Teclis
"The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading."
- – David Bailey
A High Elf character from Warhammer Fantasy, once considered just a plain standard suped up archmage for the High Elf players, Teclis is Ulthuan's Sorcerer Supreme Warden of the White Tower of Hoeth, and has now proven himself to be a grand manipulator so underhanded, so devious even Tzeentch is impressed and eager to scout him out for his talent. He's primarily responsible now for bringing the three elven splinter races back into one united race, and as of End Times: Thanquol, he's shown to have survived and runs around stealing the power of the remaining gods to bring back his brother Tyrion. All the manipulation and horrible stuff he did in End Times is however out of character with how he was before, where he was a pretty nice guy.
Also if you pay attention, pretty much everything bad that happens in the End times that's not Mannfred's or the forces of Chaos' fault is Teclis' fault. Though Mannfred would not have even gotten to the stage where he could have screwed things up so bad were it not for Teclis.
The Legend[edit]
Tyrion's twin brother. While Tyrion's "Aenarion's Curse" manifested in being a half step away from being Gollum for the Widowmaker, Teclis was born an anemic cripple with a bad cough instead. The book out right calls it "consumptive" which is an old time word for tuberculosis, not a fun disease at all (though unlike tuberculosis, Teclis' condition isn't communicable). After spending most of his life in a magical wheelchair and being tended to (AKA experimented on) by the healing mages in Saphery, he wound up very thin and weak (even for an elf) and needs regular magic healing potions as well as the magical staff gifted to elfkind by Lileath the goddess of magic herself just to keep him standing upright. Don't think he's a no good weakling though (this goes double around Tyrion who will beat your ass if he finds out you're dissing his bro without a second thought. The two have a direct emotional psychic link, and while Teclis has a good deal of patience and good humor Tyrion...does not). Teclis, Nagash, and a few Slann are the strongest magic users alive (so to speak). After spending most of his teenage (hundreds of) years among mages and learning from them, he decided on the day that it became clear Ulthuan was about to be fucked that it was now or never to make something of himself. He began to forge a magic sword underneath Hoeth (a ritual that the Swordmasters, as well as their Loremaster superiors must do to become a man (or woman)), and upon it's completion (it was a really fuckawesome sword too, called the Sword of Teclis and in ages to come will probably be an awesome heirloom item for future heroes) was awarded the magical pimp hat of awesomeness (the War Crown of Saphery) as well as the rank of Loremaster. He set out to find his brother and the Everqueen, and would become something of a legend to the embattled elves during his travels. With a single word, he reduced the Slaaneshi champion Albrecht Numan and his warband to dust, and he turned the tide at the battle of Hathar Ford, and slew the feared Tzeentchian sorcerers known as the Coven of Ten.
He finally caught up with them right as the Keeper of Secrets N'kari was pulling off Tyrion's and the Everqueen's pants for some serious assraping. The KoS...didn't make it. After engaging Teclis's brother, the Everqueen gave Teclis the aforementioned staff as a consolation prize, and the two brothers set out to carry the entire High Elf race in the Battle of The Finuval Plain. While Tyrion was committing genocide Paul Bunyan-style in melee, Teclis nuked EVERYTHING and dispelled every miscast. After a short magical duel between Malekith and himself, Teclis cast a spell (with a little help from his patron deity Lileath) which reignited the flames of Asuryan which burned within the Witch King, forcing Malekith to tear open a portal into the Realm of Chaos itself to escape being obliterated mind, body, and soul. While Tyrion retired to the Everqueen's boudoir, Teclis decided that (in a very un Warhammer-ish way) it was the duty of those with great power to save the entire world, not just their own race. He left for the Empire, and taught humans true magic for the very first time (kickstarting the beginning of the Warhammer renaissance that is currently just beginning to take hold) by founding the schools of magic and fighting against the Daemons and Warriors of Chaos that were about to wipe out humanity.
That task being complete, he set out to explore the world (apparently all great heroes are either world explorers or fuck the Everqueen. Finubar must be glorious to behold if he'd ever get a mini). During his travels, Teclis met the uncorrupted giants, Slann, amazons, all the foreign civilizations there's never been an army for like Ind and Cathay, and even leading an expedition to see the Rift into Chaos at the north pole (and learn how to make toys!) Then Teclis got word that his father had died so he returned home for the funeral. After the funeral and a reunion with his brother Tyrion. Teclis planned to resume his travels until he got word that the High Loremaster had died so the position was being offered to Teclis, who accepted. Recently Teclis was gravely injured from a bitch move assassination attempt from Morathi. Nowadays he chills in Hoeth, reading articles on the internet, sexing High Elf courtesans (think prostitutes who only service royalty and not always for money), and feeling up Lileath's boobs on his ronery staff.
The End Times[edit]
In the End Times, Teclis got bored of the canon and stalemate getting everyone nowhere, so when Lileath told him her plan he leaped at the opportunity. The two are also responsible for some Just as Planned so dickish that Tzeentch would be impressed. His first move was to try to form an anti-Chaos alliance with Nagash (an idea that horrified even Malekith when he found out). Nagash rejected the offer to Teclis' face, but secretly commended Teclis for the idea before tweaking that into his own plan. Subsequently, Teclis worked to sabotage Nagash's resurrection.
Next, Teclis reached out to Malekith for an alliance as he'd learnt from Lileath that Malekith was the rightful Phoenix King and that all the others were imposters. What's more, Finubar had figured this out hence why he was so hands-off about kinging (this whole revelation was reversed as of Age of Sigmar; Broken Realms: Morathi shows all the Phoenix King souls still with fragments of Asuryan’s power. Whether this lie was made by Teclis or Lileath is unclear). Though desiring failure and a painful death for Teclis, Malekith decided to play along for the time being after considering the offer. Even then he only did so because of the coming apocalypse and Lileath herself speaking to Malekith. Afterwards Teclis tried to get the Phoenix King to take action, fed up with Finubar's passivity, so he kicked down the king's door. He found Finbuar dead, killed by Malekith shortly after accepting Telcis' offer. Teclis left the room, re-sealed it and went to convince Tyrion to take the throne. Later Malekith and Teclis contacted Imrik of Caledor. Imrik was completely against Malekith, but changed his tune after Caledor Dragontamer himself spoke for the alliance and Malekith returned all the dragon eggs the Dark Elves had stolen and lifted the malaise he'd cursed Caledor's dragons with.
Teclis played both sides according to Lileath's plan to try and see them through the apocalypse. There were some stumbling blocks in the selfish manipulations of Morathi and Nagash's plans for apothesis, but things go mostly as Teclis hoped. Teclis found himself even surpassing Malekith in one way, as he took Malekith on a spirit-walking journey to Nagashizzar to reveal his collaborations with the Great Necromancer. Teclis also revealed to Malekith that he'd allowed Nagash's servants to claim Aliathra so she would be sacrificed and Nagash would be hindered by Aenarion's curse (Naggy, Manny and Arky unaware of her true parentage; Neffy knew somehow, but only had a laugh at their expense). Malekith opposed this as much as Imrik had the alliance with himself, calling it dangerously foolish, his opposition deepening when Nagash's return caused undead to rise across Ulthuan and disrupt a major battle.
Soon Tyrion found out the depths of Teclis' plans, which were technically a massive betrayal. Torn between rage and despair, Tyion took an army to the Blighted Isle to draw the sword of Khaine. Malekith and Teclis tried to stop him, with Malekith duelling Tyrion. However Malekith and his dragon were weakened by previous battle injuries including a surprise attack from Shadowblade and Alith Anar shooting Seraphon out of the sky, so despite Tyrion sustaining severe burns and losing part of his jaw, Tyrion won. Teclis tried to talk Tyrion down, but given his recent actions, Tyrion was only spurred on. Tyrion drew the sword and fully gave in to Khaine's influence (helped by a little prodding from Morathi here and there).
After the war went back and forth, Teclis revealed the big part of his master plan; unravel the vortex and bind the winds of magic to chosen mortals to make them potential rivals to the Chaos Gods. Nagash had already stolen Death, so he needed a choice for the others. Teclis eventually convinced Malekith of the need to destroy the Great Vortex and create the Incarnates of the Winds of Magic. They gathered an army and traveled towards the Isle of the Dead. While Malekith's and Tyrion's forces did battle, Teclis started his ritual at the Great Vortex. He was assisted from inside the Vortex by Caledor Dragontamer, still trapped inside the Vortex when he created it millennia past.
Malekith's summoning the spirits of various elven heroes throughout the ages destabilized the Vortex, so Teclis and Caledor failed to harness the escaping winds properly. Ghur, the Wind of Beasts, broke free and soared eastwards. Chamon, the Wind of Metal, and Aqshy, the Wind of Fire, escaped due to the actions of the Dwarf gods Grungni and Grimnir. When Azyr, the Wind of Heavens, broke free Teclis noted a mind at work within it. During this time Alith Anar shot both Tyrion and Malekith. Seeing her lover and her son fall, Morathi was driven into a suicidal rage. She entered the Vortex, killed every mage but Caledor and started to tear it open. This allowed the Chaos god Slaanesh to start to enter the mortal realm. Teclis was forced to rush the ritual and seal the rift so Slaanesh couldn't enter. In the process he destroyed the spells supporting Ulthuan, with Slaanesh managing to grab Morathi and Caledor and take them to his realm before rift closed. Teclis bound the remaining three winds to the wounded Malekith (shadow, though Teclis had originally planned to give him fire), the Everqueen Alarielle (life, the only part of the plan that worked out) and his own staff (light).
With the ritual completed as well as it could be the Vortex faded away and Ulthuan began to fall apart and sink into the sea, killing hundreds of thousands. Initially it appeared Teclis planned to die with his brother, refusing Imrik's offer to help him by flying them out with his dragon. However Teclis had used magic to save himself, Malandhir and his brother's body. In End Times: Thanquol Teclis was on a secret journey carting Tyrion's body around with Malandhir and summoned elven spirits for companions. Here he made his greatest mistake by entering Middenheim and taking Ulric's flame for an unknown purpose, calling the Winter Wolf God a failure to add insult to injury. Teclis' actions unintentionally doomed Middenheim, as the removal of Ulric's power allowed Archaon and his forces to fully enter and capture the city, which became a base of operations for him.
In End Times Archaon, it's revealed that Teclis used the flame of Ulric to purge the taint of Khaine from Tyrion, used the Heart of Avelorn to resurrect him and imbued him with the Wind of Hysh to become the Incarnate of Light (with Malandhir being his steed again after temporarily serving as Teclis' packmule). The new Incarnate of Light Tyrion arrived just in time to stop Bea'lakor from fast-tracking the world's destruction by attacking the Oak of Ages. However, very few were glad to see Tyrion back after everything he did, especially Imrik and Malekith. When Nagash and the undead arrived in Athel Loren after the destruction the Black Pyramid, which thwarted Nagash's plans of apotheosis, Teclis told everyone how he'd been conspiring with Nagash to use him as an ally/weapon against the Chaos Gods and had given him the idea of harnessing the Wind of Death.
After everyone else grudgingly made an alliance with Nagash in exchange for punishing Mannfred, Teclis tried to council the Incarnates alongside Lileath on their next course of action but they get bogged down in bickering (mostly because Nagash refuses their suggestions and they don't know who or where the Incarnate of Beasts is). Things only changed when Bea'lakor, who was skulking around in Athel Loren after his defeat and had freed Mannfred, was captured by Tyrion and Malekith when trying to kill Lileath. The Incarnates interrogated the daemon, where Teclis learned just how badly his taking the flame from Middenheim had backfired. The forces of Chaos had found a device of the Old Ones and were re-purposing it into a warp gate that would destroy the world.
After Be'lakor was imprisoned in an unbreakable gem by Malekith and Caradryan, Teclis argued that they had to go to Middenheim to stop Archaon. They finally agreed on a plan - also spurred by the Bretonnians abandoning them after Mannfred revealed Lileath's deception as a final middle finger to everyone, but then an army of Khorne daemons led by the Bloodthirster Ka'bandha attacked to try and kill them. Things got so desperate that Lileath convinced Teclis to sacrifice her and use her divine power to teleport them and their armies to Middenheim (along with Grimgor and his army). Teclis succeeded, aided by Karl Franz (who unbeknownst to Teclis was also Sigmar. Arkhan the Black helped too), but instead of being teleported to the city as an organized army, they were scattered all over the place with Teclis literally landing at Archaon's feet. Archaon took Teclis captive for... reasons, confiscating his magical goodies. During his imprisonment Teclis figured out that Karl Franz was now Sigmar in disguise and rubbed this fact in Archaon's face, Archaon punching Teclis in the mouth in response. Teclis was eventually freed by a fully powered Sigmar and reunited with Tyrion, who had almost forgiven Teclis for what he'd done.
They got to the artifact and combined their power to try and stop it. Here Teclis showed his magical abiltiy by filling in for two Incarnates, because Grimgor had died at Archaon's blade and Caradryan at Ka'Bandha's. The sheer magical powers clashing in Teclis started to slowly rip his body apart, but Teclis kept it together (literally) through sheer will. Then Mannfred ruined everything by sneak-attacking Balthazar with a sword through the back. Teclis tried to take the Wind of Metal as well, but it proved too much and Teclis died as his body was ripped apart, not living to see the doom of the world or Tyrion avenging him by stabbing and incinerating Mannfred.
Age of Sigmar[edit]
Teclis survives the End Times, coming to be in Hysh through unknown means. After getting reunited with Tyrion, who now can only see through Teclis' eyes as he's blind, Teclis took stock of the situation. Both brothers are the gods of Hysh and allies with Sigmar. Because of his involvement with the mortal races, Teclis took an interest in them and created Enlightenment Engines, machines that store tons of knowledge and help elevate mortal understanding and progress until it essentially reaches where it was before the Old World blew up.
However, Sigmar pulled a fast one and had Grungni turn these contraptions of knowledge into tools that helped conceal the locations of the God-King's super-secret Stormvaults. Predictably, Teclis took a serious exception to this and Nagash is likely laughing his skeletal ass off at the hypocrisy (and stupidity seeing as Grungni could have just made devices of his own to do that instead). Sigmar better make it up to Teclis or he risks being betrayed on the elf-dude's assumption that Sigmar would undermine him even if Siggy has no intention of ever doing so again or something.
Teclis was also partly responsible for chaining Slaanesh up between the realms of Hysh and Ulgu and disemboweling the Dark Prince, releasing tons of elf souls. He tried to recreate the old High Elves, but their collective souls suffered PTSD from being in Slaanesh's innards, so they decided to run away. Fearing they were Chaos-tainted, Teclis wanted to destroy them, but his brother appealed to his compassion so Teclis let them go. As a result the horribly tragic, eternally depressed Idoneth Deepkin were allowed to go on their not-so-merry way.
Later Teclis tried making High Elves 2.0 again, this time successfully as the Lumineth Realm Lords. As part of this process, he also resurrected Eltharion, but Arkhan's curse kept turning Eltharion's body to dust so Teclis put his soul in a suit of armor while looking for a way to undo the curse.
Currently he's hanging out with Celennar, a giant sphinx-like creature that's apparently the manifest spirit of Hysh's moon. After the Soul Wars wage on for some time, Teclis prepares to invade the Realm of Shyish to make Nagash pay for being a little bitch and end the Soul Wars since Sigmar hasn't yet. After a series of battles, Teclis beats Nagash in a fight, binds him so he can't leave Nagashizzar and ends the Necroquake all while making a pyrotechnic demonstration across the Mortal Realms!
Though true be told he needed the help of Alarielle and several human disciples with Luminarks to beat Nagash and Nagash managed to curse Teclis with some sort of death magic. Still, the sequence of how Teclis played on Nagash ego to end up making him receive six super-lasers to the face and then got him beaten to a pulp was pure gold and it was long overdue after all the things the skellie-asshole had done.
On The Tabletop[edit]
To represent Teclis on the tabletop, at his current point in lore development his own mini and 8th edition stats do nicely. For a campaign where rules can be improvised, a Loremaster Teclis who has just returned home to Ulthuan after his travels is best represented by his 7th edition overpowered stats when running a campaign, or Alarielle the Radiant's stats with Teclis as a proxy model. For a Teclis setting out to explore the world, a level 4 Archmage with Book of Hoeth works well. For a pre-Loremaster Teclis, equip him as a Loremaster of Hoeth or a level 1/2 Mage while using another mage model (since he doesn't have his hat or staff yet).
In Age of Sigmar Teclis is back at it again with absurdly powerful magic. He gets to cast up to four times with at least a guaranteed Castvalue of 10 which cannot by modified and the spell cannot be unbound if he chooses to only cast once, access to all the spells in the Armybook, his own incredible Warscroll spells, that deal more mortal wounds than is socially acceptable and some decent melee to boot. He also protects himself and friendlies around him from hostile sorcery and buffs other mages. He's also giant, with 16 Wounds because his new friend Celennar is around. Oh, have we mentioned that he also also just gets to autounbind a spell a turn and can dispell an Endless spell for free as well? Any opposing Wizard weeps now, even Nagash (maybe not Kroak, though).
Total War:Warhammer[edit]
In Total War: Warhammer 2 Teclis appears, alongside his brother, as one of the starting Legendary Lords for the High Elves. He leads his own faction called the Order of the Loremasters and starts on the Turtle Isles in the vortex campaign and the Star Tower in the mortal empires campaign. From a gameplay perspective Teclis is a highly versatile caster unit, possessing a wide array of spells from the game's various magical lores. As such, he can fulfill a variety of different roles in battle. His campaign buffs include bonuses to diplomacy with all High Elven and Human factions, reflecting his role in the lore as a mediator between the two races.
His faction is infamous these days for getting completely fucking obliterated due to it being pretty much entirely alone while nearby a bunch of hostile Legendary Lords of the Lustria Thunderdome that are going to eventually push his shit in even if he gets lucky enough to beat one of them. It's a miracle for him to live long enough to see the End Times if he's not getting played by a human.
Gallery[edit]
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Teclis trying to chad-strut.
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Teclis' model.
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ASSERTING DOMINANCE WITH HIS MIGHT-POSE
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Teclis' appearance in Total War: Warhammer II, portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch
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Teclis' first AoS appearance, traded his handicap for swol with godhood.
The High Elves and their gods of Warhammer Fantasy | |||
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Characters: | Eltharion - Everqueen - Teclis - Tyrion - Prince Imrik - Alith Anar | ||
Cadai: | Asuryan - Hoeth - Isha - Kurnous - Lileath - Loec - Mathlann - Vaul | ||
Cytharai: | Addaioth - Anath Raema - Atharti - Drakira Eldrazor - Ellinill - Ereth Khial - Estreuth - Hekarti Hukon - Khaine - Ladrielle - Morai-Heg - Nethu | ||
Events: | The War of the Beard - The invasion of Naggaroth | ||
Misc: | Ulthuan - The Vortex - Waystone - Widowmaker | ||
Appearances: | Blood Bowl - Dreadfleet - Mordheim - Warhammer Fantasy Battle |
The Grand Pantheon of Age of Sigmar |
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Alarielle - Gorkamorka (Gork + Mork) - Grimnir - Grungni - Malerion - Nagash - Sigmar - Teclis - Tyrion |