| abstract | - Towering over the ageless desolation of Khorne's realm is the Blood God's brass citadel. The walls of this unholy bastion are jagged, thick with crusted blood and hung with gibbets and gallows. The moat of the brass citadel is filled not with water, but with the boiling blood of Khorne's victims. Iron gargoyles snarl from every parapet, hatred flashing in their eyes and molten metal boiling in their bellies. Flesh Hounds prowl the space between the outer walls and the keep, gnawing at ancient bones and longing for fresh meat.[1a] Khorne himself dwells within a great vault at the black heart of the citadel's central keep. Eight iron pillars vanish into the ebon gloom to shoulder the inconceivable weight of the throne room's ceiling. Each pillar is inscribed with one of the commandments of Khorne, edicts that speak to the unholy virtues of rage, martial skill and defiance. In the center of the room the Blood God sits upon a mighty throne of brass rooted atop a vast mountain of skulls. Khorne's armour-clad body is broad and muscular, his visage that of a fierce and snarling dog with ravaged lips. When the Blood God speaks, he does so in bellows of black rage, each guttural syllable igniting the air in tainted sparks.[1a] Upon Khorne's fingers are many brass rings. Most are blazoned with his own jagged skull rune. Upon others are mounted the severed heads of lesser gods claimed, it is said, in personal combat. What being would dare face the Blood God in the arena of martial prowess remains a mystery, so the provenance of these other rings is unknown. At Khorne's side is a mighty double-handed sword. Legend tells that the drawing of this dolorous weapon is the harbinger of great calamity, and that Khorne could split existence asunder with but a single stroke were it his desire. Elsewhere in the citadel, mighty armouries are stocked with every weapon imaginable, from cruel-bladed daggers and serrated dirks, to fellsteel halberds and ornate cannons. Yet for reasons long since forgotten to mortals, Khorne always favours this one sword and abides no other blade.[1a][1b] At the foot of the throne, a carpet of splintered bone extends in all directions, the remains of those slain by the Blood God's conquering champions. Further distant, in the shadow of the chamber's eaves lies a mighty anvil, where furnace-Daemons forge weapons and armour for the Blood God's favoured followers — great warriors and mighty war leaders who kill for that which they desire. Here also lurks the great hound Karanak, a massive, three-headed Daemon-beast who prowls tirelessly about the cavernous throne room.[1b] In the very direst of need, when his armies are overwhelmed and his citadel beset, Khorne rises from his throne, his armoured footfalls shaking the Realm of Chaos to its core. With an honour guard of Bloodthirsters, each with the power of an army in its own right, the Lord of Battle unleashes his full rage, scattering the Daemons of his rivals with each sweep of his mighty blade and trampling their broken bodies underfoot. Such willingness to take physical participation in the Great Game is what marks Khorne out from his fellow gods. Even so, his personal interventions are rare indeed, and so each calamitous occasion marks a turning of the tide in the wars of the gods.[1b]
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