Vashtorr

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"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

– President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address

"As the mad men play on words
And make us all dance to their song
To the tune of starving millions
To make a better kind of gun"

– Iron Maiden, Two Minutes To Midnight

"The future is now, old man."

– Vashtorr, trading barbs with his predecessor

We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty.

Vashtorr the Arkifane is a daemon unaligned to any of the Chaos Gods who holds dominion over the Forge of Souls; though he has no loyalty to any of the four major Chaos Gods, he has established himself as a demigod by acting as their shared arms dealer, thus making him important enough to deter any of them from trying to attack him. A being born from humanity's drive to create and invent, his technological skills have made him not only a figure of adoration among the Dark Mechanicus and Warpsmiths among the dark powers, but also the mastermind behind the newfangled Arks of Omen, weaponized Space Hulks molded by his own flesh that are part of Abaddon's renewed offensive on the Nachmund Gauntlet. The two of them now seek the fragments of an ancient relic known only as "The Key", which if reassembled would give its wielder the power to define the fate of the galaxy itself. This is because the Key would allow its wielder to open a portal to anywhere in existence, including to a secret vault hidden in the Webway which is apparently jam full of all kinds of weapons and knowledge left behind by the Old Ones during the War in Heaven.

Curiously enough, Vashtorr might actually be more along the lines of Lawful Evil rather than whatever spectrum the big 4 decide to be on any given day. While the contracts he brokers with daemons willing to become Soul Grinders are never exactly fair, he's a stickler for the exact terms of each contract and will always uphold them. Often, it's the contracted daemons who grow too greedy and thus break the terms of their own accord.

In any event, despite the best efforts of the Imperium of Man, Farsight Enclaves, or his demonic rival Be'lakor to stop him he ultimately managed to get all the artifact pieces he needs. So at the end of the Arks of Omen narrative, he is able to form the Key or “dissonance engine” as it’s also known by rebuilding the shattered remnants of the Dark Angels homeworld of Caliban and turning it into a Daemon World which Vashtorr rechristened as Wyrmwood. As it turns out the whole damn planet was the key the whole time, with it being confirmed that, as had been theorized by fans from the three time-warping relics of Caliban, the Old Ones actually made it to create and expand the Webway. Guess Big E looks mighty stupid for not using this instead of the Golden Throne, eh- *BLAM* All he was missing was the final piece, The Rock; lucky for him the Dark Angels were already rightly pissed off by fact their home world was now fully a demonic hellhole and charged right in. However before the Dark Angels or their newly returned Primarch Lion El'Jonson (and some Blood Angels who arrived in Jonson's request) could try and kill Vashtorr or his Chaos allies for this offense, Vashtorr activated the Dissonance Engine and opened a new portal into the Webway that absorbed Wyrmwood and thus allowed him and his allies to escape. Now the rest of the galaxy can only hope and pray that someone amongst them can track Vashtorr down and stop him before he can locate the Webway vault and uses it to ascend to godhood.

Notably, there's been no word about his presence in the Mortal Realms. On one hand, his presence is so recent that there was likely no chance for him to even appear in the most recent Chaos Battletomes, meaning that GW has plenty of time to write up some sort of plot hook to add him in and preserve the pan-universal theming of daemons. However, it's also likely that he just won't show up there as the forces of Chaos in that setting don't really have much on the tech angle - but c'mon, there's no way you wouldn't want Warp-corrupted steampunk dwarf zepplins. Also, Hashut is the one filling his niche of "evil god of industry" for fantasy/AoS. Not necessarily. Hashut in both Fantasy and Age of Sigmar is the Chaos God of Tyranny, whereas Vashtorr seems to be more of the embodiment of the innovative spirit. For Hashut, it is not the Dawi Zarr's use of technology that feeds him, but the subjugation and suffering that they use to fuel their infernal forges and their binding of technology with souls of the damned and daemons forever bound within Daemon Engines. Vashtorr does not operate in the same way, as he does not deceive or manipulate, but instead seeks to innovate, modify and grow as people are pushed to ever more dangerous extremes of development. In that sense, Hashut and Vashtorr are just complimentary in that tyranny does not necessitate the harsh conditions of the forge, but in the grim darkness of the far future where technological innovation is dying, the two may overlap more than one would hope.

While holding considerable power in the Warp, his efforts to become a fifth Chaos God have so far been stymied by a lack of influence over the Materium, and so he sees his alliance with Abaddon as an opportunity to establish himself in realspace. Thus far, the only real opposition he faces is from Be'lakor, who undoubtedly does not like the competition for his own attempts in ascending to godhood. However, like his parents, even he hesitates at making a direct offensive lest he find himself thrown into a pit of thousands of daemon engines.

Etymology

His epithet of 'Arkifane' spells out his role within the Forge of Souls, 'Arki' coming from Ancient Greek and Latin for 'chief or leader' and comes from the older árkhō meaning 'to lead, rule, govern or begin'. While 'Fane' comes from the Latin 'fanum' meaning shrine or temple. So Vashtorr the Arkifane literally means Vashtorr the master of the shrine. Digging into meanings a little you also get Vashtorr 'the first of the shrine', in the ancient Greek/Roman sense of the 'first citizen' being the oldest and most respected man within the Senate and unspokenly the most influential and powerful member. A title that was taken and used by all Roman Emperors for that very reason, to demonstrate that they were the most powerful person in the Senate. Roman Emperors were also deified after death, and later were deified while they were alive and regarded as gods within the Roman pantheon, which is the goal of Vashtorr within the Chaos Pantheon.

So you can read his epithet as: Vashtorr the first, the most powerful, the leader, The God or soon to be God, of the shrine (The Forge of Souls).

Crunch

Ooooo, pointy!

As you might expect from the lord of the Forge of Souls, Vashtorr's abilities excel in both empowering allied Daemon Engines and crippling the machines of his enemies. His main ability, Will of the Arkifane, has one of three modes that can be chosen from in each Command Phase. The first one adds +1 to hit to all Chaos Space Marine Daemon Engines (other than aircraft, Characters, and superheavies) within 3" of him, the second causes an enemy unit within 18" to have their guns' range get cut in half, and the last one halves the movement and Attacks of an enemy vehicle within 18".

He's fairly good in a fight himself, with plenty of Wounds, the FLY keyword, Warp Strike, a 4++ invulnerable save, and the ability to reduce incoming damage by 1. His weapons are his claws (a 12" S5 AP-2 flamer) and his hammer (an AP-2 power fist that deals 4 mortal wounds to a targeted vehicle on a 5+). As an Agent of Chaos he can join any Legion or Chaos faction without breaking their mono-faction bonuses, making him a good way of supplementing any army that could use a little extra mechanized oomph (particularly when supplemented by his Army of Renown rules).