HORDES is set in the wilds of the Iron Kingdoms, an environment that combines the best of traditional fantasy with steam power and gunpowder. Across the realm, ancient rivalries among nations are exploding into all-out conflict, and the feral factions of HORDES have joined the fight, whether to preserve their ancient homelands or with an eye toward conquest.
In HORDES, players control enigmatic warlocks who harness the strength and fury of the savage warbeasts that stalk the dark places of the Iron Kingdoms. Through their unique link to these untamed creatures, warlocks are able to drive their ’beasts to unparalleled heights of destruction, making them more than a match for any steam-powered warjack.
Each warbeast is a vicious monster of flesh and bone mighty enough to rend muscle and steel alike. From the unflinching and ferocious trolls to the nightmarish and unnatural dragonspawn, warbeasts are dangerous creatures in any circumstance. Under the control of their warlock masters, they become nigh unstoppable.
HORDES focuses on battles between warlocks and the deadly forces they command. A game is fought with the powerful jaws and flesh-ripping talons of warbeasts as well as devastating spells wrought by the warlocks themselves. Only one side can emerge victorious from the carrion-scattered field of war!
Factions Battling in the Wilds
Trollbloods
The Trollbloods represent a loose alliance between a variety of formerly scattered and disparate tribal communities. They were forced to band together to survive in the face of humanity’s quickly escalating wars. Trollkin tribes, called kriels, have deep roots in western Immoren, where they have built homes in several wilderness regions the human nations had deemed of little interest. Trollkin are not strangers to human cities, as a number of these robust and hardy people work and live alongside mankind, but the majority remain in the wild, wary of humanity after a long history of frequent struggles, broken promises, and mutual bloodshed.
Recent wars between the human nations of Khador and Cygnar had a particularly disruptive influence on the large number of trollkin who once lived in the dense Thornwood Forest. Because of the forest’s location these kriels found themselves directly in the middle of border fighting between the two implacable and bitter rival nations. Making things worse, Cryxian abominations soon entered the fray, absorbing the fallen dead to bolster their own numbers. The trollkin looked to one of their great leaders, the chieftain Madrak Ironhide, to unite them and save their race. Madrak reluctantly took up a cursed weapon of last resort, an ancient axe named Rathrok, or “World Ender,” in the hopes that its power would preserve his people and their way of life.
Since that decision the trollkin have been embroiled in a series of desperate struggles. Driven from the Thornwood they find no safety anywhere they travel and must continue to search for a proper home. They fight for their mates and young and to preserve their society against an endless series of horrors and setbacks. Yet every challenge only strengthens their resolve and encourages the warrior spirit that persists in the very blood and bones of this brave people. They refuse to break under the pressure and fight tooth and nail for their right to a better life. A number of great leaders and heroes have arisen from the scattered kriels as Madrak Ironhide has attracted supporters from as far away as the Scarsfell Forest of northern Khador and the Gnarls of western Cygnar.
The trollkin are not alone in their struggles. Their species has long been able to call on full-blood trolls to fight in their battles. These great creatures are seen by humanity as monsters, yet they will heed the commands of trollkin warlocks. Individuals like Madrak and his greatest ally and rival, the shaman Hoarluk Doomshaper, can connect to the minds of full-blood trolls and call them to battle. These creatures possess strength and regenerative powers passed down by the mother-goddess Dhunia and thereby can endure punishment that would annihilate any other living creature. In return for this vitality, full-blood trolls are driven by endless hunger. This need to feast makes trolls difficult to control but also fearsome adversaries. Together with their troll allies, trollkin warlocks and champions are ready to stand their ground against any army that dares threaten them.
Circle Orboros
The Circle Orboros is arguably humanity’s most ancient organization. This cabal of powerful mystics who call themselves druids predates all the civilizations presently dominating western Immoren. For thousands of years druids have gathered in secret to master control over nature and to wield that power as both a formidable weapon and a versatile tool. They are a pseudo-religious organization that draws their strength from an entity they call Orboros, a philosophical idea inextricably connected to the Devourer Wurm. Orboros manifests in the raging storm, the sizzle of lightning, the roar of thunder, the unrelenting power of flood, and the hunger that drives all predatory beasts to stalk their prey relentlessly. Druids can call on all these primal forces and bend them to their will.
Druids are not chosen or recruited but rather are born with the power to call on nature. This is called the “wilding” and manifests in young children as a type of madness. They begin to flee into the wilderness at night, howling incoherently or emulating the beasts of the wilds. Such odd children are often shunned or even cast out by their own families, but the druids have ways to find and collect them, training them to unleash and control their inner power. After years of this work these druids earn their place in this ancient hierarchy, an organization that prizes power, cunning, intelligence, and the ability to manipulate lesser creatures. Druids such as Krueger the Stormwrath, Mohsar the Desertwalker, and Morvahna the Autumnblade lead the Circle Orboros, which has stepped from the fringes to join battle against those enemies who would despoil their sacred circles or whose mere existence defiles Orboros. Civilization is their enemy, but so are the blighted dragons, the invading skorne, and even the Trollbloods who were once allied with them.
Druids are relatively few in number, but they wield a potentially boundless power. Over the centuries these mystics have gathered or manipulated others into joining their cause and fighting their battles for them. This includes a large group of loosely organized warriors and mercenaries called the Wolves of Orboros, along with the tribal and bloodthirsty Tharn, hulking cannibals who worship the Devourer Wurm and who can transform their bodies to become ultimate predators.
Many great beasts of the wilds are at the beck and call of the druids and their allies, including savage warpwolves, protective but fierce goat-like satyrs, enraged gorax, two-headed argus, and more. Some druids, like Baldur the Stonecleaver, specialize in the mastery of ancient rituals enabling them to bring stone-and-wood constructs to life. These great wolds are shaped by chisel, axe, and a druid’s power to become towering weapons of war, in many respects the equal of the warjacks created by the armies of the “civilized” nations.
Skorne
For much of Immoren’s history a trackless expanse of sand and wind and a terrifying deep chasm has divided west from east. Recently forces from either side of the divided continent have clashed with bloody consequence as a result of the Skorne Empire’s dreams of conquest. Skorne are both a nation and a people, arisen from a variety of feuding tribes that dominated the harsh and unforgiving environment of eastern Immoren. They learned to survive and even prosper despite the cruelties of their rugged lands, and their civilization has forged them into peerless warriors with a pragmatic disregard for pain and death. Warriors to the core, the skorne use dark arts called mortitheurgy to push their bodies past normal limits and to fight on past death. Even when death claims them, their souls are preserved in sacral stones to empower ancestral guardians, walking statues eager to join battle.
It was a great but tyrannical human leader, Cygnar’s deposed king Vinter Raelthorne IV, who first crossed the great divide and set the skorne on their current path. Vinter came upon the skorne by accident after surviving the crossing of the wasteland between Cygnar and the east and subsequently brought them under his dominion. He became the Conqueror of the skorne by the edge of his sword, gathering an army of warriors who admired his invincible resolve. The Skorne Empire was born when he united these feuding tribes and houses under a single banner. Vinter then enticed his new army with stories of the rich lands waiting to be taken in the west.
The Skorne are a proud people who have risen to embrace this unity for their own ends, led by great warlords such as Makeda, domina of House Balaash. Now that they know of the west, they have committed their armies of praetorians, cataphracts, venators, and paingivers to conquest. Their mastery of harsh environments has enabled them to settle regions on the eastern fringes of the Iron Kingdoms that humanity considered unfit for life. They are able to beset the western nations from these settlements and fortifications while the heart of their empire remains secure in the distant east.
Skorne armies include numerous great beasts that they have captured and enslaved. As part of the subjugation of their hostile environment, paingivers called beast handlers have brought a number of fearsome creatures into line by whip and barb. This includes a species of primitive savages called cyclopes, one-eyed brutes that tower over skorne and human alike but which can be trained to wear armor, to wield weapons, and to march alongside skorne soldiers. There are also the reptilian basilisks that can melt flesh and metal with waves of energy radiating from their eyes, or the four-armed titans, thick-skinned bipedal pachyderms that can be goaded to ferocity in battle. Each of these enslaved creatures is a reminder to their western enemies of the subjugation awaiting them should the skorne complete their plans of conquest.
Legion of Everblight
While the Legion as a whole is only a few years old, the core of this tremendously dangerous organization is the dragon Everblight, an ancient creature born from the lifestone of Lord Toruk, the Dragonfather. Everblight has long considered himself the cleverest and most inventive of the dragons spawned by Toruk thousands of years ago. He has existed aloof from his peers, hatching plans in secret and demonstrating a unique control over his own blight.
All dragons blight their surroundings, emitting a warping and destructive energy that prompts strange growths in living things and can even taint the land itself. This blight arises from the athanc, or lifestone, that is the imperishable core of every dragon. The athanc persists even if a dragon’s formidable body is destroyed, and in time a new body will grow to replace the old. Even in ancient times Everblight showed he could partially control his blight, hiding his presence from other dragons while using this power to enslave and modify other living things or to create terrifying spawn that he sent forth as living weapons.
Several centuries ago the elven armies of Ios destroyed Everblight’s body. They ripped loose his athanc, sealed it away, and sent it to an isolated mountain peak in the frozen north of Khador. For centuries Everblight was thus imprisoned and disembodied, conscious and scheming all the while. This lasted until several years ago when Everblight lured an ogrun named Thagrosh to his prison and prompted the creature to break its seals. Rather than regenerating a dragon body, Everblight merged his athanc with Thagrosh, causing the ogrun’s body to mutate and transform into a monstrous new form. Through Thagrosh, Everblight next seized control of the Nyss, the winter elves inhabiting that frozen northern region. The skilled bladesmen and archers of these Nyss tribes would soon serve as the ideal foot soldiers for Everblight’s newly arisen Legion. Horrendously blighted ogrun from the nearby mountains were soon added to the fighting force, bringing their brawn and insane ferocity to the Legion’s cause.
Everblight has committed to a fiendish plan for which he has divided his athanc numerous times and inserted these slivers into his chosen generals. These have become the warlocks who lead the Legion of Everblight in the dragon’s name. They are an army that includes an ever-growing assortment of serpentine dragonspawn, grown from the blighted blood of the warlocks. Each warlock is connected telepathically to Everblight, giving the army a terrifying singularity of purpose and unparalleled capability to coordinate its actions.
Everblight knows his existence is in peril, as the other dragons would consume him to add to their own power, and therefore he must move quickly and lash out against those who would stop him. Foremost among these enemies is the Circle Orboros, the first group that recognized the threat represented by Everblight and his blighted army. Any creatures that stand in their path will be consumed, assimilated, or crushed underfoot. Everblight’s only hope for long-term survival is to become as strong as possible as quickly as possible, and he cares little for the destruction and bloodshed unleashed by his warlocks in his pursuit of that goal.
Minions
Occasionally other creatures in the wilds of western Immoren are caught up in the bloody struggles of the region. Some are individuals seeking to profit from warfare and strife. Others are small groups of tribal creatures willing to offer their strength of arms to others, whether in return for protection or supplies or simply to preserve their home territories from enemies. Events can sweep up these minor players against their will as they are captured, enslaved, or coerced into doing the bidding of those who are more numerous or powerful.
Whatever their concerns or motivations, minions bring tremendous versatility to their sponsors. Swamp gobbers bring the inventive alchemy of their fog bellows to cloak allies in concealing mist. Rugged farrow brigands offer rifles and clubs for hire and seem willing to take the brunt of enemy assaults. Gatormen are among the most vicious and deadly warriors in the region, with a combination of physical prowess and tough, scaled hides. Bog trogs emerge from the wetlands wielding cruelly effective barbed hooks and take advantage of their natural camouflage to ambush and surprise the enemy.
In addition, certain strong-willed individuals willing to lend a helping hand to one or another of the HORDES groups often join the fray. These include the famed monster hunter Alten Ashley, an expert shot with a tremendous rifle affectionately named Bucking Jenny. Although he claims to be a mercenary at heart, Alten is most interested in hunting big game and will side with anyone who offers that opportunity. Another is the surly and antisocial dwarf Brun Cragback, a mountain fighter from Rhul whose constant companion both in and out of battle is an armored bear named Lug. Some of these individuals do not care for whom they work, like Gudrun, the fatalistic ogrun who loses himself in drunken binges when the fates conspire to keep him alive. Whatever their reasons for offering their assistance, these fighters possess unique skills that can be used by their allies to turn the tide of otherwise desperate battles.