 I commit this chronicle not out of a sense of duty, but of need. For I have simply no way of reconciling what it is I have seen with what I know to simply be, lest my own mind be engulfed by the horrors of deepest insanity. I know what sights that plague my dreams can be, just that, dreams. And yet, yes, I feel them to be true, cracked reflections of some grand universal mirror echoes from the depths of a world that was, a world that both is and is not. A world of such wonder, such horror, that I struggle to discern the words to describe it. These visions, these visions assault me, thundering through my mind with relentless ferocity. I see realms of the impossible, the heroic, the villainous, of fantastical beasts, dark gods and constant war. I know not from whence they come. I fear the worst, of course. I fear my mind is teetering upon a precipice, ready to finally plunge into the depths of incoherent madness that claims so many of my kind. Should this be my fate? I will not go kindly into the abyss. My memno quill is my weapon against it. Let it be known to examiners of these chronicles should they be uncovered. I do what I do now for my own self-preservation and dare I admit curiosity. These worlds, they are both utterly alien and disturbingly familiar in the same instant. May hapscrying the thoughts that assail me may render me some good, or at least delay the potentially inevitable. So then, this is a record of the sundering of the world that was, of a mighty celestial drake, of the forging of the mortal realms, and the advent of the age of the being known as Sigmar. The world that was lay broken, sundered, dust in the void scattered by the efforts of the dark gods of chaos. Millions of years of history, thousands of years of civilization, tens of millions of sentient beings from a dozen different races annihilated in the ruinous powers final gambit. They were, had been, strange, otherworldly and twisted in their own right. They were men, like us, humans, noble or corrupted. There were fey creatures too, tall and lithe, and squat under dwellers, hideous ratmen, strange reptilian beings, ogroid brutes, and blasphemous dead things. None however could assay the victory of the dark powers, despite the millions who tried and the millions who failed. The world lay broken and ruined. The void seething in an ocean of formless magical energy, for this magic, once a force of winds and streams, was similarly broken by the machinations of the gods. All that remained of the planet was a core of the purest metal, sent hurtling through the forever darkness, tumbling endlessly in the coldest and blackest reaches of the void. A being clung to it, a humanoid figure of purest light, the only surviving incarnate remnant of the once whole world. It is likely not even he could ever know how long he and the rock known as malice fell. For time mattered not, all was lost, all lay in ruin, and the god thing wept silent tears for his lost home. The dark gods permitted malice's continued existence, for even glutted as they were on the souls of those lost in the destruction of the world that was, malice was something of a lodestone for what souls had survived, and it doubtlessly amused them to see the fate of these tied to some petty bobble cast loose among the stars. Ever lost and clinging to the surface of malice. This may have been the god thing's ultimate fate, were it not for the chance intervention of the great star drake, drakeothion, the god beast despised the remnant of the world that was, admiring its shiny metallic beauty, and moved to catch it and preserve it. Upon seizing it, the zodiacal dragon was surprised to discover the survivor, frozen to the rock by the deepest cold of the deepest void. Recognizing the singular nature of this being, drakeothion exhaled a warming breath, stirring the being from his slumber. The survivor named himself Sigmar, the god of the mortal humans of the world that was. Recognizing him as a kindred spirit, drakeothion bore Sigmar and the rock of malice onwards through the cosmos, to a place unlike any other, the mortal realms. As the magic of the world that was scattered catastrophically through the void, its vast energies had begun to coalesce, for magic is a thing of laws and rules in itself. Different from the laws of the physical, yes, but possessing an order and structure in its own right. In the old world it had been a thing of distinct winds, streams, channels, tides, if you will, and it appears that this would ever be its nature, for as once there were eight winds, now there would be eight realms. Each of magic's branches formed a mighty massive realm sphere, a pocket reality set apart amongst the stars, itself contained within a wider, etheric void, itself made up of formless, unaligned, loose, unconstrained magical energy. Within these realm spheres were nascent worlds, fresh with the morning dew of their creation, verdant paradises, turbulent volcanic desolations, heaving oceans, blistering deserts and soaring mountains, spheres of pure magical potential. Dracotheon set Malice in the filament of the etheric void, both to grant it a new permanent home amongst the newborn realm spheres, and so the drake could better admire its shining beauty. Sigmar and the Dragon, kin now, born of happenstance and a shared vision, traveled the realms as one, Sigmar astride the shining god beast. It was the beginning of a new epoch, the first of these mortal realms, the age of myth. Visions of Sigmar's travels assail me too fast to properly recount. For years, decades, perhaps, he and Dracotheon explored the new realm spheres. Some was as fluid as the magic that permeated every aspect of these worlds. Some appeared older than they could possibly be, whereas others were new, as if created only that very morning. The companions roamed far and wide. Sigmar, the mightiest warrior of the world that was, was months more drawn to this calling, for there were many tyrannical and foul beasts that barred he and his saviour's path. He slew the hydrogores, throwing open the gates to the ghostly realm of amethyst, Shai-ish, that they had so jealously guarded. He cast down the valk giants of fiery Ashki, freeing that realm sphere from their rule. He ended the living avalanche Dracotoa in Gur, the realm of beasts. He discovered, to his surprise and wonder, that everywhere he went he encountered primitive tribes of men, men such as he, clinging stubbornly to existence, in much the same barbarian aspects as those from when Sigmar himself had been begotten, as a boy on the long-lost world that was. Sigmar and Dracotheon thus discovered he was not the only survivor of the end times, for the mortal realms had become a beacon of souls that had escaped the gluttony of the gods of chaos. There were many, so many, reincarnated now, born again upon the magical shores of the realm spheres, and they begat more. Life, true life, was nascent here, born again, defying the machinations of the dark powers. Sigmar was overjoyed. More and more tribes fell under his protection, for with his now godly strength and prowess, he was a shield like no other and a teacher unprecedented. He taught these mortals all he knew, and under his guidance were raised great cities, flourishing civilizations born out of tribes once scattered, now united. They worshipped their god King, and became mighty for it. King clans of squat dwarden joined these burgeoning cities too, bringing their talents for metalwork to the aid of their human allies. Seeing these dwarden for what they were, further proof of survivors of the world that was, Sigmar quested far and wide to search for more and more he encountered. Savage uruks, mighty trogoths, ravenous ogres, even some isolated ails. In every realm, shades and reflections of the world he had known. Savage was during this search that he found them, he found the gods. This video and this channel are made possible through the incredibly kind contributions of my Patreon subscribers. If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com forward slash Oculus imperia. 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