The Army of Lord Horrificus

 

It was upon the second day of my travel that I came across the farmhouse, and the memory of my encounter there shall undoubtedly haunt me for many years to come. The fields were mal tended, and disease had been allowed to set in, all but destroying the crop. I decided to investigate, thinking that perhaps whatever farmer tended these lands had taken ill and may be in need of aid, or perhaps had passed from this earth, in which case a proper burial was called for.
As I neared the house, I saw a single cow grazing in the field before it, and as I drew closer, I could see that the poor creature had been blinded. Dismounting my horse, I had a closer look, and noted the recent scar tissue about the empty sockets. Turning my attention back to the house, I now noticed the thin grey sliver of smoke drifting lazily from the chimney.
Setting my jaw, I prepared to have strong words for the farmer who would mutilate one of his beasts in so cruel a fashion. When he answered my knock at the door, however, all thought of such admonishments left my mind, as I stared aghast at the haggard man’s vacant sockets. The farmer had been blinded as well. As had his entire family. Even the sickly tabby cat that brushed against my leg was so defiled. My mind swam at the utter ghoulishness of the scene. When I could again speak I asked the man who had done such a monstrous thing to he and his kin.
The man answered with a single word.
"Horrificus"
-From the journal of Professor Heinrich von Ruttenburg

 

The dread lord Horrificus has marched forth from the Forsaken Vale to seek the Spectral Colossus. Like pus from a squeezed cancer, his fetid host streams into the Old World, spreading its foul corruption where it travels.  Before the great host rides the vanguard led by Furrghus the Debauched, a raider and pillager who has given himself over to Slaanesh and leads a menagerie of foul creatures into battle.

Horrificus has divided command of his armies among his two chief lieutennants, and each of them commands a splinter force.  The first is led by the headless Count Brocken, an early experiment of Dr. Shellendrak and Horrificus' right hand. The second is led by Dycedarg, a foul daemon who entered this world through the Rotfeast Monolith. It is unknown whether the chaos lord has actually bent this foul creature to his whim or if the daemon merely serves to further its own nefarious goals.

 

Lord Horrificus (chaos lord, 2500 pt general)

 “The way I hears it he used to be some kind of lord somewhere and that he was only born with one eye, and that’s why he likes to cut them out of people. He keeps ‘em  on little hooks woven into the hair of the  hippogriff he rides. They say he found it dyin’ on some battlefield in Bretonnia and kept alive with ‘is dark magics and that you can still see the ‘griff’s guts fallin’ out. They say  he can kill you just by touchin’ you and that he’s got every disease known to man, and a couple even the gods don’t know about. Them that’s good anyway.”

- Unknown patron at the Malodorous Goat

Count Brocken (exalted hero, 2000 pt general)

“And if I were to tell you I was this Brocken, what would you do?  Shoot me with that pistol in your hand?”

The sellsword stopped then in his tale and took another drink. He was deep into his cups now and I worried it might affect his recollection.

"His back was turned to me when I drew it," my dinner companion continued, "and I had cocked it before even entering the dwelling. There was no way he could have known."

"Some sorcery," I suggested, and the man just shook his head in dismissal.  His body language was becoming more and more agitated.

"I shot him then and there.  I hadn't lasted this long by taking chances. The shot was true - I saw the hole open up in the back of the hood he was wearing.  I began to untense a little but then he turned back toward me and his head fell right off onto the table."

I raised an eyebrow at this, but the man continued without noticing.  The color had drained out of his face.

"But it wasn't a head at all. Not a real one. Just a wooden one with a face painted on it and a big splintered hole in the back where the ball had hit. I had no idea what had just happened. That's when the laughing started. But I could see now it wasn't coming from him. It was coming from the hooded cage on the table. My heart stopped in my chest then. There ws enough light to see the shape of something moving around in there behind the cloth, and wasn't no bird. Piss shot right down my leg as I looked at the sillhuete of that head laughing at me. The last thing I remember before turned tail was his headless body waving a bloody sword and that shape in the bird cage moving around. I ran out of that house and never looked back."

The man across the table from me rubbed the stump at the end of his arm.

"I must have gone a whole block before I realized the bastard took my hand."

- From the journal of Professor Heinrich von Ruttenburg.

 

Dycedarg (scyla anfingrimm, 2000 pt general)

Dubious of my bold claim, the creature Dycedarg tested its veracity by tentatively brushing at the invisible threshold of my protective circle with a vile tentacle. As it did so, steam emitted from the fleshy tip with a hissing sound, and the daemon recoiled its appendage, a grunt issuing from one of the two heads.  The other head curiously examined the blackened spot that now marred the purplish daemon flesh of the tendril.

“Most impressive,” the other head growled, “I applaud your efforts.”

“I am ever amazed by the ingenuity of these humans,” remarked the first head almost conversationally.

There was a silence then, and I could hear the silent weeping of those huddled within my protective circle, and the sound their shuddering bodies made on the floorboards.

“Very well professor,” Dycedarg boomed in twin voices.  “You win for the present. But I have other methods at my disposal which your arcane wards and glyphs will be unable to circumvent. Do not think you can protect these people forever.”

-          From the journal of Professor Heinrich von Ruttenburg