Shaal-Muzar stood in the shadows of the corridor that led to the great throneroom of the court of demons. Within, the thrones of the lawsayers waited, ready to annihilate anyone who tried to sit in them without authority. He could feel their call, a whisper skittering across his mind, a gentle singing in his heart, a curiosity as to how the stone, bronze, and crystallized blood might feel beneath him. Like everything in Dis, they longed to kill, but Shaal-Muzar had no ambition for thrones. He knew he could not do his work while an army of demons sought to displace him, so he stood where he always stood and allowed the shadows to gather around him like a cloak. Through the doorway at the other end of the corridor, a figure strode, an impossible collection of limbs and thorax, heads and mandibles that almost defied comprehension. Its many faces were a convoluted mess of features, the true face constantly shifting and hidden in the tangle. In its hands was a book, bound in dull red leather from the skin of a child cut away by a willing father, held tight as one would a newborn. Shaal-Muzar had learned, centuries before, that it was easier for most beings to be near the creature when they just avoided looking at it altogether. The ebb and flow of the flesh proved too sickening, even for the demons of the abyss to follow. So that is what he himself had done. Shadow was not just an absence of light, after all; it was an absence of the unusual. It was the easy flow of patterns and behaviors that had previously established themselves as normal. “Belberith…” Shaal-Muzar’s thirteen mouths uttered the name in perfect unison as he stepped from the shadows. The belt of skulls at his waist, the remnants of former lords of men, rattled as he moved. The ring of his armored feet against the cold basalt of the floor was a portent of a coming death. As a man, he had walked gently, his footsteps little more than the slithering of a serpent, his whispers arriving in the ears and nestling in the minds of the very kings whose skulls now hung around his waist. As he was now, in this moment, revealing himself, he allowed himself the joy of honesty, the rare elegance of truth. His mouths, always lying, had uttered the true name. His footsteps had echoed against the walls. He was unveiled, his intent burning within him, and he knew the creature before him finally saw him for what he was, the same way he saw the reality of his foe. Prey and predator in perfect understanding. He stared into Belberith’s true face and saw the horror there. It had been millennia since anyone had looked Belberith in the eyes, had plucked from its rotten, abused, and complex form the real face. Shaal-Muzar had managed to stare past the affectation and illusion to what was beneath and looked deep into its soul, and what he saw there was pathetic and weak, as he knew it would be. He felt the disgust rise up in him that such a thing had been allowed to climb so high. Before Belberith could say a word, frozen in shock and horror at its undoing, the claws lashed out. The cuniform etched into them burned, and they slid past the false reality that Belberith wove about itself, crashing into the frail form within, the left claw crushing the skull with one deft strike, the right closing around the too-thin chest, snapping ribs and crushing the black, tar-filled pustule that acted as a heart. Belberith collapsed without a word, the dull thump of the fleshy construction it had built around itself sounding hollow and small now that the majesty of it had been revealed to be a lie. The body was a puppet and a portal, a means to another reality that nothing should have been able to pass, but Shaal-Muzar had long ago learned how to slip through it and had waited so very long to cut these strings. The book tumbled out of its hands, and he leaned down to pick it up. Within would be all the names he needed, for Belberith, ever the studious researcher, would have done all the work for him. He flicked through the book, the crushing claws surprisingly deft and gentle at the task, and tore from it the pages he needed. He had little desire to keep Belberith's secrets for him now that the creature was dead. Let everyone see him for what he was. A liar and conniver who was not equal to his task. A weakling and a worm who had survived only as long as his betters had allowed him to. A pathetic blight who thought himself above his station. But the names he would keep for himself. Each one was a demon who had sought to change the Lords who sat upon the thrones. Each one willing to play the required role to make that happen. Such names would be useful, and they would be as lost as ships amongst the storm now that Belberith was dead. Shaal-Muzar had no longing for the thrones, but his masters had no longing for change, either. Belberith had plotted, thinking to take steps out of the shadows and earn a seat for himself. He had been a fool, and let the rest see what happened to fools. As he left the hall, the crumpled mess of what was once Belberith behind him, he allowed himself the memory of the shock upon his enemy's face as the web of lies came so easily undone. No, this was not a game for fools, and those who would let their greed dull their vision. Shaal-Muzar thought of his own dreams and the things he wanted for himself. His mind turned to the pages, the names written in blood, hidden now among the folds of his robes. He had no desire for thrones. For now, at least. --- Shaal-Muzar, The Dirge of Nineveh “I whispered into the ears of kings, and they mistook my voice for their own ambition.” Before Dis raised its banners, before the blood-gates of Jerusalem were torn open, there was Nineveh - the jewel of the Assyrian empire.It fell not to war or famine, but to a single figure cloaked in incense and shadow: Shaal-Muzar, whose name has been stricken from every surviving record - save the flesh of those who remember. Shaal-Muzar was once the advisor to the kings of Assyria, a priest-scholar and astronomer who claimed to read the will of the gods in the entrails of beasts and the weeping of captives. In truth, he served no god of man. He had already cast his soul into the black fires of Dis, becoming the first one to broker a deal between Assyria’s worldly might and Hell’s eternal hunger. Under his counsel, Nineveh reached its apex. And then, when the moment was right, he opened its gates to damnation. It is said that half of a million souls were taken with one specific act. The ziggurats were blackened from within. The streets choked with ash. And atop the crumbling Temple of Ishtar, Shaal-Muzar carved the first Hell-sigil into a royal corpse. While the Babylonians were laying siege to the vast city, it was Shaal-Mazur who planted the seed in King Sin-Shar-Ishkun to open the gates and allow his soldiers to swarm the enemy from within. It was a foolish thing to do, but Shaal-Mazur knew the bloodshed afterwards would secure him power among hell’s chosen. Shaal-Muzar is a priest of ritual, not spectacle. Even in Dis, he practices the unclean rite of drawing hermetic circles, using them to orchestrate the suffering of the Wretched. His true strength is in his goetic dominion, and in the ancient laws of infernal pacts which he alone remembers. When brought to the battlefield to bring war to the faithful, he prefers to engage his foes head on. His arms terminate in great, ossified claws, etched with prayers in reversed cuneiform - a demonic relic and gift for his great service to The Court. His blows tear through body and blessing alike. The blood he spills does not stain the ground, but rather it seeps towards the heavens, vanishing into runes drawn in the air. His mask is forged of hell-metal, and has been constructed to allow his thirteen lying mouths to each screech and curse the traitor-god YHWH as he spills more blood for his masters. Beneath his robes, skulls of Assyrian royalty clatter with every step, bound in rusted chains. He wears no insignia, and he claims no throne - yet among the servants of Dis, Shaal-Muzar is revered. He is the architect of the first great blasphemy. The priest who laid a city down like a lamb and led it into the mouth of Hell. Where he walks, the ground remembers Nineveh. And it weeps. Shaal-Mazur is not regarded as a conqueror, but rather a sermon - and his gospel is the destruction of all Christendom. The Procession of Ashur's Doom“He does not ride to war. He is carried on the shoulders of the condemned.” The cult of Shaal-Muzar is known as The Procession of Ashur’s Doom. It is not a warband in the conventional sense, but a slow and deliberate ritual to fuel the hate-engine that is the City of Dis - a living sacrament of ash, pain, and prophecy. These followers are not warriors, but implements of blasphemy - each one chosen, altered, or bred for sacrificial function. Their procession is a mobile temple, reenacting the fall of Nineveh wherever they pass. The Blood-Scribes are emaciated priests whose mouths have been sewn shut with gold wire. They inscribe Shaal-Muzar’s commands on their own flesh, using hooked styluses dipped in sacrificial ichor. Some have replaced their eyes with polished obsidian disks, seeing only the visions granted through pain and ritual. The hollowed-out slaves who carry censers filled with the sacred ash scraped from Nineveh’s ruins are known as Ash-Bearers. Their backs bear the brands of Dis, and their lungs are thick with burnt offerings. Smoke clings to them like a curse, and no prayer spoken near them is ever heard. A cluster of acolytes with vocal cords replaced by bronze reeds and flutes known as the Flayed Choir bring up the rear of this procession. They chant in broken, ancient Assyrian, harmonizing through breath pumped by bellows sewn into their chests. Their songs cause nausea and vertigo, and many of the faithful vomit blood in their presence. The Mummified kings and generals of old Assyria, disinterred and reanimated by Shaal-Muzar's rites, are wrapped in crimson linens and bound in chains to great crucifixes. They are symbols of the folly of men, and their empty sockets leak wax and myrrh while they beg for forgiveness for their ancient sins. Each is a corpse-standard, bearing the shame of a fallen empire. Among this unholy throng are the still-living captives, restrained in spiked iron frames and ritually mutilated. Their screams are siphoned through bone flutes; their blood is channeled into hermetic geometry carved into the battlefield. These glyphs empower Shaal-Muzar’s ancient goetic rites. They are both fuel and part of an altar. The cult assembles, forms its shape, and dies by design. They are not meant to win battles, they are meant to prepare them for Shaal-Muzar’s arrival, and for whatever fresh hell comes after. (Writing by Taylor Holloway and Aiden O'Brien) This miniature includes Shaal Muzar - Dirge of Nineveh, in both supported and unsupported formats (LYS and STL), and a premium 40mm base. There are two variations of the same model in this kit.
