Malign Portents: An Ill Wind Blows
If the Lord of Death makes you an offer, you better choose quick or start running…
Malign Portents has a new story up today and this one is in the form of an after-action report that has been sent to the Lord General of Hammerhal. Let me just start off by saying that I wasn’t too keen on the old Empire to being with. However, I always had a respect for the ingenuity of those Empire Engineers. And if you think they have been resting on their long guns and cannons, guess again.
via The Offer, Malign Portents:
“Our cogfort was proudest amongst all the mobile bastions of Hammerhal Aqsha. On her piston-driven legs, she carried us ever eastwards from the city walls, and the light of civilisation dawned anew in her wake.”
Wait, what? Yeah – COGFORTS, people! Regardless of what happens in this story, that alone should make you pause and say “wait, WHAT?” Apparently these are mobile bastions that have piston-driven legs. Move the heck over steam tanks, we got crawling forts now! On top of that, they have anchoring harpoons, drawbridges, and enough space of at LEAST 80 men, plus horses. All of those things are mentioned in the story. And that’s not even counting the engines that drive this thing, the crews that man them, or even counting the writer of this after-action report.
“Possible Cogfort – artist rendering…”
Okay, so now that we’ve established that Cogforts are a thing, you might want to know where this warmachine was heading. The final destination was to a Realm Gate dubbed “The Gates Below” which lead to, you guessed it, Shyish (aka the Realm of the Dead). They park about a mile away. The intent was that they would sit here as a forward base and wait for the the Duradin to show up with “stock and supplies” to make a more permanent base. But, based on the fact that we’re calling this an “after-action” report I bet you’ve figured out all doesn’t go quite as planned.
One of the servants of Nagash shows up with an offer – Join us and “endure” or don’t and die. From the safety of the walls of this Cogfort, I bet you can guess what choice they make…
Anyhow, I won’t spoil it any further, but you should check it out here. And if you want to get caught up, we’ve collated all the other stories and videos to check out for yourself as well.
Massive Cogforts, cursed winds, ominous signs…I can’t wait to see what’s next for the Mortal Realms in Malign Portents!