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This is the first of a 2 part article exploring lore connections between the old Iron Kingdoms and the Cyriss galaxy. Both will have a healthy dose of speculation, but I think there are hints about what it could mean for the future of Warcaster.

To start with the point: I think the yet to be revealed “Faction 6” for Warcaster (worked on alongside the Lost Legion) will have significant dragon presence, and related to the new Khymera dragon faction in War Machine.

Dragons? That’s crazy

So to start: dragons in the old Iron Kingdoms are outsiders. All are related to Toruk, who is alien to the world – existing outside the people and gods of the Iron Kingdoms. He may have arrived before any other presence on Caen, before many of the creator gods such as Menoth, and the Devourer Wurm, possibly with only Dhunia around before him. He arrived as an ‘athanc’ – a crystal that contains the power and soul of the dragon, then forged his body around the athanc.

But Toruk got bored and started splitting his athanc to create new dragons, hoping for some company or servants in the new world. They quickly rebelled, and while none could threaten the power retained by Toruk, they were nonetheless powerful enough to keep him at bay. Since then Toruk has bent everything in his power to recapture his lost athanc shards – and has succeeded devoured a few dragons in duels. His wounds after these fights take time to heal, but he is patient, and forged the undead empire of Cryx to explore and invade for any signs of lost dragons.

Each dragon has their own (mostly) hidden lair, and there is a very slow war that is at a tense stalemate. Toruk is capable of fighting any dragon, but the other dragons will ally and fight together if Toruk approaches the the mainland.

The runt of the litter – Everblight

One of the weakest dragons is Everblight – but he is cunning and willing to experiment with his Athanc more than the others. He lost an early fight with Toruk, but fled toward another dragon and let Toruk consume him instead. Later, Everblight was trapped in tunnels by a huge Iosan force, and his body was destroyed. They imprisoned his athanc, but it was forgotten and recovered by an ogrun named Thagrosh the messiah. Since then, Everblight has not reformed his dragon form, but instead carved off tiny slivers of the athanc and give them to his warlocks. The warlocks get a fraction of a dragon’s power, including the ability to create dragon-like warbeasts, but effectively become slaves and forced to follow Everblights commands.

This is a very abridged summary – for more read https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Lore_-_Everblight and https://warmachineuniversity.com/mw/index.php/Lore_-_Toruk

Two of Everblight’s warlocks – Saeryn and Rhyas are twins. Saeryn can see the future, and willingly offered herself to Everblight, with some future path in mind. She has since then showed the ability to overcome and resist Everblight’s control, having tricked him for a portion of his power.. The twins share a deep bond, and their thoughts become one, but Saeryn has kept some secrets from both Rhyas and Everblight.

Hengehold

The world of Warcaster is the galaxy of Cyriss – a long way across the stars from the Iron Kingdoms and Caen. A cult of mathematicians on Caen dedicated their lives to understanding a blinking message in the stars. They created a religion around Cyriss, who they called the ‘maiden of gears’, and the machine goddess seems inseparable from the galaxy. Perhaps the careful flow of arc through the Cyriss galaxy parallels the precision of a clockwork machine. Over time the cultists discovered how to transfer their souls into clockwork mechanical forms to continue their work. They also worked on creating a portal to allow Cyriss into the world, using the message in the stars.

We now understand that this was a message from the Empyreans, to encourage other worlds to create a void gate. Once the void gate is created, the Empyreans invaded through it – either absorbing the inhabitants into their empire or destroying them. But Caen is a long way from Cyriss, and the message arrived thousands of years after the Empyreans had gone to sleep: it was never intended for Caen to see the message.

Instead, when the Iron Kingdoms thought their world would be destroyed, they used the void gate to let refugees through, inhabiting Cyriss. Next week I will talk more about which characters from the Iron Kingdoms went through, but the important one today is Saeryn – one of Everblight’s warlocks.

Emergence

Saeryn and Rhyas were fighting near the Void Gate. Suddenly Saeryn saw a chance to escape Everblight’s control and walked through the gate, but was destroyed – rejected her alien athanc, her dragon shard.

Saeryn shared a final, knowing look with her sister, stepped forth, and explosively evaporated like a raindrop upon molten steel. It was as if Cyriss, the machine goddess herself, interfered with Saeryn’s passing, sensing something so anathematic to the Goddess’ own being that She was stirred to action. Rhyas witnessed the destruction of her soul-linked sister at the summit of their quest to fulfil their enigmatic destiny.

Emergence – War Machine Mk4 app

Rhyas absorbed Saeryn’s discarded athanc sliver, and having touched the gate it now has influences of Cyriss. Where before Rhyas could create dragons she can now create fusions of dragons and Cyriss mechanika, but is in opposition to both Cyriss who rejected them and the dragon they betrayed. Saeryn sent messages to Rhyas “Our true war and purpose are on a timeline indifferent to these people and these lands”.

Theory

I think Saeryn passed through the portal, and though her Athanc was brutally ripped out she has survived and cultivating new dragon powers on the other side. She is still mentally connected to Rhyas and the Iron Kingdoms, and their respective worlds are influencing each other. Saeryn is passing visions of Cyriss to Rhyas who is integrating Cyriss into draconic creations. Meanwhile, their connection is letting Saeryn draw on Rhyas’ athancs to create dragon hybrids in Cyriss. After all this, I think Warcaster’s unannounced “Faction 6” under development is a dragon based faction, and counterpoint to War Machines’ Khymera faction. Saeryn’s ultimate prophecy that she has been guiding towards was to gain dragon powers through Everblight and ultimately use them on Cyriss as an intergalactic dragon goddess.

Cyriss recognised the dangers of dragons in her galaxy, and rejected the athanc but didn’t reckon on Saeryn drawing the powers back to her through her pairing with her sister.

An alternative that gets to a similar point: Toruk was an alien from outside Caen. There are likely other dragons out there that had previously been fought away from Cyriss by the Architects or other forces. Now a new dragon is returning from the fringes of the galaxy. These dragons may have been referred to in the ‘omens’ artwork. It is still possible that Saeryn has been adopted as a disciple of this new (or very old) dragon.

Evidence

Wait… evidence? Well, we’ll see what we can do.

Firstly- the Khymera announcement video came with a ‘double heads slamming together’ motif – representing either Cyriss and Dragon influences, or Saeryn and Rhys’ dual influence. These are shown below. However, the recent Shadowflame shard army only shows the left black head as a logo. I think the second orange head represents either Saeryn or Warcaster’s dragons.

An alternative explanation is that the first ‘army’ of Khymera in War machine is the Black Head, with a second War Machine army being the Orange head. However, no other War Machine Mk4 faction has been announced with 2 armies at the same time – and in fact the first Mk4 armies still haven’t seen signs of a second army. To have 2 army logos for the factions’ first announcement would be very different to what we’ve seen so far.

It is clear that Khymera are ‘special’ with the dual influences of Cyriss Galaxy and Dragons, and I think it is supposed to be flowing in both directions. It is too tempting to draw a connection between Khymera and the unnanounced Warcaster faction that we are likely due for more information on soon.

Omens

I’ll keep speculating on Omens and Faction 6. For those not familiar- a major art piece in the Thousand Worlds book prophesized of a future destroyer, devouring everything in its path. It was chased away in the past, and now dreams of vengeance.

All these sound like descriptions of a shamed dragon, chased away by the architects long ago and now hungry for revenge.

One other point in favour of this theory – Saeryn’s title as a warlock is the “Omen of Everblight”. This would be a very clever Easter Egg from PP if they pulled it off.

Conclusion

So that’s my thoughts – highly speculative, but the timing of the releases feels right. What do you think – what are the chances of a “Dragons of Cyriss” faction coming next for Warcaster? Any other thoughts on how it could play out?