Age of Sigmar: Parallels of Villainy – PRIME
Even the worst bad guys don’t exist in a vacuum. Let’s take a close look at some Age of Sigmar Villians.
Age of Sigmar does many things well in the lore department, but sitting near the top is definitely the ever-present threat of the primary villains. No matter how many times the good guys rise to defeat them, they simply slink back into their shadowy lairs to lick their wounds and try again. However, each of these villains falls into a generic archetype that antagonists from several other properties match into, some a little more broad and others almost direct parallels. While I won’t be covering every villain in the article, as that would require a novel, I’ll point out some of the big players in the recent Broken Realms saga that catapulted AoS into 3.0. So, without further adieu, here are some of the big bads of the Mortal Realms, the archetypes they fit, and a few other properties that match the same or similar themes.
Lady Olynder
The Mortarch of Grief and leader of the Nighthaunt, Lady Olynder is a ghost queen cursed to feel never-ending despair and spread it to all those around her. She led the charge that resulted in the release of Katakros and had a brief alliance with the daemon Belakor when he enacted his spell to lock the Stormcast souls out of Azyr. She is a dangerous, powerful, and arguably tragic figure, representing great power at a terrible cost. This coincides almost directly with the poltergeist or vengeful spirit motif common in horror films, but especially in the cases of spurned or grieving women like Jennet Humfrye from The Woman in Black or Edith Brennan in Mama. The veiled face horrid scream also fit the motif of the banshee myth, and her mourning veil is very similar to the one worn by Humfrye whenever she appears to her victims or interlopers into her home.
Nagash
We’ve talked about the big bad necromancer before, but as the primary antagonist of MOST of the Mortal Realms arcs, he bears revisiting. Nagash is one of the oldest entities in the Mortal Realms, probably only younger than Malerion and Morathi, and has been a problem the entire time. He is a powerful dark sorcerer, master of Shyishian death magic, and lord of the faction of Death, occasionally allying with the forces of Order when it suits his needs but always acting in his own self-interest. He fits the archetype of the mighty spellcaster, a powerful magic user twisted to either dark or forbidden magics to extend his own life and power, either from fear, hubris, or both. Several D&D villains fall into that archetype, like lichs on the small scale, but his primary comparisons in that world would be either Vecna, the lich god of undeath, or Azalin Rex, Darklord of the domain of Darkon and primary rival of Strahd von Zarovich. In the world of literature, Nagash finds a parallel in the incorporeal form Sauron takes when he begins acting in Middle Earth again and waking up the Nazgul, referred to only as the Necromancer. Evil wizards are a popular villain for fantasy stories, so you can barely throw a fingerbone in a fantasy world without hitting a Nagash mirror or two.
Archaon
Herald of the End Times, Master of the Chaos Faction, and absolute Chad of Age of Sigmar, Archaon has been successfully wrecking shop for ages. He is a powerful combatant with a magic flaming sword, and he screams “final video game boss” every time he walks onto the battlefield. As such, his parallels are limitless, but a few that come to mind are the fully corporeal armored form of Sauron during the Battle of the Last Alliance, Arthas the Lich King, and the iconic Lord Soth from the Dragonlance series. Though Soth and Arthas are technically undead warriors, their supernatural powers bear several similarities to the buffs Archaon received as the Everchosen of Chaos. Because of his massive flaming sword, his tendency to split the ground where he walks, and his goal of plunging the Mortal Realms into Chaos, he also bears some similarities to the Fire Giant Surt/Surtr from Scandinavian myth and, by extension, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Be’lakor
The first Daemon Prince, Lord of Shadows, and likely the originally Everchosen until that usurper Archaon showed up and stole his thunder, Be’lakor is an extremely powerful daemon lord. He was able to cut off the mighty Stormcast from their home of Azyr, making them susceptible to attrition and pushing them almost to the brink of defeat, even wiping out an entire Stormhost. In fact, without the intervention of Grombrin- I mean Grungn- I mean Gromthi the Kharadron, it is likely that Be’lakor would have swept all the forces of Order from Chamon and retaken it for Chaos. As with Archaon, everything about Be’Lakor reeks of final boss, though he is more along the lines of Asmodeus or Orcus than just a strong warrior. However, powerful as he is, Be’lakor’s primary threat comes from his ability to influence and manipulate events and let others do the dirty work for him, even against their own team. As such, he bears some resemblance to Loki, though more the mythological one than the MCU version. Since that Loki also has a hand in Ragnarok, and Be’lakor is one of the primary Chaos generals trying to bring about the end of the world, it tracks.
Kragnos
Kragnos is the newest kid on the villain block, but he definitely came in swinging. He is an ancient force of destruction that wiped out several species, including the Draconiths, before being locked below a mountain. Unleashed by the events of Broken Realms, he has rallied the forces of Destruction and is spreading mayhem and havoc across the Realms. Really the only comparison we can make here is a cataclysmic force more than a character, like the Tarrasque or Godzilla. Since it seems like it will take another kaiju-style force to beat him, Godzilla is probably the most apt.
~Tune in next week when we talk about the good guys!
