“There are only eleven of them. Bombard the breach with Mortek Crawlers, then crush the survivors beneath our feet. Nagash shall have his tithe.”
– Liege-Kavalos Xlida Kuzik, deceased.
Mivtar’s is an old soul, perhaps older than the Realms themselves. She remembers little of her mortal life, save for the circumstances that had led to her death.
She had been a bureaucrat of a city built within a mountain; a nobody conducting a routine sewer inspection alongside an escort of sewerjacks, when she had stumbled upon Skaven. After a brief and furious confrontation, Mivtar’s band were able to triumph against their adversaries, only to discover that they were but one prong of a wider scheme to attack the city above. With no time left to warn the authorities of the threat, Mivtar convinced her sewerjacks to forge on ahead to stop the Skaven themselves.
With a combination of knowledge of the sewer system, unexpected courage and extreme luck, Mivtar was able to trace the Skaven back to their nest. There she and her comrades battled the rat-men to prevent them detonating an experimental bomb. In the end, Mivtar’s single bloodstained hand tampered with the controls of the bomb enough to cause it to explode with lesser force; still enough to kill everyone within the chamber. Though her city would survive another day, Mivtar and her sewerjacks died alone and unremembered, their sacrificed witnessed by none.
Save Sigmar.
When it came time to form the Stormcast, he called Mivtar up to serve as Lord-Castellant of the Blackhammers, and her sewerjacks as her personal retinue of Protectors.
Mivtar’s service history with the Blackhammers is one of competence, fighting alongside the Chamber at the Battles of Kha’ihva plains and overseeing the construction of the Stormkeep of Kha’ihva City. But she had felt intimidated by the likes of Lord-Celestant Phionan and Lord-Relictor Herakes, two heroes who had been legends even when they were mortal. No matter her achievements or how her fellow Lords of the Blackhammers treated her, Mivtar couldn’t shake the feeling that someone of her humble origins didn’t belong in their company. At times it would become overwhelming; then she would descend into Kha’ihva City’s sewers, either alone or with her Retinue, and patrol the stygian dark until she felt at peace once more.
Accompanying her always is Ocydo, Mivtar’s loyal gryph-hound. With a keen nose for Skaven and a ferocious heart, he is a constant comfort for her. When the worst of her worries strike her, or rare moments when the presence of Skaven trigger the trauma of her death, his presence always helps with calming her down.
This impression became acute when she was given her own independent command and sent to reinforce the city of Vishraashahar, within the lands of Narjanm. Narjanm had suffered greatly under the oppression of the Ossiarch Bonereapers; all but Vishraashahar had fallen under their dominion, and some had been gutted of all life by the Bone Tithe. It is not unknown for Ossiarchs to enter cities and massacre entire districts with impunity.
When the Ossiarchs finally came to Vishraashahar, the council of that city refused to accept their terms, emboldened by the proximity of the Blackhammers’ forces. When they called for reinforcements, Phionan answered with a Brotherhood led by Lord-Castellant Mivtar.
Quelling her anxieties that she would fail in her responsibilities, Mivtar set about reinforcing Vishraashahar, and not a moment too soon; soon after she had finished her preparations, the Ossiarchs were spotted near the city-state’s borders.
The subsequent siege was long and brutal, the undaunted valor of the Blackhammers clashing against the relentless assault of the Ossiarchs. Again and again Mivtar feared that she would fail to protect Vishraashahar, and again and again she pushed those fears aside. If she failed, all who lived within the city would be forfeit, massacred for Nagash’s cruel ambitions. She couldn’t allow her anxieties to sabotage her now. She deployed ploy after strategy after dogged defense, bleeding the Ossiarchs for every chip they made in Vishraashahar’s defences.
After weeks of siege, it came down to just a single breach, four Paladins from her own retinue and six from Retributor-Prime Malliana‘s, and herself, facing off against a last assault of Immortek Guard and Gothizzar Harvesters. Against the odds, outnumbered and exhausted, they threw back this last ditch attack.
As the last Immortek Guard was hurled out of the breach, a storm fell upon the Ossiarchs’ siege works. When it cleared the Hallowed Knights Sacrosanct Chamber, the Choir Empyrean, charged into the enemy’s rear, singing hymns of praise for the defenders. Caught between Vashraashahar’s walls and the newly arrived reinforcements, the Ossiarch army was destroyed, and the city relieved.
The siege broke the back of the Ossiarch armies within Narjanm, and later campaigning would see them utterly repulsed from that land. Vishraashahar now stands as the crowning jewel of Narjanm, a bastion of storm-brought liberation that dispatches more armies to free Shyish. Statues of the eleven Stormcast still guard the walls that they had fought for.
Mivtar herself returned to a hero’s welcome in Kha’ihva city as a changed woman, having conquered her daemons.
She was lost with the rest of her Chamber in the Eightpoints. Ocydo is known to patrol the corridors of the Stormkeep at Kha’ihva City, howling mournfully for his lost companion.
