In the dark corners of the Mortal Realms, the mysterious Gloomspite Gitz go to war, following the trail of their abominable deity. Nowhere is beyond the sight of the Bad Moon, not even those places under Sigmar’s protection, like the city of Draconium, sweltering beneath the scalding rain of Aqshy. In this boiling pot of tension, the regent prays to Sigmar for guidance while Captain Helena Morthan puts out fires: blades drawn in the streets, heretical doomsayers preaching the end of days, and insects eating watchmen alive.
When the grieving warrior Hendrick and his warband arrive at the gates with a prophetic warning, Captain Morthan sees a way to save her people. But with Skragrott the Loonking plotting underneath Draconium, and the Bad Moon looming in the sky above, will there be a city left to save?
This novel provides examples of:
- Anyone Can Die: And an awful lot of people do.
- Bad Moon Rising: Almost name-dropped. The Bad Moon whips the Moonclan grots into an apocalyptic frenzy, and leers over the city as they wreak their havoc.
- Brown Note Being: The Bad Moon gradually eats away at the sanity of all who look at it or stand directly in it's light, and strange fungal growths sprout from wherever that light shines... including human skin.
- Characters Dropping Like Flies: At the halfway point of the novel, the horror/mystery element is dropped, ushering in full-on apocalyptic madness... during which almost all of the characters horribly die.
- Lunacy: The light of the Bad Moon drives the Moonclan Grots into madness, it's hideous light mutating and warping them and the city.
- Our Zombies Are Different: At the feast to celebrate the end of the cities woes, the Gits poison the wine served, causing the unfortunate mayor to projectile-vomit clouds of spores that turn any partygoers they touch into ravenous, flesh eating beasts. They then convert other survivors into more of these creatures by vomiting similar spores in their faces.
- Posthumous Character: The book opens with the Swords of Sigmar having to kill Valen Saul, Hendrick's brother and their very capable leader, after he is mutated by a cursed crown into a rampaging monster. The groups attempts to give meaning to his death by acting on his prophecy directly leads to the rest of the book.
