Bonesplitterz
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Grand Alliance Destruction
Bonesplitterz |
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- – Theodore Roosevelt
Orruks are insane, that goes without saying. But these gitz are so balls-to-the-walls crazy that even other Orruks call them weird. The Bonesplitterz are Orruks possessed by the spirit of Gorkamorka, and subsequently degenerate to grunting and getting into more scraps than usual. These Orruks band together into Warclans, and hunt giant monsters to suck the spirit of Gorkamorka out of their bones. Yeah, there’s a reason other Orruks stay away from them.
Whenever Orruks get into a good scrap, the power of the Waaaagh! fills them and they enter a battle frenzy. Typically after the battle is over this leaves them and they calm down. However, sometimes the Waaaagh! permanently stays inside an Orruk. This quickly drives them quite insane, and they usually end up either wandering away their original tribe or getting forcibly exiled once their former mates get annoyed with their antics. When these mad Orruks meet, they band together, forming the tribes of the Bonesplitterz. Unusually for Orruks, they aren't lead by whoever's biggest, but by their shamans. Said shamans are guided by omens given to them by Gork and Mork (read: they see some random shit which their schizophrenic minds interpret as an omen). They believe that a bit of Gorkamorka's power is in every animal, and thus their prime goal is to collect the bones of the mightiest beasts in the realms in order to claim this power for themselves. This makes them a general nuisance to every other faction, as most armies tend to rely on some kind of giant monster as support.
Each Warclan is “organized” into a collection of hunting parties called Rukks, which all come together to form a Big Rukk (we said they were crazy, not creative). Each Rukk is lead by either some form of Shaman or a Savage Big Boss, all of which answer to the leader of the Warclan called the Wurrgog Prophet.
On the Subject of Madness[edit]
If the Bonesplitterz were in the World-that-Was, their mentality would be rightly considered an affliction of their feeble minds. But they're not. In the Age of Sigmar, the gods are very real. They lead armies, they nominate Soulbound, they... take the form of a freaking moon to fuck shit up. Speaking directly to the gods or being gripped by their divinity happens all the time. Nagash and Sigmar all but personally kiss their champions on the forehead before sending them off to war. Furthermore, the God Beasts on all the Realms can get so large that mountains form from their bodies. On Ghur, the continents themselves are alive and eat each other. To say that what the Bonesplitterz believe is madness or folly is to ignore the fantastic nature of the time and place where they live.
Having said that, it doesn't make them any less singular or easier to get along with.
Squatting[edit]
- – Gurgak Weirdteef's last words
4th Edition for Age of Sigmar has seen the Bonesplitterz get shoved off the Orruk roster and into Legacies. To be honest, nobody really mourned them on this front since the army's still running with the same models they've been running with since Warhammer Fantasy died (and Warhammer: The Old World hasn't been exactly kind to making variant orc armies either, but that's another issue) while the Ironjawz and Kruleboyz were completely unique to the setting. So of all the casualties of the great purge they were probably the least mourned as by that point many were getting more surprised they even lasted this long.
The lore explanation from the free "battletome" is truly tragic. The voices of beasts in their heads soon turned into bells rattling their skulls. About half of the Bonesplitterz made pilgrimages to the Realm's Edge in order to calm down, the other half decided to fight the rats. This was after the screaming bells drove them mad enough to fight each other.
Warclans[edit]
- Bonegrinz: The largest of the Bonesplitterz Warclans, this rambunctious horde of beast hunters was started by Gurkak Weirdteef, a Wurrgog Prophet whose teeth “speak” to him, telling him all sorts of secrets and knowledge about the things he eats. This unique insight he possesses allowed his Warclan to become surprisingly innovative in how they conduct their hunts. Orruks of the Bonegrinz warclan will use arrow heads and choppas carved from the amber realmstone of Ghur, which drives any stabbed by it to fly into a feral charge...perfect for the Orruk hunters to run them down. Additionally, each Rukk in the Warclan devotes themselves to a particular type of beast and seek to emulate its strengths by donning it’s bones and hide and using tattoos in tribal depictions of said beast.
- Drakkfoot: These guys are called weird by the other Bonesplitterz, so that alone makes them unique. These Orruks are defined by pure vitriolic RAGE, a hate for all that does not venerate Gorkamorka in the same dogmatic fashion that they do. Their most hated enemies though are daemons and Nighthaunt: 1) because neither entity produces bones for the Drakkfoot to collect and 2) their original home of the Ashland Gorelakes in Aqshy was devastated by both parties. Their loathing has turned the Drakkfoot into hateful specialists of fighting daemonic and ethereal forces, from performing ritualistic dances to destabilize a daemon’s connection to the physical plane to bloody tattoos to deflect spiritual magic.
- Icebone: Originating from the glaciers of the Skyblind Tundras in Ghur, these icy Orruks have a religious obsession with boars, seeing them as the ultimate symbol of Gorkamorka’s power. This stems from their belief in a god beast called Shattatusk, a snow white boar that Gorkamorka ‘supposedly’ fought in the Age of Myth. The fragments of its tusks fell down into the Realm of Beasts and became the glaciers that the Icebone Orruks call home. They chip away at the glaciers to create enchanted ice weapons that can never melt and freeze the insides of those they cut. The Icebone has spread surprisingly far across the Mortal Realms by following the equally frigid paths of the Beastclaw Raiders and their Everwinter.
Those with zero love from GW[edit]
- Flintjawz: Another Warclan from Ghur. They chip off the stone golems of the Stormwrack Sea to make their weapons and skin the rift-sharks to make clothing and armor. These brutes also worship the two-headed shark Skwidmuncha as a world spirit of the realm.
- Burnbiters: These guys have a hate-boner for the Fyreslayers, mocking them by wearing orange warpaint and carrying gold looted from magmaholds. Since this warclan is native to Chamon, they might be stealing from the Gevalgd Lodge.
- Splinterfoot: They might not have rules at all, but they got a sweet painting where they zap the local hugging tree. The reason they're in Ghyran is because their prophet Urgronk Wurrteef got hit in the head and got a vision of "Big Leef" somewhere in that realm.
Soulbound[edit]
Bonesplitterz are perhaps the orruks most likely to be drawn into a Binding, simply because they're the most spiritual of their kind. In fact, the phenomenon is actually somewhat well-known to their kind; when a Bonesplitter just up and starts walking away from their Rukk without any explanation, the warclan's elders or mystics often give knowing nods and just let it happen; they know that Gorkamorka is calling that orruk. As to why they're being called? They don't really care; reasoning and puzzling are foreign concepts to Bonesplitterz, who generally live by the law "don't think; feel".
Ironically, they are natural diplomats, in so far as the races of Destruction go! Being tough like Gork means they earn the (grudging) respect of Ironjawz and Ogors, whilst being cunning like Mork means they can get on with the Gloomspite Gitz and the Kruleboyz. In fact, they actally do surprisingly well in not only mixed-race Destruction Bindings, but in mixed-Faction Bindings! After all, a Bonesplitter already found a family once in his warclan; a Binding is no different. As for them looking different, well, so what? Gorkamorka has A Cunning Plan, and if these boyz is good enough for Gorkamorka, then they're good enuff for me!
A side effect of this strange combination of deep spirituality, blithe acceptance, and sheer self confidence is that Bonesplitterz are relatively easy to wrangle in a mixed-faction Binding. Oh, they still need to be kept under control, and they still expect there to be some kind of Boss visibly giving orders, but the fact is that a Bonesplitter will usually excuse any length that their companions go to in order to keep them out of trouble; in the Bonesplitter'z eyes, they've all been chosen by Gorkamorka, so that means that this is just part of Da Plan.
Adorably, the most common Bonesplitta to join an Order Binding is the Wardokk, who spends most of his time acting as the hype-man to his fellow Soulbound and trying to get them to have fun. Have fun murdering and breaking things, but still.
Bonesplitter Soulbound can hail from the following warclans:
- Bonegrinz: This warclan specializes in hunting down the biggest, nastiest monsters by riddling them with arrows, and they particularly like to use arrowheads made from amberbone - the realmstone of Ghur. The warclan's ultimate ambition is to devour the spirit of Ghur itself by gathering enough amberbone to penetrate its crust, and even when a Binding isn't working towards this goal, a Bonegrin is usually motivated by the promise of collecting lots of realmstone, fighting big nasty monsters, or both. Heroes from the Bonegrinz start play with three Amber-Tipped Arrows and gain the Hail of Doom talent for all archetypes.
- Drakkfoot: Haling from the Ashland Gorelakes of Aqshy, the Drakkfoot have been fighting daemons of Khorne forever, and since the Necroquake, have found themselves having to beat up processions of Nighthaunts too. They hate daemons and spooks, and for this reason (and their incredible sense of loyalty), they make surprisingly good allies for Order. Heroes from the Drakkfoot PC gain "Strength of Purpose", which gives their attacks Magical and Penetrating against Daemons and the Ethereal. They can also use Soul (Devotion) for any Test to stop a summoning, banish an unnatural creature, or resist the effects of a spell cast by a Daemonic or Ethereal creature.
- Icebone: Hailing from the Skyblind Tundras of Ghur, the Icebone worship a boar godbeast called Shattatusk as well as the icy elementals of their homeland. They have a particular reverence for the Beastclaw Raider ogors and their Everwinter as a result, and the dream of any Icebone orruk is to be Soulbound with one. But, even without that prize, being Soulbound is just a big temptation; what's not to love about roaming the Realms and slaying new monsters? Heroes of Icebone PCs gain "Freezing Strike", where a 6 on an attack or damaging spell causes the target to be covered in magical ice that slows an enemy - even immobilizing an opponent that's already as slow as possible.
The archetypes available to Bonesplitterz are Morboy, Wardokk, and Wurrgog Prophet.
| Playable Factions in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar | ||
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| Order | ||
| Chaos | ||
| Death | ||
| Destruction | ||
