The icon of the armies of the Warriors of Chaos as depicted in Total War: Warhammer II.
The greater part of the history of the forces of Chaos is recorded by Men, Dwarfs, and especially Elves. These records read as a long tale of woe punctuated occasionally by bitter victories won at great cost. It is a story of great wars and the destruction of kingdoms, the slaughter of countless innocents and the corruption of the land, for many times have the forces of Chaos brought the Known World to the brink of destruction.[2a]
The history of specific Champions of Chaos are usually translations of the exploits engraved on the great monoliths of the north, gravestones their followers erect when their masters die or become Daemon Princes. It is a custom within the warbands of the Chaos Marauders and the Warriors of Chaos to erect these monoliths, and several brave or foolhardy scholars of the Empire have travelled northward to seek them out, returning with translations of the heretical texts daubed or chiselled upon them.[2b]
The following Warriors of Chaos Timeline is a chronology of the actions of the Warriors of Chaos stretching back to the dawn of the mortal world's history. All dates are given using the Imperial Calendar.
Time of Woes[]
- ca. -5600 IC - The Great Catastrophe. The Old Ones' Polar Gates collapse and the power of Chaos first enters the Known World. Allowed to materialise in the mortal world by the sheer amounts of magical energy released by the destruction of the Old Ones' great works, Daemonic hordes run rampant across the lands and many primitive tribes of Men make alliances with the unholy invaders. Thus were the first Warriors of Chaos born, and countless mortal civilisations were humbled before their mighty onslaught.[1a]
- -4420 IC - The Elves of the island-continent of Ulthuan complete the Great Vortex that drains much Chaos energy from the Known World. As the levels of ambient magic in the world drop, drawn away into the vortex, the Chaos Daemon hordes are banished back to their extradimensional home and the Realm of Chaos retreats to the poles of the world, where it pulses like a malignant wound, forming the Chaos Wastes and the Southern Wastes of Chaos.[1a]
- ca. -4300 IC - Dwarfs journey across the barren uplands north of the Worlds Edge Mountains which they name Zorn Uzkul, meaning "the Great Skull Land." The region is named after the massed skeletons of the great beasts that go there to die -- the plains are carpeted with towering, ivory mounds of bone.[2a]
- ca. -4000 IC - Contact is lost between the Dwarfs of the Worlds Edge Mountains and the Dwarf settlements in Zorn Uzkul. The western Dwarfs believe the easterners have perished on their expedition. The eastern Dwarfs, forsaken by their peers and their Ancestor Gods alike, turn to the worship of the minor Chaos God Hashut, the Father of Darkness. The first citadels of the people who will be known to the world as the Chaos Dwarfs are raised in the desolate foothills of the Far East known today as the Dark Lands.[2a]
- -1860 IC - A sunken pyramid rises from the depths of the ocean directly underneath the wayward fleet of the seafarer Chaos Lord Valdisson. A great battle is fought between the Warriors of Chaos and the city's scaly, web-fingered Lizardmen inhabitants. The day is carried when Valdisson's Chaos Sorcerers call down a comet onto the pyramid city.[2a]
- -1800 IC - The Dragon Emperor unites the entire Human civilisation of Grand Cathay in a great task that is to change the destiny of his empire forever. The walls of the Great Bastion, also known as the "Dragon's Spine," are completed in under a century. The Great Bastion is an impenetrable fortress wall, a quarter of a mile high, that spans league upon league across the northern border of Cathay, which allows the Celestial Empire to protect itself from Chaos invasion by the Chaos Marauders of the Northmen and the warbands of the Warriors of Chaos.[2a]
- ca. -1667-167 IC - The Battle of Despair. A great armada of Chaos warships fights past the leviathans that guard the coast of the New World continent of Naggaroth, and hordes of iron-clad warriors make landing upon the Witch King's shores. The tower of Ghrond is besieged, and Naggarond itself is only saved when the Witch King himself enters the fray with a score of Black Dragon riders. The warbands of Chaos Marauders and Warriors of Chaos continue to prey upon the realm of Naggaroth for many centuries to come, until Malekith orders the construction of a series of jagged watchtowers to guard against their bloody incursions.[1a]
- -1666 IC - The Worlds Edge Mountains are riven by earthquakes, sending much of the Dwarf empire located there into jeopardy. In the Far East, sections of the Great Bastion collapse, allowing the rampaging tribes of the Northmen to spill into Grand Cathay.[2a]
- -1200 IC - The Chaos Cult of Chi'an Chi, known to the mortals of the Old World as Tzeentch, gains favour amongst the aristocracy of Beichai in far Grand Cathay.[2a]
- -1002 IC - The Ogre tribe of the Black Gut joins forces with the Chaos Lord Dletch the Merciless as he marches through their lands. The agreed wage is one Human per day per Ogre, an arrangement that quickly weeds the weak from the strong in Dletch's armies.[2a]
- ca. -830 IC - Arbaal the Undefeated, the Destroyer of Khorne, is tired of finding no foes worthy to face him in the mortal world, and rides onto the Plain of Skulls to challenge the Blood God himself.[1a]
- -122 IC - Ghular Festerhand ravages the forest of Athel Loren; the huge swarms of flies that precede his advance impede the sharp-shooting Wood Elf defenders.[1a]
- 1 IC - The Human hero Sigmar is crowned as the first emperor. The creation of the Empire of Man opens up a new age for not only the tribes of Men of the northern Old World, but also the Dwarfs who help guide them on the path to true civilisation.[2b]
- 211 IC - The northern hordes of Chaos attack the Dark Elven kingdom of the Witch King in Naggaroth. The royal army of Malekith marches against the forces of Chaos before they can penetrate too deeply into the heartland of Naggaroth.[2b]
- 455 IC - Battle of Black Lake. A Dwarf column is attacked on a narrow road along the edge of the freezing Black Lake. The Dwarfs are defeated and their king killed when dozens of the Chaos army's Forsaken break out from under the ice floes and tear into the Dwarf centre.[2b]
- 666 IC - The Chaos Moon Morrslieb's always erratic orbit takes it closer to the surface of the Known World than ever before. Waves of madness and hysteria flow across the lands, and the armies of Chaos march unopposed under the sickly green moonlight.[2b]
- 756 IC - The Hellstriders of Sharliss the Damned dart through the trees of the Bloodgrove Forest and fall upon the Beastmen warherd of Graknor Manrender with flashing blows too quick for the eye to see. Within the hour, over four thousand Beastmen have been skinned alive and nailed to the surrounding trees and herdstones, their howls of agony sending Sharliss' warriors into a blissful state of Slaaneshi delirium.[1a]
- 888 IC - The Norscan explorer Losteriksson sails across the ocean from the Old World and is the first Old Worlder to make anchor on the mangrove-lined shores of the continent of Lustria in the New World.[2b]
- 954 IC - The War in the New World. Chaos Champions from the coastal Norscan settlement of Skeggi sail back to their homelands in the Old World, only returning to Lustria when they have gathered a great army of raiders. As the conflict intensifies, more and more Chaos Marauders and Warriors of Chaos set sail from Norsca and the Chaos Wastes, seeking glory as much as gold.[2b]
- 955 IC - The Battle of Ostwald Moor. A Chaos army of unprecedented size is engaged by the combined military might of the Imperial Electoral Provinces of Ostland, Nordland and Hochland. Though the invasion is stopped, the death toll is so great that mounds of bone still jut out of the Ostwald Moor, serving as grisly landmarks to this day.[2b]
- 1000 IC - The great Chaos citadels of Infernius and Black Rock are built in the Chaos Wastes.[1a]
- 1119 IC - The Chaos Champion Gharad the Ox duels the hated Elector Count Wulfgang von Greihardt at Maulwurfbad and takes his victim's skull as a drinking vessel. During the duel, Gharad is astounded to be cheered on by the women of the township. Obscurely pleased, he leaves the town intact.[2b]
- 1393 IC - The War for Karak Ghulg. The Daemon Princess of Khorne, Valkia the Bloody, descends from the Realm of Chaos upon the northernmost stronghold of the Dwarfs, Karak Ghulg, which was already under siege by a force of the Warriors of Chaos. One by one, the Dwarf positions are overrun by Valkia's army of violent madmen, the shield-lines of the mountain folk smashed asunder by the charges of Blood Reaper Knights and Chaos Warriors. Valkia orders the forces of Chaos in the name of the Blood God to open the fallen defenders' rib cages in a grotesque practice known as the "blood raven." Khorne is mightily impressed with Valkia's gory deeds and takes her as his consort.[1a]
- 1412 IC - The Skaven of Clan Mors and the Chaos Champion Vygo Thrice-Tainted join forces to sack the Imperial city of Vogelstraushof. Half of the city collapses into the Skaven tunnels honeycombing its underside, and in the ensuing confusion the Skaven fall upon their Chaos allies and claim the city for themselves.[2c]
- 1453 IC - As the warband of the Chaos Champion Ragnar Painbringer advances upon the Forest of Sighs, the trees magically come alive and attack the Chaos battle host. Hundreds of Wood Elves emerge from the forest, felling swathes of fur-clad Northmen barbarians and mutant hounds in vast volleys of bowfire. Ragnar crushes the defenders when he orders scores of his scythed heavy Gorebeast Chariots to the fore, pulled by snorting steeds and hulking Gorebeasts. Against this assault, the Wood Elves are trampled to bloody smears, and the walking trees are smashed to matchwood.[1a]
- 1715 IC - Kastragar, Champion of Khorne, attacks the Goblins who live in the labyrinthine warrens of Gnashrak's Lair. After slaughtering every single Goblin in the stronghold with his bare hands, the Chaos Champion is acclaimed by the Blood God and ascends to become a Daemon Prince of Khorne.[2c]
- 1720 IC - The Chaos artefact known as the Banner of the Gods is crafted from Daemonbone in the sulpher-choked depths of Zharr-Naggrund, the capital of the empire of the Chaos Dwarfs. It possesses the ability to induce dread in the enemy and suicidal courage in the servants of Chaos.[1a][2c]
- 1722 IC - Egarl Bloodhard quickly grows tired of besieging Zorastra, the great wharf of Tilea. Plague-ridden meat is fed to the seabirds who nest in the seaborne city. The resultant outbreak of disease sees the city's chain-gates dropped by refugee ships attempting to flee, allowing the murderous Chaos fleet to sail in. Zorastra falls within the hour.[2c]
- 1730 IC - The rogue wizard Malofex brings a firestorm down onto the glacier that holds the Dragon Ogre Shaggoth Kholek Suneater in his dormant state. The glacier, originally summoned by the most powerful High Elf mages of their age to imprison the great Dragon Ogre Shaggoth, begins to melt. Kholek Suneater breaks free into the mortal world once again, to resume his rampage of destruction.[1a]
- 1760 IC - The monolith of Lothar Bubonicus, Flylord and Champion of Nurgle, is uncovered under a mound of moss-covered skeletons. It tells of a great Chaos Champion who slew many rivals with his Daemon Sword Plaguebiter and ascended to become the Daemon Prince of Nurgle Ghur'urgh bu'yue.[2c]
- 1814 IC - A Skaven horde from Hell Pit emerges to loot warpstone from the Northern Wastes, bringing with them hordes of Rat Ogres and other, more horrifying, creations. The vile ratmen are butchered one and all as the warband of Decasor, Champion of Nurgle, falls upon them, his maggot-chewed Chaos Chariots carving through the enemy ranks, and his trio of Manticores ripping the monstrous abominations of the Skaven horde to shreds.[1a]
- 1846 IC - The Chaos Dragon Galrauch is awakened by a great battle being fought outside his lair between Orcs and the tribes of the Hung. He visits his rage on all present, killing no fewer than six Wyverns sent to slay him in aerial combat.[1a]
- 2006-2007 IC - The Battle of Lamentations. A vast Plague Fleet, so foul that it leaves the sea black in its wake, makes anchor off Bretonnia. Led by the Chaos Lord Kharan the Blighted, the legions of Khorne and Nurgle aboard defeat the knights of Couronne and lay siege to that city. Repanse de Lyonesse, the Damoiselle de Guerre, slays Kharan in single combat, and his army soon scatters.[1a]
- 2099 IC - Aekold Helbrass, Champion of Tzeentch, seeks out the legendary forge known as the Volcano's Heart. His path across the blasted Chaos Wastes is to this day marked by the trail of unnatural vegetation that sprung up in his wake.[1a]
- 2211 IC - Hans Grunsson, the greatest preacher and orator in the Old World, travels north to convert the tribespeople of the Northmen to the true faith of Sigmar. He is eaten by a Chaos Troll.[2c]
- 2240 IC - The saga of Werner Thunderfist is deciphered, a lengthy telling of the Champion of Tzeentch's many mutations and ultimate ascendancy as a Daemon Prince of the Changer of Ways. During the translation, the speaking of the Daemon Prince's true name draws his attention, and the resultant magical fire burns the Imperial town of Tzindlerstadt to the ground.[2c]
- 2271 IC - Battle of the Vultures. Valgar the Butcher leads his warband to the deserts of Khemri to raid the tombs of the ancient Priest-Kings. The Chaos horde is ambushed on its return by the Tomb King Settra the Imperishable during the first battle of what is later known as the War of Sand and Snow. Barely a dozen Chaos Marauders make it back to Norsca, bloodied, yet rich beyond their wildest dreams.[2c]
- 2281-2286 IC - War of Sand and Snow. Settra leads his armies north in pursuit of the Northmen who raided Khemri, and skeletal legions clash with iron-clad Chaos Marauders and Chaos Warriors across snow-drifts and frozen glaciers until the Undead have reclaimed every last gold coin stolen by the Northmen from their tombs.[1a]
- 2298 IV - The merciless Norscan raider Scyla Anfingrimm is brought to battle by an army of vengeful, dispossessed villagers. However, Scyla is victorious and takes the corpses of his foes as trophies, tying them to the prows of his longships as grotesque figureheads.[1a]
- 2302-2303 IC - The Great Invasion (Great War Against Chaos). Countless Warriors of Chaos warbands unite under the banner of the twelfth Everchosen of Chaos Undivided, Asavar Kul, and a great portion of Kislev and the Empire is ground under the heel of the forces of the Ruinous Powers. The city of Praag falls to a bitter siege and is twisted into a hellish city of Chaos. Kul's rampage is only stopped as the armies of the Old World, led by the Imperial general and future emperor, Magnus the Pious, defeat the Chaos Lord at the Battle of Kislev's Gate.[1a]
- 2302-2390 IC - War in the Mountains. Valmir Aesling marshals his host at the Dwarf Hold of Kraka Drak. Unable to halt the march of the Chaos Warriors, King Silverbeard is forced to fell the mountain itself to prevent Valmir from invading other Norse Dwarf holds. The ensuing avalanche buries Kraka Drak, and all within, beneath millions of tones of rock, entombing Valmir and his warriors inside the stronghold with the Dwarfs. Though it takes decades of bitter fighting, Valmir succeeds in slaughtering every last Norse Dwarf in the doomed hold.[1b]
- 2370 IC - The Chaos Warriors of the Brass Keep repel an Imperial army attempting to root them out of the Middle Mountains. The Empire's artillery falls silent when Chimerae fall upon the crews and tear them to ribbons. With the artillery destroyed, the doors of the Brass Keep grind open and a tide of frenzied Chaos Warriors charge out, butchering the Empire's soldiers to a man.[1b]
- 2374 IC - Sigvald's Folly.
- ca. 2417 - Whilst hunting the Bonegrinder Giant Maulgrong, Borkill the Bloody-handed finds the Chalice of Chaos at the base of a jet-black monolith. As he drinks from the cup, Maulgrong attacks, but the vile liquid causes Borkhill's body to swell with unholy power, granting him the strength to best his monstrous foe.[1b]
- ca. 2420 - Archaon, the future thirteenth Everchosen of Chaos Undivided, emerges from the Altar of Ultimate Darkness in Naggaroth, slick with the blood of the slain and with the Mark of Chaos burning fiercely upon his brow.[1b]
- 2457 IC - Egrimm van Horstmann, High Luminary of the Light Order, is finally beguiled by the whispered promises of Tzeentch. Van Horstmann sells his allegiance to Chaos for the chance to gain vengeance against the perpetrator of a childhood wrong against himself and his dead sister. He frees the Chaos Dragon Baudros from his magical prison beneath the pyramid of the College of Light in ALtdorf. Van Hostmann goes on to become one of the mightiest Champions of Tzeentch and Sorcerer Lords in the history of the Known World.[1b]
- 2480 IC - The Spawn Tide. The Chaos Lord Festerlung, a Champion of Nurgle, forms an alliance with Vilitch the Curseling, a Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch, and their two warbands journey into the Mountains of Mourn. They fall upon the Iron-Eye Ogre tribe but are almost destroyed as a rampaging Stonehorn tramples scores of warriors underfoot. Vilitch unleashes a great spell that mutates Festerlung and all of his followers into gibbering Chaos Spawn in the blink of eye. A tide of fangs and twisted limbs rip both the Stonehorn and the Iron-Eye tribe to ribbons before they disperse into the mountains.[1b]
- 2490 IC - The necromancer Hela Half-dead leads a horde of shambling corpses into Troll Country, slaughtering every living thing she finds. Hela's horde is eventually intercepted and torn to pieces by Throgg, the Troll-king, and an army of Trolls.[1b]
- 2497 IC - The War in the Dark. Devotees of Nurgle infiltrate the warpstone mines of the Vampire Pietr von Carstein by covering themselves with the hideous cargo of von Carstein's corpse-carts. The ensuing violence causes a rockslide that seals Undead and living alike inside the mines.[2c]
- 2498 IC - After consulting the Tzeentchian relic known as the Skull of Katam, Egrimm van Horstmann attempts to fuse the sorcerous powers of his chosen cabal with the unholy resilience of Trolls, but his magicks go awry. Egrimm is forced to flee the Citadel of Sorcerers as the newly created breed of Trolls that vomit pure magic run amok, devouring all of the acolytes and apprentices with ravenous hunger.[1b]
- 2502 IC - Erik Redaxe invades the coast of Chrace and Cothique on the island-continent of Ulthuan. His longships are smashed to kindling by the pale-skinned Merwyrms that prowl Ulthuan's coast, trapping Redaxe between the High Elves and the merciless ocean.[2c]
- 2509-2511 IC - The Onslaught of the Maggot Lord. Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord, body-thief and favoured Champion of Nurgle, leads a mighty incursion of the Warriors of Chaos in a great scything arc down the Mountains of Mourn and sweeping across the Dark Lands, laying all desolate in his wake. With the Chaos Dwarfs and a horde of nightmarish beasts as his allies, he lays waste to the Border Princes and strikes at the Empire's underbelly.[1b]
- ca. 2513 IC - The plan of the Skaven Master Moulder, Throt the Unclean, to capture a Mutalith Vortex Beast is thwarted when his army of Rat Ogres approaches the Chaos beast and are mutated into piles of black-bodied worms and pulsing eyeballs.[1b]
- 2515 IC - Slaughter at Volganof. With a magical tempest from the Realm of Chaos blowing at his back, Lord Mortkin, the Black-iron Reaver, marches south at the head of warriors beyond count -- armoured barbarians, fur-clad Chaos Marauders, immortal Daemons, and hulking, mutated Chaos monstrosities -- all united under the banner of the Fell Legion. Mortkin's horde sweeps through Kislev and Ostland and the city of Volganof is burned to the ground.[1b]
- ca. 2515 IC - The Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch, Vilitch the Curseling, incinerates Tzeskagrad with balefire, the sorcerer's laughter infecting even those who are caught in the flames.[1b]
- 2516 IC - The son of Aldebrand Ludenhof, Elector Count of Hochland, falls sick to a mysterious illness. He is treated by a cloaked doctor who instructs him to drink a potion should the symptoms return. Upon drinking the tainted elixir, he is transformed into a hideous mutant that slaughters a dozen of the count's most trusted advisors before sloping off to the north to obey its new master, Festus the Leechlord, Champion of Nurgle.[1b]
- 2517 IC - Throgg the Troll King gathers together the monsters of the north and begins his war against the civilised world.[1b]
- 2518 IC - Prince Sigvald the Magnificent, Chaos Lord of Slaanesh, has the Bretonnian township of Chamburg razed because the wine it produced was not to his taste.[1b]
- 2519 IC - The Norscan Chaos Lord Wulfrik the Wanderer boasts that he is the mightiest warrior to have ever drawn breath, and he is cursed by the Chaos Gods to roam the Known World for all eternity to prove his claim. He eventually comes to see this curse as a boon, an attempt by the Dark Gods to give him ever-greater opportunities to earn more glory in their name.[1b]
- ca. 2519 IC - The first Daemon Prince, Be'lakor, presides over Archaon's blasphemous coronation in the heart of the Chaos Wastes as the thirteenth, and final, Everchosen of Chaos Undivided.[1b]
- 2520 IC - The Siege of Middendorf. Festus the Leechlord, Champion of Nurgle, continues to blight the Empire with his dark experiments, unleashing a strain of Eyeslime Fever so virulent that the death it causes allows a horde of Daemons to manifest within the Empire, laying siege to the city of Middendorf.[1b]
- 2521 IC - Aelfric Cyenwulf, a Champion of Tzeentch and the High Zar of the Iron Wolves tribe of the Eastern Steppes, joins with the Chaos Lord Surtha Lenk to lead their hordes against the armies of Kislev,[2c] sacking many settlements, including the stanitsa of Ramaejk and the Imperial town of Wolfenburg.[3a] Come the month of Ulriczeit, the city of Erengrad will be sacked,[4a] with Cyenwulf's plan being to move south in the spring of the next year, his armies following the line of the Worlds Edge Mountains, skirting Praag before turning west towards Urszebya.[4b] Also in this year, Vashnaar the Tormentor launches his great raid into northern Lustria in the New World, eager to claim the heart of a Slann and offer it up in sacrifice to the name of his dark patron.[1b]
- 2522 IC - Archaon the Everchosen, Lord of the End Times, musters an army of Chaos larger than any that has been raised since the time of the Great Catastrophe. The combined horde marches against the armies of the Old World as the End Times, the final days of the Known World, begin. His quest for the utter destruction of the mortal world and its consumption by Chaos, will ultimately prove successful.[1b]