rules &
Scenarios
The time of the grymkin being no more than stories and superstitions has passed.
Thanks to the machinations of the Old Witch in freeing the Defiers from Urcaen,
the true and terrifying might of the grymkin is poised to sweep through the Iron
Kingdoms like a scythe through tender wheat. At the forefront of their unnatural
army, the Defiers unleash their long-smoldering rage upon a world made rotten by
the foul and corrupting gifts of Menoth.

On the following pages you will find new rules for the Defier warlocks, two new
Grymkin theme forces, and new rules for adding special terrain thematically linked
to each of the Defiers, plus several exciting narrative scenarios that allow players to
bring the cataclysmic dawning of the Wicked Harvest to their own tabletop.

The section begins with rules on how to use the unique mystical powers of the
Defiers known as Arcana. The Arcana rules are followed by two all-new Grymkin
theme forcesDark Menagerie and Bump in the Nightwhich allow you to play an
army themed around how the Defiers lead a horde of Grymkin to war, whether as a
force of destruction aimed at a single cause or as a gamboling throng of misshapen
creatures set on punishment.

Next, the State of War section provides rules for including special thematic terrain
linked to each of the five Defiers in your games so you can truly experience the
horrors of battling these malevolent demi-gods who bend reality to their whims.

Finally, five new scenarios allow players to fully experience the strange and
dangerous world of the Wicked Harvest. The first, Grymkin in the Fog, is a four-
player scenario that tempts unscrupulous commanders with the ability to exploit
a mysterious fog from which the grymkin are emergingbut beware, for when
dealing with grymkin, nothing comes without a price. Harvest the Wicked is a
non-standard scenario that puts players in control of either a small group of grymkin
or a handful of tarnished souls who find their forest camp beset in the dark of the
night. Will the grymkin reap their harvest, or can the wicked escape their fatefor
one more night, at least? Rounding out the selection is Barons Balance Due, a
linked campaign of three scenarios that showcases a typical grymkin approach to
reaping their Wicked Harvest. Beginning with the grymkins initial secret attack
on a corrupt barons manor, the campaign moves to the grymkins assault on the
manor grounds and culminates in their attempt to reap the wicked baron and all
who aid him.

Its time to muster your troops and march forth to battle, but know this: warfare
will never again be the same now that the grymkin are afoot!

114
Grymkin Rules: Arcana There are two types of Arcana cards: regular Arcana cards and Trump
cards. Each Grymkin warlock has one Trump card that can be assigned
The Defiers are beings like no others, striding the line between mortal
only to that warlock. The remaining Arcana cards can be assigned to
and divine. They can make nightmares tangible and bend reality to
any Grymkin warlock.
reflect their twisted dreams. Yet there are constraints that regulate
when the Defiers can inflict their supernatural judgments upon the Before either players deployment at the start of the game, a Grymkin
sinners they confront. A Defiers highest powers may seem capricious, player assigns each of his warlocks three Arcana cards and reveals those
but each is governed by unspoken and shifting rules which only they cards to the opponent. One of these three cards must be the warlocks
can fully understand. Trump card. The other two cards can be any non-Trump Arcana cards,
but each card can only be assigned to a single warlock in the army once.
Instead of feats, Grymkin warlocks have Arcana cards. Arcana cards
In other words, no duplicate Arcana cards are allowed within an army.
can be played at any time during a game in accordance with the rules
on the cards. Each of a warlocks Arcana cards can be played only once
per game. A warlock can play only one Arcana card per turn.

115
 Grymkin Theme Force

Dark Menagerie
Each of the Defiers has some special preference for how to unmake Menoths twisted civilization. When the
opportunity to strike arises, a Defier gathers a dark menagerie of his or her worst nightmares in a terrifying
show of force. Towering beasts of twisted flesh and bounding swarms of frightful creatures gather together
to enact the Defiers will, leaving behind only a handful of demented survivors to spread word of the host
of shadows that emerged from the night.

Army Composition
An army made using this theme force can include only the following Grymkin models:

Grymkin warlocks Glimmer Imp solos

Non-character warbeasts Gremlin Swarm solos
Dread Rot units Lady Karianna Rose
Twilight Sisters Death Knell battle engines

Special Rules
Gremlin Swarm solos in this army become FA 4.
For every full 15 points of warbeasts in this army, you can add one Crabbit lesser warbeast or
Gremlin Swarm solo to the army free of cost. Free Crabbits do not count toward the total point
value of warbeasts in the army when calculating this bonus.
Gremlin Swarm solos in this army gain Serenity. (At the beginning of your Control Phase,
before leeching, you can remove 1 fury point from a friendly Faction warbeast within 1 of a
model with Serenity.)
Each non-trooper model in this army that can gain corpse tokens begins the game with one
corpse token.
 Grymkin Theme Force

Bump In the Night

The grymkin are not an organized military force. They do not come to battle in regimented formations;
indeed, they attack with scarcely any perceivable order at all. When a mass of motley grymkin lumber to war
in the service of their masters, they advance as a haphazard but terrifying horde. Descending upon a vice-
ridden population, they indulge in their unique appetites as they demand their due of wicked humanity.

Army Composition
An army made using this theme force can include only the following Grymkin models:

Grymkin warlocks Lord Longfellow

Non-character warbeasts Trapperkin solos
Grymkin units Witchwood solos
Cask Imp solos Death Knell battle engines
Glimmer Imp solos

Special Rules
For every full 20 points of units or battle engines in this army, you can add one command
attachment or solo to the army free of cost. Free command attachments do not count toward the
total point value of units in the army when calculating this bonus.
Warrior models in this army gain Rise. (If a model with Rise is knocked down at the beginning
of your Maintenance Phase, it stands up.)
Murder Crow units in this army gain Ambush. If you choose not to deploy a unit at the start of
the game, you must still choose its prey as normal after deployment but before the first players
turn. (You can choose not to deploy a unit with Ambush at the start of the game. If it is not
deployed normally, you can put it into play at the end of any of your Control Phases after your
first turn. When you do, choose any table edge except the back of your opponents deployment
zone. Place the unit with Ambush completely within 3 of the chosen table edge.)
 State of War: Defiers
As beings of immeasurable power, the very presence of the
Defiers causes the landscape to twist and shift to conform to
their unconscious will. Once idle forests become infested with
mischievous grymkin or awaken as silent predators, reality
itself shifts and warps to create swirling portals of dreamstuff,
and mysterious fogs seep up from the soil to warp minds and
reveal the wickedness hiding within.
For those braveor foolishenough to confront such
challenges, the terrain charts in this section provide a variety
of highly thematic terrain options to use in any game of
WARMACHINE and HORDES that includes one of the Defier
warlocks. The scenarios found on pages 121127 indicate the
exact quantity of thematic terrain to use for each scenario.
When not using one of these scenarios, discuss with your
opponent how many pieces of thematic terrain you wish to add
to your table.
Each set of thematic terrain is associated with a Grymkin
warlock, specifically one of the five Defiers. For each of these
warlocks being used in the game, roll on that warlocks terrain
chart. If no Defiers are being used in the game, all players
should agree on which chart to use.
After all terrain has been set up and both players have
determined their army lists but before the starting roll to
determine the first player, players can begin replacing terrain
pieces with thematic terrain. Randomly determine one player
to begin the terrain replacement process. That player chooses
any piece of terrain on the table, excluding any piece that was
added using these charts. The other player then rolls on the
chart and replaces the terrain with the thematic terrain piece
in such a manner that the majority of the new terrain pieces
area covers the area of the replaced piece. The second opponent
chooses the next terrain piece to be replaced, and the original
player rolls on the chart. This process continues until the agreed
upon number of terrain pieces have been replaced.
118
The Child
Echoing the Childs own temperamental spirit, the world around
her becomes capricious and volatile. When she is not enjoying
herself watching malicious tricks unfold, her raging temper
causes her surroundings to burst into flames. As her anger grows,
it becomes a palpable fog that seeps into the hearts of every living
thing nearby.
d6 roll result
12 Mischievous Woods
34 Flaming Forest
56 Rage Cloud
Mischievous Woods
Mischievous grymkin lurk within a shadowy copse of trees,
ready to play cruel tricks on anyone who travels through.
Effect/Rules: Place a forest terrain feature. When a non-Grymkin
model begins its activation within a Mischievous Woods terrain
feature, roll a d3. On a roll of 1, the model suffers 2 SPD that
activation. On a 2, it suffers 2 to attack rolls that activation. On a
3, it suffers 2 to damage rolls that activation.
Flaming Forest
In the presence of the Child, a forest bursts into unnatural flame
that cannot be extinguished. These licking flames burn anything
that passes among the trees.
Effect/Rules: Place a forest terrain feature. Models entering or
ending their activations within a Flaming Forest terrain feature
suffer the Fire continuous effect .
Rage Cloud
A terrible red mist rises when the Child is at her most furious,
and all those standing within it are robbed of their senses and
driven to bloodthirsty acts of savagery.
Effect/Rules: Place a 4 AOE template. Warrior models beginning
their activations within a Rage Cloud AOE gain +2STR and SPD
for one round.
 The Dreamer
Few can comprehend the colorful and ever-shifting world that
the Dreamer conjures up around her. Moment by moment
reality shifts and heaves in time with her dreams, and the
minds of mortals who are caught up in these dreams are often
left shattered.
d6 roll result
12 Cosmic Swirl
34 Dream Portal
56 Sands of Sleep
Cosmic Swirl
The Dreamers reverie causes unfathomable swirls of stars and
colors to erupt in the air. Such twisting fancies leave even the
strong-willed agape and stumbling, for their minds cannot
comprehend what their eyes behold.
Effect/Rules: Place a 5 AOE template. While within a Cosmic
Swirl AOE, models gain Stumbling Drunk. (A model with
Stumbling Drunk cannot become knocked down. If it is hit by an
enemy attack at any time except while it is advancing, after the
attack is resolved it is pushed d3 in a direction determined by
the deviation template, then you can choose its facing.)
Dream Portal
In the world of dreams, things like where one stands can be as
uncertain as everything else. As the Dreamers thoughts shift
from one setting to another, some find themselves far from
where they once stood with no comprehension of how they
arrived there.
Effect/Rules: Place a 3 AOE template. A model beginning its
activation completely within a Dream Portal AOE can forfeit its
normal movement to be placed anywhere completely within 12
of its current location.
Sands of Sleep
The Dreamer invites all to join in her unending slumber. In her
dreams she sees a vast ocean of sand laid out beneath a field of
cold stars, with thousands of men and women slumbering on
pillows made of desert sand.
Effect/Rules: Place a rough terrain feature. When a non-Grymkin
model enters or ends its activation within a Sands of Sleep
terrain feature, roll a d6. On a roll of 4, 5, or 6, the model become
stationary for one round.
The Heretic
The world the Heretic creates is always and ever burning, for fire
consumes both his dreams and his nightmares, a legacy of the
purging flame he once employed in Menoths name. Now the
flames he brings serve his own whims, not those of his creator,
though a part of him fears them still.
d6 roll result
12 Flaming Forest
34 Pool of Fire
56 Magical Ruins
Flaming Forest
In the presence of the Heretic, a forest bursts into unnatural flame
that cannot be extinguished. The licking flames burn anything
that passes among the trees.
Effect/Rules: Place a forest terrain feature. Models entering or
ending their activations within a Flaming Forest terrain feature
suffer the Fire continuous effect .
Pool of Fire
The land opens up with deep pools of liquid fire wherever the
Heretic walks, like eyes of flame opening to gaze upon the wicked.
These blazing pits are a sure sign that the Heretic draws near.
Effect/Rules: Place a shallow water terrain feature. Models
entering or ending their activations in a Pool of Fire terrain
feature suffer the Fire continuous effect .
Magical Ruins
Magical ruins rise up from the earth in the Heretics presence.
Bearing powerful and forgotten words written upon their stones,
these ruins are distant echoes of the now-accursed city he once
ruled as priest-king.
Effect/Rules: Place a piece of rubble terrain. While a model
is within a Magical Ruins terrain feature, its weapons gain
Blessed and Damage Type: Magical .
119
 The King of Nothing
Nothing pleases the King of Nothing. At a whim, he transforms
the world into an utterly barren place, causing the trees to wither
and the soil itself to turn to ash.
d6 roll result
12 Nothing at All
34 Lonely Hut
56 Apple Trees
Nothing at All
Nothingness is perfect, especially if it stands of the place of what
was something. With but a thought, the King of Nothing can
erase landmarks from existence, leaving behind that which he
loves most: nothing at all.
Effect/Rules: Remove the chosen terrain feature and do not
replace it.
Lonely Hut
Places where the solitary king has stopped to rest are imbued
with his hatred of all others. Approaching these huts becomes
impossible as every step taken toward them becomes a step away.
Effect/Rules: Place an obstruction. At the end of each players
turn, push all models within 6 of a Lonely Hut obstruction d6
directly away from it in the order chosen by the active player.
Apple Trees
As the King of Nothing moves through Caen, nearby forests
become sway-backed and knotty reflections of his own wooden
throne. Thriving groves turn into fields of sour crabapple trees
that wait for fresh meat with hungry malevolence.
Effect/Rules: Place a forest terrain feature. At the end of each
of the second players turns (or the last players turns if more
than two players), randomly choose d3 non-Grymkin models
within the Apple Trees terrain feature. The chosen models suffer
a POW15 melee attack damage roll. These attacks originate from
the models frontarc.
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The Wanderer
The Wanderer must not and cannot sit still. His thirst to see what
lies beyond the next hill can change the world around him. Places
he has visited become more interesting but also more dangerous
as the ground and even the air itself turns treacherous.
d6 roll result
12 Rolling Fog
34 Rattling Bog
56 Crumbling Wall
Rolling Fog
Heavy fog pleases the Wanderer, making his next step a mystery.
As he walks his ever-changing path, mists arise and wander off
as if with a mind of their own.
Effect/Rules: Place a dense fog AOE template. When you would
normally roll to see if a Rolling Fog template is removed from
the table, instead move it d3 following normal deviation rules.
Direction 4 on the deviation template should be pointed toward
the first players table edge.
Rattling Bog
The Wanderer moves unhindered through the murky places of
the world, while around him rise swamps and bogs into which
the unwary quickly sink and become enmired.
Effect/Rules: Place a shallow water terrain feature. While within
a Rattling Bog terrain feature, models suffer 2 DEF. Models
beginning their activations within a Rattling Bog terrain feature
suffer 2SPD for one round.
Crumbling Wall
The Wanderer detests walls set in his path, though in the fullness
of his power there are none he cannot leap over and move
past. Echoes of the countless walls he has left behind him are
sometimes thrust upward to thwart others.
Effect/Rules: Place a wall template. At the end of each players
turn, roll a d6. On a roll of 6, remove the Crumbling Wall template
from the table.
 Four-Player Scenario

grymkin in the fog

As armies wage a bitter conflict, a strange and otherworldly fog descends Special Rules
upon the field of war. Hidden by its rolling banks, a host of grymkin
Once during each players Control Phase, he can choose one of
bides its time. The Wicked Harvest often exploits such distractions in
the following Immoral Actions to goad the Grymkin hiding in the
battle to work their own brand of mischief as they make their claims
Eerie Fog to affect gameplay on the table.
upon a corrupted world.

This scenario is designed for four players.

immoral action effect
Each player builds a 25-point army using the normal rules.
Choose d3 friendly warrior models to
desert your army. Remove the models
Terrain Setup Cowardice from play. In addition, choose up to d6
Place eight or more pieces of terrain on the table. No terrain enemy models. Each model suffers a
feature can be placed within 3 of another terrain feature, with the POW11 damage roll.
exception of trench templates, and no terrain feature should be
placed more than 6 from another terrain feature. Choose a non-incorporeal model in your
battlegroup. The chosen model becomes
Mark a 12-diameter circle at the center of the table. This is the
stationary, and all friendly models gain
Eerie Fog. All models within the Eerie Fog have concealment. Sacrificial Pawn [chosen model] for one
Players can choose to set up the table using the thematic terrain round. (When a model with Sacrificial
rules for Defiers provided in the State of War section on pages Exploitation Pawn [chosen model] is directly hit by
118120. If you do, choose a Defier and roll three times on that an enemy ranged attack, if the chosen
Defier's terrain chart to replace three pieces of terrain. model is within 3 of it you can have the
chosen model be directly hit instead.
The chosen model is automatically hit
Deployment and suffers all damage and effects.)
All models lose Ambush, Advance Deployment, and Distant
Deployment. Players roll to determine the order in which players Choose a friendly warrior model/unit.
will deploy and take turns: the highest roller is the first player, the That unit suffers 2DEF and ARM and
Greed
next highest is the second player, and so on. Reroll any ties. gains +2 to attack and damage rolls for
one round.
In turn order, each player chooses a table corner to be his
deployment zone and deploys all of his models completely within Choose a friendly model/unit. The
10 of that corner. chosen model/unit gains +2 SPD when
Lust
charging this turn but must charge the
closest enemy model in its LOS.

Choose a friendly warrior model/unit.

That model/unit suffers 2SPD and
DEF and gains Impervious Flesh for one
Over-Indulgence
round. (When a model with Impervious
Flesh suffers a damage roll, roll one
fewer die.)

Victory Conditions
At the end of each players turn, the active player scores 1 control
point if he is the only player with a model within the Eerie Fog.

A player wins when he scores 3 control points.

121
 Two-Player Scenario
Harvest the Wicked
A group of travelers is camped along the roadside, not far from one
of the forgotten towns that dot the landscapes of the Iron Kingdoms.
These wayfarers are each telling stories of their exploits and great
accomplishments, but each also hides a dark secret. They are all tarnished
souls, degenerates whose true faces are hidden behind merriment and
wealth. The Wicked Harvest must reap them, as this is their calling.
In this scenario, one player plays as the Grymkin and the other
plays as the Tarnished Souls.
The Tarnished Souls player selects up to five living small- or
medium-based non-character trooper models to represent the
travelers that the Grymkin are attempting to harvest. These models
are treated as solos instead of members of a unit. The Tarnished
Souls player then assigns a vice from the Vices section below
to each of his models; models gain the benefits listed for their
assigned vice. Each vice can be chosen only once.
The Grymkin player does not choose models before the game
begins. The models available to the Grymkin player are determined
by the vices assigned to the other players models. The Grymkin
models enter play after the game begins in accordance with the
rules below.
Terrain Setup
Place a large-based objective marker in the center of the table.
This objective represents the Fire Pit where the Tarnished Souls
are camping. Place eight or more pieces of terrain on the table. No
terrain feature can be placed within 3 of another terrain feature,
with the exception of trench templates, and no terrain feature
should be placed more than 6 from another terrain feature.
Players can choose to set up the table using the thematic terrain rules
for Defiers provided in the State of War section on pages 118120.
If you do, choose a Defier and roll three times on that Defiers terrain
chart to replace three pieces of terrain.
122
Deployment
All models lose Ambush, Advance Deployment, and Distant
Deployment. Tarnished Souls models must be deployed completely
within 3 of the Fire Pit. The Grymkin army does not deploy at the
beginning of the game; instead, they enter play according to the
special rules below.
Special Rules
Banishing Light: Grymkin models that end their activations within
6 of the Fire Pit are removed from play.
Wary Sinners: Tarnished Souls models have 30 damage boxes and
cannot run.
Hunt the Wicked: At the end of each of the Grymkin players turns,
he can put models into play. Choose a Tarnished Souls model and
determine which Grymkin models should hunt it by consulting
the following table. Then choose any terrain feature and place the
Grymkin models within or B2B with that terrain feature. Repeat
this process for each remaining Tarnished Soul. All Grymkin
models that are normally part of a unit are treated as solos.
Whenever a models rules refer to a model in this unit, replace
this requirement with another model of the same type. Only one
of each character model can be in play at a time.
VICE GRYMKIN CREATED
Cowardice 3 Hollowmen and 3 Cask Imps
Exploitation 1 Lord Longfellow and 3 Dread Rots
Greed 3 Dread Rots and 3 Murder Crows
Lust 1 Witchwood and 3 Dread Rots
Over-Indulgence 1 Piggyback and 3 Cask Imps

Vices
Choose a different vice for each of your Tarnished Souls models.
Each model gains the special rules listed for its assigned vice.
COWARDICE
A model with Cowardice can run directly toward other friendly
models, its ranged weapons gain +1ROF, and it gains the following
special rules:
Run & Gun At the end of its activation, if this model destroyed
one or more enemy models with ranged attacks that activation,
it can make a full advance.
Backstab While completely within the back arc of an enemy
model, this model gains an additional die on its attack and
damage rolls against that model.
EXPLOITATION
A model with Exploitation gains the following special rules:
Sucker! If this model is directly hit by an enemy ranged attack,
choose a friendly non-incorporeal warrior model within 3 of it
to be directly hit instead. That model is automatically hit and
suffers all damage and effects.
Righteous Vengeance If one or more friendly Faction warrior
models were destroyed or removed from play by enemy attacks
while within 5 of this model during the last round, during
your Maintenance Phase this model can advance up to 3 and
make one basic melee attack.
Veteran Leader [friendly model] While in this models
command range, friendly models gain +1 to attack rolls.
Greed
This model must always activate first during a turn. If Murder
Crows are in play, this model is their prey until it is destroyed. If
this model is destroyed, choose a new Tarnished Souls model to
be the prey. In addition, a model with Greed gains the following
special rules:
Berserk When this model destroys one or more models with
a melee attack during its Combat Action, immediately after the
attack is resolved it must make one additional melee attack
against another model in its melee range.
Overtake When this model destroys one or more enemy
models with a basic melee attack during its Combat Action,
after the attack is resolved it can immediately advance up to1.
Snacking When this model boxes a living model with a melee
attack, it can choose to remove the boxed model from play.
When it does, this model can remove d3 damage points.
Lust
A model with Lust gains the following special rules:
Relentless Charge While advancing as part of a charge, this
model gains Pathfinder .
Bloodthirst When it charges a living model, this model gains
+2 movement.
Gang Fighter When making a melee attack targeting an
enemy model in the melee range of another friendly Faction
warrior model, this model gains +2 to melee attack and melee
damage rolls.
Over-Indulgence
A model with Over-Indulgence gains Tough , its melee weapons
gain Weapon Master , and it gains the following special rules:
Stumbling Drunk This model cannot become knocked down.
If it is hit by an enemy attack at any time except while it is
advancing, after the attack is resolved this model is pushed d3
in a direction determined by the deviation template, then you
can choose its facing.
Cleave When this model destroys one or more enemy models
with a basic melee attack during its Combat Action, immediately
after the attack is resolved this model can make one additional
melee attack. This model can gain only one additional attack
from Cleave each activation.
Victory Conditions
The Grymkins goal is to reap as many Tarnished Souls for the
Defiers as possible. The Grymkin player scores one point for each
Tarnished Souls model that is destroyed or removed from play.
The Tarnished Souls are attempting to escape the Grymkin army.
Tarnished Souls models can escape off of any table edge. To do so,
a model must forfeit its Combat Action while B2B with the table
edge. The Tarnished Souls player scores one point for each model
that escapes in this manner.
The game ends when the last Tarnished Souls model escapes or is
destroyed or removed from play.
The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
123
 Scenario Campaign: .
Barons Balance Due
The Iron Kingdoms are filled with men and women ripe with sin and
treachery, and the grymkin of the Wicked Harvest are eager to glean
them for their Defier masters. An arrogant and unscrupulous baron,
whose wickedness has scarred the lives of countless innocent souls, is
marked by the Wicked Harvest for reaping. Now they creep from the
mists and shadows to fall upon the barons manor and claim him.
The following three scenarios are designed to be played as a
campaign. Each scenarios outcome affects the next, so players are
strongly encouraged to play the scenarios in order.
The following special rules apply to this campaign as a whole:
In each scenario, one player plays as the Grymkin and
the other plays as the Defender. The Defender chooses
any Faction other than Grymkin and plays that Faction
throughout the campaign.
124
Grymkin models that are in play at the end of a scenario and
have corpse tokens on them can be included in subsequent
scenarios. If they are, they can begin the game with the same
number of corpse tokens.
If a character model is destroyed or removed from play, that
model cannot be used in subsequent scenarios. If a players
warcaster or warlock is destroyed or removed from play, the
player must choose a different warcaster or warlock for the
next scenario.
The Defender cannot use theme forces in any of these
scenarios.
During these scenarios, the Grymkin player can earn and benefit
from Harvest Tokens as described in each scenarios rules.
 Campaign Scenario 1
Skirmish with the Town Guards
Slipping through the fog-shrouded streets of the slumbering city, the
grymkin move unnoticed. But a pair of watch houses lie in the path
of their advance, manned by mortals unaware of the motley throng
that comes to claim their baron. The guards within must be dealt with
swiftly or they may alert others before the grymkin are ready to begin
their harvest.
Terrain Setup
Place seven to nine pieces of terrain on the table. Two of these
terrain pieces must be obstructions representing Guard Posts. We
recommend using buildings for these terrain pieces to help create a
more immersive experience. Place the two obstructions at least 10
from any table edge, within 1824 of the Defender players table
edge, and not within 10 of each other. No terrain feature can be
placed within 3 of another terrain feature, with the exception of
trench templates, and no terrain features can be placed within the
deployment zones.
Players can choose to use the thematic terrain rules for Defiers
found in the State of War section on pages 118120. If you do, roll
two times on the appropriate terrain chart to replace two pieces of
terrain. Do not replace the Guard Posts.
Army Composition
The Grymkin player builds a 15-point Grymkin army using
normal rules.
The Defender builds a 50-point army consisting only of non-
warcaster, non-warlock models.
Deployment
The Grymkin player is the first player.
This scenario uses standard deployment zones (7 for first player,
10 for second player).
Special Rules
After deployment but before the first players first turn, the
Grymkin player places 2d3 4 dense fog terrain features completely
within 24 of his table edge to represent the swirling evening mists
in the city.
The Grymkin player controls a Guard Post if he owns one or more
models B2B with it and there are no Defender models within 5 of
it. Otherwise, the Defender controls the Guard Post.
When a Defender solo is destroyed or removed from play, the
Grymkin player immediately gains one Harvest Token. When all
models in a Defender unit are destroyed or removed from play,
the Grymkin player immediately gains d3 Harvest Tokens. These
tokens can be used for bonuses in subsequent campaign scenarios.
Victory Conditions
The Grymkin player wins if he controls both Guard Posts at the
end of the Defenders turn.
The Defender player wins if he controls both Guard Posts at the
end of his fourth turn, or if the Grymkin warlock is destroyed or
removed from play.
Additionally, a player wins if he controls the only models in play.
If neither player has won at the end of the fourth round, the game
is a tie.
125
 Campaign Scenario 2
Breaking & Entering
In twos and threes the grymkin arrive at the outer walls of the manor
grounds. Beyond the walls they hear the sound of many voicesbut
are these the voices of men and women reveling in the excesses that the
corrupt Baron grants to his lickspittles, or are they the cries of fighters
sallying forth to defend their profane master against the oncoming
grymkin horde? To find out, the reapers of the Wicked Harvest must
break down the Barons gates and gain access to the grounds beyond.
Terrain Setup
Place seven to nine pieces of terrain on the table. Four of these
terrain pieces must be obstructions or rubble terrain features. No
terrain feature can be placed within 3 of another terrain feature,
with the exception of trench templates, and no terrain features can
be placed within deployment zones.
Players can choose to use the thematic terrain rules for Defiers
found in the State of War section on pages 118120. If you do, roll
two times on the appropriate terrain chart to replace two pieces
of terrain.
Campaign Progress
This scenario uses the following special rules depending on the
results of the Skirmish with the Town Guards scenario:
Defender Victory: The guards were able to escape with a message
to the Baron! The Defender is the first player but deploys second.
The Defender gains 15 additional army points in his army for this
scenario. Additionally, Grymkin units lose Ambush.
Tie: The Defender is the first player. Additionally, the Defender can
choose one non-warcaster, non-warlock unit worth 15 points or
less to add to his army free of cost. The chosen unit is not deployed
normally. You can put it into play at the end of any of your Control
Phases after your first turn. When you do, choose any table edge
except the back of your opponents deployment zone. Place all
models in the unit in formation completely within 3 of the chosen
table edge.
Grymkin Victory: The Grymkin player is the first player but deploys
second. Up to three Grymkin models that can have corpse tokens
start the game with one additional corpse token. Grymkin light
warbeasts and lesser warbeasts gain Advance Deployment .
126
Army Composition
The Grymkin player builds a 50-point army using normal rules,
with the following addition: The Grymkin player rolls a d3 for each
Harvest Token earned in the Skirmish with the Town Guards
scenario and gains additional army points equal to the total rolled.
The Defender builds a 35-point army (or a 50-point army if the
Skirmish with the Town Guards scenario ended in a Defender
victory or a tie) using normal rules.
Deployment
This scenario uses standard deployment zones (7 for first player,
10 for second player).
Special Rules
Push through the Gates: Grymkin models that forfeit their Combat
Action while B2B with the Defenders table edge are removed
from the table. When a small-based model is removed from the
table in this way, the Grymkin player receives one Harvest Token.
A medium-based model removed in this way grants two Harvest
Tokens. A large- or huge-based model removed in this way grants
five Harvest Tokens.
Defenders on the Wall: During each of the Defenders Control
Phases, the active player can make 2d6 ranged attacks representing
fire from the garrison inside the manor. Range and LOS for these
attacks are measured from any point on the Defenders table edge.
These attacks are RNG14, POW10, and are resolved at RAT 5.
Victory Conditions
The Grymkin player wins if his warlock is removed from play
due to the Push through the Gates special rule. Additionally, if
the Grymkin player controls the only warcaster or warlock in
play, he immediately wins the game and receives ten additional
Harvest Tokens.
The Defender wins if the Grymkin warlock is destroyed or
removed from play as a result of any attack or effect other than the
Push through the Gates special rule.
 Campaign Scenario 3

The Baron Revealed!

As the grymkin throng approaches the Barons manor, the corrupt noble Army Composition
himself emerges. His soul is tarnished and black as pitch. A lifetime of
Both players build a 75-point army using normal rules.
excess and cruelty, borne on the backs of the innocents unlucky enough
to dwell in his demesne, has made him ripe for the harvest. He must
now reap that which he has sown.
Deployment
The Defender is the first player.
Terrain Setup This scenario uses standard deployment zones (7 for first player,
Place seven to nine pieces of terrain on the table. No terrain 10 for second player).
feature can be placed within 3 of another terrain feature, with
the exception of trench templates, and no terrain features can be Special Rules
placed within deployment zones. The Defender adds the Baron model (see below) to his army list
Players can choose to use the thematic terrain rules for Defiers free of cost.
found in the State of War section on pages 118120. If you do, roll
two times on the appropriate terrain chart to replace two pieces Victory Conditions
of terrain. The Grymkin player wins if the Baron is destroyed or removed
from play.
After sides are chosen but before deployment, the Grymkin player
places a trench template with one of its 5 edges 10 away from his The Defender wins if the the Baron is within the Escape Tunnel at
table edge and within 10 of a side table edge. This trench template the end of one of his turns. Additionally, the Defender wins if he
represents the Escape Tunnel. has the only warcaster or warlock remaining in play.

Campaign Progress The Baron

If the Breaking & Entering scenario ended in a Grymkin victory,
the Grymkin player must use the same warlock in this scenario.
After army lists are complete but before deployment, the Grymkin
player can choose one effect from the following list for every five
Harvest Tokens received in the Breaking & Entering scenario.
Each effect can be chosen only once, with the exception of the first.
One friendly Faction heavy warbeast gains Advance
Deployment . This effect can be chosen multiple times.
The Baron
Abuse of Power While in this models command range, friendly
Faction models gain Countercharge. (When an enemy model
advances and ends its movement within 6 of a model with
Countercharge and in its LOS, the model with Countercharge can
immediately charge it. A model can use Countercharge only once per
round and not while engaged.)
Hit tHe Deck! This model cannot be hit by AOEs. If it would be hit
by an AOE, it instead becomes knocked down. While this model is
knocked down, ranged attacks targeting it automatically miss.
sucker! If this model is directly hit by an enemy ranged attack,
choose a friendly non-incorporeal warrior model within 3 of it to
be directly hit instead. That model is automatically hit and suffers all
damage and effects.
VeterAn LeADer [frienDLy moDeLs] While in this models
command range, friendly models gain +1 to attack rolls.

One friendly Faction unit gains Ambush. (You can choose not
The Baron
to deploy a unit with Ambush at the start of the game. If it is Tarnished soul solo
2017 v1

not deployed normally, you can put it into play at the end of The baron
any of your Control Phases after your first turn. When you SPD STR MAT RAT DEF ARM CMD
5 5 6 5 13 14 5
do, choose any table edge except the back of your opponents
deployment zone. Place all models in the unit in formation hand Cannon
RNG ROF AOE POW
completely within 3 of the chosen table edge.) 12 1 12

The Grymkin players deployment zone is extended by 2. Illus. by Josh Newton Privateer Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Ceremonial sword
All faction names, logos, warjack, warcaster & warbeast are TM of Privateer Press, Inc.
RNG POW P+S
When placing the Escape Tunnel trench template, the 0.5 4 9
Grymkin player can place one of its 5 edges 7 away from
his table edge instead of 10.
All friendly Faction solos gain Advance Move. (Before the
start of the game but after both players have deployed, a
model with Advance Move can make a full advance.)

DAMAGE

PC FA
0 C
127
 The Defiers looked out at the world that
had so long been denied to
The Heretic
Warlock them and asked, The King of Nothing
Warlock

"How should we begin our reaping?"

The Child
Warlock

"Let us unleash our nightmares upon them," said the Child,

"and let them tremble when they see the iron cages that will imprison
their bones and the knives that will cut them into ribbons."

Skin & Moans

Heavy Warbeast

Cage Rager
Heavy Warbeast

128
 "Forget ye not the lesser nightmares, child," said the Heretic. "They too wish to taste the fears of
these cowards and to stuff their bellies with meat salted by greed and ambition."

So the Defiers let loose the horrors birthed from their dreams and watched them slip into the world,
their hungry teeth and searching blades eager to sink into mortal flesh.

Crabbits
Lesser Warbeasts

Rattler
Light Warbeast

GoreHound
Light Warbeast

"And I shall call the grymkin from all five corners of the world," said the Wanderer.
"They too are ready for our reaping, and harvest time is nigh."

So the Wanderer traveled to long-forgotten fields and whispered into the soil
to wake the eager dread rots who slumbered in the loam.

Dread Rots
Unit

129
 Next he found the hollowmen by the gleam of a lantern's light. In the mists of ancient
battlegrounds and at the fringes of war, they waited for their masters' summons.
Without a word, thought, or feeling, they followed the path laid out by the Wanderer.

Hollowmen
& Lantern Man
Unit & Command
Attachment

And he rang an iron dinner bell that pealed across the land. To its summons came
great hordes of squealing piggybacks eager for the fight.

Piggybacks
Unit

130
 Cask Imps
Glimmer Imp Lord Longfellow Solos
Solo Solo

Last he called up all the things that lingered in the world, the simple imps and
lurking monsters that hid among the shadows and in the trees.
"Come," he cried, "the time is now to join us once again!"

And with them he wandered back to stand among the rest

a growing mob of strangest sort, of unlikely and impossible things.

Witchwood
Solo

Death Knell
Battle Engine

A wicked crew for a wicked job,

which reaping now shall bring!

131

As a hobby miniatures game deeply rooted in lore and
character, HORDES offers hundreds of distinctive and highly
detailed models designed for maximum modeling and painting
enjoyment. Each model is a canvas on which to unleash your
own creativity and imagination. You can try your hand at
emulating the P3 Studio scheme, or dive deeper into the Iron
Kingdoms setting with an alternate paint scheme drawn from
the lore and background of your Faction. Or, throw convention
to the wind and create your own completely original scheme.
Whatever your choice, few things are as rewarding as bringing
your army to life with your brush and some paints.
When painting an army, as in life, the fun truly lies in the
journey. And like every journey, the road to a fully painted
force begins with a crucial first stepin this case, deciding how
you want your army to look!
The following pages contain color guides and quick tips to
inspire you in your Grymkin painting adventure. We begin
with models painted using our Wicked Harvest studio scheme,
which is also featured in the model gallery on pages128-131.
This scheme is a great foundation to draw from with its
desaturated natural tones offset by vibrant colors to evoke
harvest-like reds and oranges.
Next, we present two alternative approaches to painting your
Grymkin models. The Wicked Harvest comprises a motley
assortment of tricksters, folklore horrors, and living nightmares.
Painting
your army
While all are part of the Wicked Harvest, they follow the
commands of one of the five Defiersor of the Old Witch of
Khador herself, Zevanna Agha. Thus, each host of grymkin can
have an individual look drawn from the whims and fantasies
of the Defier who leads them. Possibilities include the ghostly
glowing greens of the Dreamers Nightmare, with grymkin who
serve the Dreamer during one of her restless dreams of Urcaen;
the Heretics Host, which blazes with a blinding radiance to
reflect his glory; and the cold, drab, ashen colors of the King
of Nothings Bitter Pack. By combining ideas from the setting,
the studio scheme, and the real world, you can create a unique
look for your army that still feels right at home in the Iron
Kingdoms.
Finally, for those who really want to flex their creative
muscles, we present a radically different paint scheme drawn
straight from the imagination of one decidedly imaginative
painter, followed by some great examples of wild invention to
inspire your own unique creations. Choosing a more original
or whimsical approach aligns well with the Wicked Harvests
aesthetic and can result in a truly eye-catching army, although
such schemes rely on careful planning and a willingness to
experiment to create a balanced yet visually striking effect.
Regardless of which direction you decide to take in painting
your own Grymkin force, we hope this guide provides a helpful
spark of inspiration as you sit down with brush in hand to
create an army as individual as you are!
133
 Studio
Paint Scheme
Skin & Moans

Eyes Dark Skins

base: Carnal Pink base: Idrian Flesh
shade: Piggy Purple Ink shade: Umbral Umber
highlight: Murderous Magenta highlight: Khardic Flesh

Teeth & Knives

base: Jack Bone
Blood shade: Bastion Grey
base: Umbral Umber highlight: Menoth
highlight: Skorne Red White Highlight
Wraps
base: Midlund Flesh Flesh
shade: Kossite Flesh Wash
base: Skorne Red
highlight: Ryn Flesh
shade: Umbral Umber
highlight: Menoth
Stitches White Highlight
base: Thamar Black
shade: Greatcoat Grey
highlight: Trollblood Highlight

Painter's Inspiration
Painting a Grymkin force is a challenging but rewarding experience.
With a diverse selection of models ranging from the macabre to the
whimsical, finding a singular element to tie your force together can
pose some tough questions. For the studio scheme, we chose to focus
on the eerie purple glow that distinguishes the unusual magic source of
the Grymkin, along with a desaturated color palette to contrast with
the other Factions of HORDES. In addition, a touch of bright color on
models creates a contrast across the Faction, such as the forbidden
bright-red apples of the Witchwood and the blazing orange tongue of
the Gorehound. When all of these elements are in place, you will have a
visually interesting and cohesive army for the tabletop.
For more examples of Grymkin models with studio paint schemes, see
the gallery on pages 128-131 or go to privateerpress.com.

134
 Studio
Paint Scheme Pumpkin
Vines DreaD Rot
base: Bogrin Brown
base: Bog Moss shade: Umbral Umber
shade: Battledress Green
highlight: Meaty Ochre
highlight: Ordic Olive

Eyes & Mouth

base: Carnal Pink
Sack
shade: Piggy Purple Ink
base: Jack Bone highlight: Murderous Magenta
shade: Bastion Grey
highlight: Menoth White Base
Metal
base: Pig Iron
Leather shade: Armor Wash
highlight: Cold Steel
base: Bootstrap Leather
shade: Brown Ink
highlight: Beast Hide
Overalls
base: Gravedigger Denim
Cloth shade: Exile Blue
base: Jack Bone highlight: Underbelly Blue
shade: Bastion Grey
highlight: Menoth White Highlight

ips
Painting Tthe Grymkin with a few
glow of Menoth
te the purple e area with
You can crea ec o at ing th own
Start by bas of thinned-d h
simple steps. p ly a w ash it
ht. Next, ap the center of the glow w
White Highlig ight Ink,
u rderous M agenta. Highl area w ith Piggy Purple
M th e
Finally, glaze deepest rece
sses.
Carnal Pink. trat e in th e
concen
allowing it to

135
 "The Dreamer's Nightmare"
Paint Scheme
Skin & Moans
Skin
Eyes base: Ryn Flesh
shade: Battlefield Brown
base: Menoth White Highlight
shade: Bastion Grey
highlight: Morrow White

Blood or Rust
base: Umbral Umber
highlight: Skorne Red
Knives
base: Jack Bone
Dark Skin
shade: Greatcoat Grey
base: Idrian Flesh highlight: Menoth White
shade: Battlefield Brown Highlight
highlight: Khardic Flesh

Sickly Flesh
Stitches base: Meredius Blue
shade: Turquoise Ink
base: Thamar Black
highlight: Morrow White
shade: Bastion Grey
highlight: Jack Bone

Painter's Inspiration
No Defier has such uninhibited influence over the physical world as the
Dreamer. In her surreal trance, reality warps moment to moment as
she passes through vertiginous stages of shifting lucidity. Perhaps most
terrifying is when the Dreamer moves from the gentler phantasms of her
dreams to the trembling darkness of her nightmares. Her whole host of
grymkin is remade into even more ghastly and terrifying forms, glowing
with the spectral greens and whites of the landscape she inhabited
during her half-remembered imprisonment in Urcaen. Light flesh tones
and desaturated colors contrast sharply with the hellish green of the
dream creatures made real, giving the army the feel of having wrapped
themselves in the skins of those who oppose their masters vengeance. The
blood-spattered bone weapons further help to create a force terrifying
to behold on the battlefield.

136
 "The Dreamer's Nightmare"
Paint Scheme
DreaD Rot Pumpkin
Vines
base: Meredius Blue
base: Iosan Green
shade: Turquoise Ink
shade: Green Ink
highlight: Morrow White
highlight: Necrotite Green

Eyes & Mouth

Sack base: Menoth White Highlight
shade: Bastion Grey
base: Hammerfall Khaki highlight: Morrow White
shade: Gun Corps Brown
highlight: Jack Bone
Metal
base: Pig Iron
shade: Greatcoat Grey
Leather highlight: Cold Steel
base: Bootstrap Leather
shade: Battlefield Brown Overalls
highlight: Gun Corps Brown
base: Cygnar Blue Base
shade: Exile Blue
highlight: Trollblood Highlight
Pants
base: Cryx Bane Highlight Cloth
shade: Bastion Grey base: Jack Bone
shade: Battlefield Brown shade: Greatcoat Grey
highlight: Menoth White
Highlight

Tips
Paintingels, choose a red or pu. rApdled
our mod ated skin
in t v eins on y y onto the baseco nsity.
To p a
a p p ly it lightl n e d o w n the inte in
color and olor to to lighter sk
h o f the skin c r the veins with a skin.
a to u c
e n g la z e ove g u n d e r neath the
You can
th n of bein
to g iv e the illusio
color

137
 "The Ember Host"
Paint Scheme
Skin & Moans

Dark Skins
base: Idrian Flesh
shade: Caspian Flesh Wash
highlight: Kossite Flesh Wash

Ghostly Flame Teeth

base: Jack Bone
base: Menoth White Highlight
shade: Bastion Grey
highlight: Wurm Green
highlight: Menoth
highlight: Yellow Ink
White Highlight

Wraps Knives
base: Midlund Flesh base: Pig Iron
shade: Caspian Flesh Wash shade: Deathless Metal
highlight: Kossite Flesh Wash highlight: Cold Steel

Stitches Flesh
base: Skorne Red
base: Thamar Black
shade: Umbral Umber
shade: Hammerfall Khaki
highlight: Carnal Pink
highlight: Jack Bone

Painter's Inspiration -By Dallas Kemp

When painting my Grymkin force, I knew I wanted to add a bit of
something to the sculpts. I settled on fire, as it would be an opportunity
for me to learn how to sculpt fire while adding a unique twist to my
armys look. I imagine my force being the harbinger of a dark time
on Caen when Menoths gift of Fire is extinguished, stolen and twisted
by the Grymkin, leaving humanity to freeze. For inspiration, I turned
to an old Privateer Press Insider (February 7, 2011) in which sculptor
Brian Dugas discusses sculpting fire. After several failed attempts, I finally
achieved an acceptable level of fire for my models.
Moving on to painting, I used zenithal priming and copious glazing and
washes. This sped up my base layers and created a dark, atmospheric
appearance. I then went over the models with detail work to make them
pop. For the green flame, I basecoated with Menoth White Highlight
(thanks, Menoth!), then sketched with Wurm Green and Necrotite Green.
Next, I used Yellow Ink to tone down the white and tie the greens
together. Finally, I blended some Thamar Black over the tips. My Ember
Host is now fully prepared to burn up the battlefield!
138
 "The Ember Host"
Paint Scheme
DreaD Rot
Ghostly Flame Pumpkin
base: Menoth White Highlight base: Menoth White Highlight
highlight: Wurm Green shade: Yellow Ink
highlight: Yellow Ink
shade: Kossite Flesh Wash

Sack Metal
base: Jack Bone base: Pig Iron
shade: Kossite Flesh Wash shade: Deathless Metal
highlight: Hammerfall Khaki highlight: Cold Steel

Wraps
Cloth base: Jack Bone
shade: Kossite Flesh Wash
base: Exile Blue highlight: Hammerfall Khaki
shade: Coal Black
highlight: Cygnar
Blue Base

ips
Painting Tood, like that found on
dead w wns.
pearance of to your bro t
Create the ap tree, by adding greys gr ea
od rey makes a
the Witchwo n mixed with Bastion G fall K ha ki
Battlefield Br
ow
textu re w ith Hammer G reen
Highlight the se a wash of Battledress
base layer. ion Grey. U togeth er and
Bast e colors
mixed with to tie th
ood Green
and Thornw ead tree look.
td
create a grea
139
 Gorehound
by Dallas Kemp

The Heretic
Gorehound by Dallas Kemp
by Laine Garrett

Cage Rager
by Gabe Waluconis

Cage Rager
by Will Shick

Witchwood
by Richard Anderson

Rattler Piggyback
by Will Shick by Geoff Konkel

Witchwood
by Jason Soles

Witchwood
Piggyback by Dallas Kemp
by Stuart Spengler

140
 Lantern Man
& Hollowman
by Michael Archer Hollowman Dread Rot
by James Arbuthnot by Wendy Vermeers

Cage Rager
by Justin Cottom

Cage Rager
by Dallas Kemp

Rattler
by Stuart Spengler Rattler
by Dallas Kemp

Skin & Moans

by Will Shick

Lord Longfellow Lord Longfellow

by Dan Roman by Matt Razincka

Skin & Moans Skin & Moans

by Michael Archer by Michael Mulligan

141
 l ie.
i s a
It
Veil of Mists
(The Wanderer)

es
lat
Temp

Artifice of Deviation
(The Dreamer)

You may photocopy these templates for

142 your personal and non-commercial use.
 Wall of Fire
(The Heretic)

Black Wings
(Zevanna Agha, the Fate Keeper)

ee l
wh it
e at orb
gr its r
a
a s al o
a ve
i r i sts
t sh sp tw ies.
m en i ng ent on l Burning Ash
o nd om livi
(The King of Nothing)

o n m w i
i s r y a r y m
e ob
e Eve ike ve r
T h orld me. L e,
e
w h e
w t i e r. a k r
of n e
inn d s cent
th ile e
You may photocopy these templates for

co o th your personal and non-commercial use. 143