The Briarbrood Branchwych
The unquestioned matriarch of the sylvaneth glade called the Brashbriar Brood, their branchwych is the only one amongst them with enough wit to wield a weapon, rather than relying exclusively on her own body.
However, there is nothing inherently superior about her relative to her sisters. It is the scythe she carries that makes her special. It grants her magic that can make both plants and spites heed her commands, and even clears her mind enough that she can just about manage a halting sort of speech.
In the same manner in which an ordinary glade would prioritise the retrieval of lamentiri after a battle, so do the brood value this scythe. As long as they do not lose it, and at least one dryad remains, another branchwych can always be anointed.
This process has already taken place once since they began following Ka-rokk’s Waaagh!, after the original branchwych (alongside many others) was shattered and torn apart by a stampede of Ghurish beasts.
The Brashbriar Brood
The predecessors of the brood first migrated to Ghur during the Age of Myth, settling near a Gyhranite realmgate, where life magic flowed strong, and the spirit-song could still be clearly heard. But during the Age of Chaos, that realmgate fell, being overcome by corruption and twisted, until it led not to the verdant reaches of Ghyran, but instead to a putrid patch of the Grandfather’s garden.
Their soulpods were lost, their grove desecrated, their noble spirits massacred. Many of the dryads managed to flee, but now entirely cut off from their goddess’ song, they soon went mad. Despite this, they clung on to life. Over the years and decades, the energies of Ghur infused their bodies, overpowering their shattered psyches, and imbuing them with the ferocity and survival instincts of feral beasts.
By the coming of the Age of Sigmar, they were so lost that not even Alarielle’s Rite of Life could restore their sanity.
However, when another — lesser, but much closer at hand — force began growing in power, it called to them. They sensed the distant roar in the deepest recesses of their souls, and it felt to them like a crude, primitive sort of melody. As they themselves had devolved into crude, primitive beings, that raucous beat appealed to them on a primal level.
They followed the song, and upon reaching it, found a battle raging. On one side, ironjawz warchanters and bonesplitterz skull thumpers produced the song which had led the sylvaneth to this place. On the other, “civilised” people fought to defend a fort they’d erected.
Those people were weak. They built walls to protect themselves because they lacked the strength and savagery to face the beasts of Rondhol head on. The forest folk were repulsed by this. In Ghur, only the fittest and fiercest deserved to survive and thrive. Such cowardly creatures warranted only slaughter.
The greenskin Waaagh!-energies reacted with the dryads’ broken minds, filling the gaping chasm in their souls where the spirit-song belonged, and accentuating the savage urges which Ghur had granted them.
Like a swarm of locusts, the dryads swept over the walls, clambering upon one another when no easier purchase was available. Paying no heed to their losses, their only thoughts were on the hunt, on sating the bloodlust that now overcame them.
Ever since that day, those sylvaneth have unthinkingly followed Da Choppas, aiding the Waaagh! in its quest to rid the continent of Rondhol of all traces of civilisation.
This mission has not been without its setbacks, though, including a recent event which saw many of their number brought low, not by the foes they had set out to face, but by the very land and creatures they were fighting to preserve. Most sane beings would have sunk into a malaise after suffering such an ironic tragedy.
The brood revelled in it. Even though they lost a leader on that day, and a great many more sisters besides, it was an inspiration to all those who survived, a potent reminder of Rondhol’s barbaric nature, and exactly the sort of mindless Destruction that they aspire to sow. Rather than crushing their spirits, it galvanised and energised them.
