Brightspear is the new name for a city that has stood for centuries. Founded by the ancient Agloraxian Empire, the city is built atop a sprawling underground complex — an Agloraxian Citadel created to shelter the Agloraxians and withstand cataclysmic events. Unfortunately for them, neither the Agloraxians nor the citadel were prepared for the Ruinous Powers and the Age of Chaos. The very coastline near the city began to crumble and disintegrate, falling into Tzeentch’s realm even as his servants assaulted the city.
The Agloraxians had spent years in seclusion, hidden in their underground citadel, exploring the limits of arcane power. They reshaped flesh into unholy abominations and constructed unfathomable magical devices to change the world — all of which were like a siren song to Tzeentch.
For centuries, mortal and daemonic servants of Tzeentch inhabited the city, twisting and reshaping the city’s spires while plumbing the depths of the citadel below. All that changed when Sigmar directed the Celestial Warbringers — a host of Stormcast Eternals who can foresee their own death — to retake the city. The prescience of the Celestial Warbringers confounded Tzeentch’s followers and they were eventually driven from the city or fled below. The city was renamed Brightspear, so-called for the towering beacon at its heart and for the Stormhost that freed it, who were sometimes known as Sigmar’s Spear.
With the city reclaimed, settlers followed. Unlike most of the Cities of Sigmar, which are constructed anew around a captured realmgate, Brightspear seemingly had no realmgate and the city was already built — though it was twisted and ruined from centuries of Tzeentch inhabitation. Without a realmgate, travel to the city was difficult and relied heavily on enterprising Kharadron captains to ferry folks to the fledgling settlement. It was a slow process, but in time the city began to grow. The taint of Tzeentch was slowly burned away, new structures were built, and ruined buildings were rebuilt, repurposed, or demolished.
Just as the city began to take shape, the Necroquake struck. Hordes of spectres and ghosts surged forth from the citadel below and the surrounding lands. The restless spirits of the Agloaraxian’s victims swelled with the souls of those slaughtered during the Age of Chaos as thousands of undead erupted throughout the city, devastating the fledgling populace. When the night was over, a fraction of the city’s population remained. But Aqshian’s are stubborn folk, and once again began to rebuild.
Brightspear is split into three different districts: the Upper Tier, the Lower Tier, and the New City. The Upper Tier sits on a large plate built around the central ‘spear’ of the city, and slowly rotates to match the movement of Hysh and Ulgu across the sky. The Lower Tier is directly beneath the plate that holds the Upper Tier. It is almost constantly in shadow and you can always hear the faint clicking and grinding of the rotating plate above. The New City is the ever-expanding edges of Brightspear. Here the ancient ruined buildings are demolished and the city expands as all Cities of Sigmar do — growing outward in ever-increasing concentric rings.
The last unofficial district of Brightspear is the Undercity. The ancient Agloraxian citadel holds many secrets and mysteries, and scholars and mages hungry for knowledge and power are desperate to explore its secrets. For now, Lord-Arcanum Salonia Gravewing, who temporarily governs Brightspear, strictly controls access to the Undercity.
Those that travel to the New City will most certainly hear of, or see, Fin, the great Meglofin of Brightspear. This monstrosity crashed into the city when a group of Soulbound, along with a small fleet of Kharadron, took it down while attempting to fight off a Tzeentchian threat.
