The Last Flight of the World Dragon
The Warhammer World has stood on the brink of destruction on countless occasions, each time a hero has stood against the tide of darkness and turned it back.
Our tale begins when the world was young and the Daemons of Chaos surged from the poles and threatened to engulf all of civilisation. During this time the forces of order created a nexus of energy to suck away the Winds of Magic and the sustaining power they offered to the Daemons of the Warp.
The mages, spell weavers and runesmiths forged eight Way stones, placing them within the area now known as the Border Princes. Each stone had the power to lock down one of the Winds of Magic, turning it from a destructive energy lashing the world to a mere wind flowing in the ether. However, the only way to bind this power was with the soul of a wise and powerful being, a true warrior and seer who stood pure of heart against the tides of corruption that threatened to consume the globe. None stood truer or purer than the legendary drake now passed into tales of lore as the World Dragon. Time and time again the World Dragon fought the most exalted Greater Daemons of the Four Great Chaos Gods and stood triumphant, breaking the back of wailing armies of monstrous evil over and over. So it was with little surprise, but with tears of sorrow, that the World Dragon stepped forth once again to turn back the armies of hate and fear, despite knowing it would never again soar through the skies nor cast it shadow upon the world it loved so greatly that it would give its very soul to protect it.
In a great act of binding the World Dragon’s Soul was locked within the Dragon’s Heart, a soul stone that glowed with the unbridled power of the mighty drake itself. So great was the mighty wyrm’s essence that its soul had to be split into a countless number of lesser soul stones, know by the Elven Loremasters as the World’s Tears. As the final rites were intoned the World Dragon sunk into an eternal slumber, its soul in its encasement at the beast’s throat glowing brightly. The mighty drake closed its eyes for one last time and began its battle against the Winds of Magic itself. With a howl of eldritch energy so powerful that the earth shook the Eight Winds of Magic were sucked back from across the globe, each controlled by one of the great Way Stones so that the power of the Winds never again threatened to wash the world away in a wave of blood and screaming Daemons. As the Winds roiled the soul stones known as the World’s Tears were caught upon the magical gales and scattered across the land.
The world once again returned to a state of peace as the aethyral power drained from the land, only the poles remained consumed overwhelmingly by the power of magic.
Millennia passed by and the tales of the World Dragon, its sacrifice and final resting place became little more than half forgotten folk stories. However, its battle at containing the Winds of Magic continued within its soul, sometimes prevailing and causing periods of great calmness anchored around the Way stones, sometimes struggling to hold back the winds as they rose in crescendo and storms of magic plagued the world. But never once did they threaten to tear the world apart as they had all those countless years ago when the wyrm made its great sacrifice.
Over the centuries the Way Stones either became enshrined as great oracles of order or were defiled by the evil races as those that protected them were wore away by the passing of the sands of time. Greenskins and the Brayherds defiled these stones and made them their own, whilst some were consumed by even more malign evils. The World’s Tears were harboured and horded by collectors of curiosities and wizards who used the latent power for their own purposes, unaware of what power they tampered with or else they were lost in the remotest and wildest regions, forgotten by all.
This gradual defilement of the Way Stones and the World’s Tears caused the Winds of Magic to surge and build up around the Way Stones and as a consequence flowed straight into the centre of this calming nexus that had formerly controlled the winds: the Dragon’s Heart itself. The raw magic and energy of the Eight Winds convulsed straight into the World Dragon’s very soul and began to warp and corrupt even this most noblest of drakes, its thoughts filling with the swirling maelstrom of Aethyric energy.
The raw magic pouring into its soul finally broke its mind and the World Dragon roared into life again bursting forth from its long forgotten resting place. Where once the wyrm was pure and strong of heart, its mind and body had been filled with the raw power of magic and the beast that took flight was now raving with lunacy and madness. As the mighty creature took flight a Storm of Magic unlike one seen since the evils of the warp threatened existence itself, burst forth and surrounded its erratic flight. The magic flowing through the dying World Dragon’s veins would only sustain it for so long before it would land for once last time in the eye of its storm, drawing breath and blood before the seething energies would shrivel the once mighty beast into nothing more than an empty husk.
The vortex fuelled flight of the World Dragon did not go unnoticed by the denizens of the Border Princes. The soothsayers and shamans’ minds filled with visions of the past and of the World Dragon’s last great noble act. Relics of unknown origin collected into dusty vaults and fastened on to crowns and swords began to glow with power as they were in fact the World’s Tears, lost on the winds and found by the greedy claws of their new owners. Many more still hidden in the wastelands started to throb with arcane power, begging to be found and re-united with the Dragon’s Heart. As one those with the ability to use and manipulate the Aethyr told their masters of the untold power of the Dragon’s Heart or hungered after it for themselves. For the arcane artefact that is the Dragon’s Heart contained a powerful fusion of the World Dragon’s Soul and the Eight Winds of Magic and could restore lost empires or topple civilisations at its holder’s whim. Furthermore the power innate within the forgotten relics of the World’s Tears, now re-awakened, drew them inexorably to the Dragon’s Heart in its final resting place at the exact location where the World Dragon would land and roar its last challenge at the powers that had damned it so.
To the beat of drums and the blare of horns the banners and armies of warlords, kings, princes and other more ancient horrors march upon the Border Princes. Only those few who can find and hold the most relics of that bygone age will be able to seek the final battleground of the World Dragon and bring the ancient Drake to battle in a bid to claim the prize of the Dragon’s Heart and with it the power to bring the world to a new age of salvation or damnation.