The End Times are come.

To the north, the hordes of the Chaos Gods muster in numbers beyond even those seen in the days after the fall of the Old Ones. Daemons and monsters and mutants beyond counting, but men of all kinds also rally to the banner of the Dark Gods. At last the Great Four have set aside their eons-long feud with one another. Khorne, the Blood God, Nurgle, the Lord of Plague, Slaanesh, Prince of Excess, and Tzeentch, the Great Conspirator are determined to claim the world for themselves, and for that purpose have blessed a great mortal warrior: Archaon, called Everchosen. To his banner flock the numberless hordes of Chaos, eager to shed the blood of all who would oppose their masters. The merest vanguards of his armies have already overrun lands long denied the Dark Gods, and now their full strength marches to the south, and to war.

Against this tide of madness many and mighty forces stand arrayed. The Great Necromancer, Nagash, has returned at last through blood-soaked ritual. He has united all the forces of the undead, casting down even Settra, called Imperishable, and claiming his homeland Nehekhara at long last. The undead march to war against the forces of the Dark Gods, but this is scant comfort to the living – for Nagash seeks nothing less than the utter annihilation of all life, that he may rule eternally in a silent kingdom of death.

The Empire of Man teeters on the brink. To the north, its long-held ally Kislev has been swept away under the tide of Chaos flowing from the polar gates. To the south, Tilea and Estalia alike have been overrun by swarms of chittering ratmen from under the earth, while Bretonnia stands on the edge of ruin, its countryside devastated with war and plague. The invasion of the Glottkin has been repelled at last at the very gates of the capital Altdorf, but at tremendous cost. Many towns and cities that have stood centuries are silent ruins, and Emperor Karl Franz knows that the worst is yet to come.

Yet men are not the only race so beset. Naggoroth, ancient bastion of the dark elves, has fallen to the forces of the Blood God. Malekith, the Witch King, gambled all on one last invasion of the island continent of Ulthuan, his ancestral home. Civil war wracked the elves as ancient distinctions between high and dark fell away. In the end, victory was to prove pyrrhic at best, with Ulthuan itself lost beneath the waves for all time. Some elves were able to flee to the mystic forest of Athel Loren under the newly-crowned Eternity King, but they are greatly reduced.

Now, rumors say, even as Archaon and his forces march south, another threat emerges. The Skaven, loathsome ratmen long buried beneath the surface of the world, rise up in armies beyond count to claim the planet for their own, under the guidance of the Vermin Lords, daemons of their god the Horned Rat. With Tilea and Estalia already overrun, the thought of where they will strike next sends fear through the hearts of the wise.

And yet…

This is but one world. There are more; many more. And the Dark Gods would not see even one outside their unholy grip. Now, at a time when their powers wax greater than ever before on a tide of bloodshed and sacrifice and despair, they sense an opportunity. A pathway long closed has been reopened. On the other side lies a world of peace and plenty, long pristine and innocent. A world that true Chaos has never touched. That, the Dark Four have determined, must change. And now is the time to do it.

A portion of the Everchosen’s host breaks off on the long march from the polar gates. Though only a fraction of his horde, there are men and monsters enough to drown entire nations in waves of blood. And that, guided by the visions of their warlords, is exactly what they intend to do.

Now the land of Equestria shall learn.

The End Times are come.