The void of M31.001 was not merely empty space; it was a canvas of nascent fears and ambitions, where echoes of ancient empires warred with the whispers of cosmic horrors. Before the galaxy was fully consumed by the flames of the Horus Heresy, a new dissonance stirred among the stars—a harmony of decay and perfection, conjured by a being far removed from the annals of this galaxy's history.
He was the Witch-king of Angmar—once a mortal lord crowned in dread, a Nazgûl, now elevated and defiled beyond the nightmares of his ancient world. Torn from Middle-earth and its waning Third Age, his death did not return him to nothingness, but delivered his soul screaming into the Immaterium—into the realm of Chaos. He had not arrived silently. His fall was a siren's call, answered by two rival gods.
Slaanesh, the Prince of Excess, saw in the Witch-king's eternal hunger for domination and his skill in cultivating exquisite despair a perfect instrument. He blessed the king with the art of temptation, the power to make even the most disciplined falter, to transform longing into a weapon. Nurgle, the Lord of Decay, beheld in the Wraith-lord's withered immortality a mirror of his own ethos: the slow, inevitable corruption of all things. He granted resilience within rot, the comfort of collapse, and the grotesque vitality of stagnation.
Thus remade, the Witch-king walked the Warp once more—not as a ghost, but as a herald. His form was a contradiction: armour of jet and tarnished gold shimmered with a sickening iridescence, his presence exuded both seduction and plague. His voice was velvet rasping over bone, a sound that promised both pleasure and finality. He was the embodiment of contradiction—ruin disguised as transcendence, apocalypse veiled in majesty.
He turned his gaze toward the Eldar.
Where humans raged and burned in their expansion across the stars, the Eldar clung to survival by rituals and psychic discipline. Their souls, vibrant and ancient, were simultaneously rich and brittle. They were deeply aware of Chaos and its dangers, but also its allure. The Witch-king, ever the corrupter, knew that the most enduring seductions began not with fire, but with whispers.
He began with Liruvac, an Exodite world nestled in the quiet margins of the Webway, untouched by the Great Crusade. It was a paradise of crystal forests and beast-haunted meadows, where Eldar lived close to the land and far from the ghosts of the Fall. But even paradise can be poisoned.
From the shadows of the Webway, he emerged.
The changes were subtle at first. The plants bloomed more brilliantly—too brilliantly. Flowers exuded a cloying scent that lingered in the lungs. The rains turned to golden mist. Wildlife grew bloated and drowsy, their once-proud forms slowly warped into decadent mockeries of their past. The mighty dragons of the world's forests became languid, their scales cracking with fungal bloom.
The Witch-king did not appear openly. He stalked dreams. He slipped into the minds of the Exodite seers, cloaked in illusions. To some, he appeared as a regal saviour offering mastery over the cycles of life and death. To others, he was a shrouded prophet speaking of renewal through acceptance, not struggle.
A few Eldar, their reverence for nature twisted by Nurgle's quiet murmurings, began to see beauty in vibrant decay. Others were entranced by Slaanesh's voice within him—the promise of a return to something more than survival. To these dreamers, the Witch-king offered the "Crown": dominion over sensation, over entropy, over one's destiny. An end to the limitations of the Path.
But Liruvac was merely a prelude.
His true target was Aeyr-Fael, a hidden Craftworld lost to most of the galaxy. Orbiting a dying violet star, Aeyr-Fael had long eschewed alliances with other Craftworlds, preferring introspection and spiritual refinement. Its people walked the Path not as doctrine, but as sacred transcendence. Among them, the ancient conclave called the Synod of Silent Stars preserved obscure knowledge—spiritual disciplines older than the Fall, untouched by modern Eldar orthodoxy.
Their uniqueness made them valuable prey.
The Witch-king knew he could not assault Aeyr-Fael by force. Its psychic wards had been cultivated for millennia and its people were vigilant. But psychic purity is not the same as unity. As Liruvac became a psychic relay, a corrupted node in the web of dreams, the Witch-king seeded visions—crafted carefully, like gifts wrapped in silk and poison.
To the Synod, he offered dreams in two voices:
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Slaanesh's Whisper: Visions of cities sculpted from golden sound, where every thought manifested into art, sensation, and perfect form. Eldar drifted weightless through orgiastic symphonies of color and touch, their spirits expanding beyond the confines of the Path. In these dreams, the Witch-king appeared as a god-emperor of feeling, a maestro of desire. The promise: not indulgence, but transcendence through total aesthetic mastery.
Nurgle's Lullaby: Visions of sacred rot, of rich soil formed from time and death. The Eldar saw themselves enduring, not in struggle, but in surrender. They were no longer fading stars, but ancient trees shedding leaves in peace, rooted in the dark loam of eternity. In these dreams, the Witch-king was a patient gardener, his voice like warm rot and forgotten lullabies. The promise: to no longer fear the end.
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The Synod fractured.
Some, like Lysandral, Keeper of the Archives, began to question the rigidity of their ways. He spoke softly of the visions, of the beauty in the bloom and wither alike. "Why must we forever hide behind this 'Veil'?" he mused to his peers. "He offers a Crown. Is it not better than fading into nothing?"
Others, like Kaevos, guardian of the Spirit Chambers, saw the threat for what it was. "That Crown is fashioned of blood and despair. The Veil shields us from the Fall—it is not chains, but armor!"
Yet dissent spread. Debate turned to conflict. Ancient Eldar, their souls stretched by millennia of duty, now faced an internal war. The Witch-king pressed the advantage.
He sent tokens—artifacts imbued with his gods' taint—through the dreams. Crystals that pulsed with impossible harmonics. Dusts that evoked visions when inhaled. Poems written in untranslatable glyphs that sang when read aloud.
A handful of Eldar answered.
They journeyed—cloaked in secrecy—through ancient Webway paths to Liruvac, now fully transformed into a garden of decadent entropy. There, they beheld the Witch-king in full: a shadow-crowned lord, his words wrapped in paradoxes, his form both statue and corpse. He welcomed them not as slaves, but as princes. He spoke of a "new Aeldari soul," one that did not fear She Who Thirsts but transformed her hunger into weaponry.
They returned to Aeyr-Fael with new conviction—and hidden corruption.
The Craftworld had not fallen. But the first stone had been cast into still water. Ripples spread. Doubt blossomed like bruises.
From his throne of bone and bloom on Liruvac, the Witch-king watched. He saw the Synod fray, the unity of Aeyr-Fael weaken. He would not conquer them in fire. He would wear them down with silk and rot. The Crown would replace the Veil, not through conquest—but consent.
Aeyr-Fael, untouched by Imperium and kin alike, now drifted toward a unique doom. Its soul—once pure starlight—began to twist.
The grimdark symphony had found a new harmony, sung by a king with no face and a voice made of plague and song.