What Is Shyish? — The Realm of Death in Age of Sigmar

Shyish is the Realm of Death, ruled by Nagash, the God of Undeath. In Shyish the afterlife takes physical form: it is made up of countless underworlds, each one shaped by a mortal culture’s beliefs about death. The Necroquake started here. In Shyish, death isn’t just where dead things go. It’s a real place, and the hopes and fears of every civilisation about what comes after death are built into its landscape.

Shyish is one of the most important realms in the Age of Sigmar story. It is Nagash’s domain, and the Necroquake, one of the setting’s biggest events, began here. Understanding Shyish goes a long way to understanding how death, souls and the gods fit together in the Mortal Realms.

What Is the Geography of Shyish?

Shyish’s geography is shaped by belief more than by nature. The realm is made up of countless underworlds, each the physical form of a particular culture’s ideas about death and the afterlife. A people who believed in an eternal feast after death might go to an underworld of endless banquets. A people who feared death as eternal darkness might go to an underworld of endless night.

Between the underworlds lie bleak, grey spaces of barren plains, dead forests and empty seas, under dim, colourless skies. Shyish is saturated with amethyst magic, the magic of death, which makes the line between life and death thinner here than anywhere else. Ghosts, spirits and undead are part of the landscape.

Shyish hasn’t always had the shape it has today. Nagash’s great ritual pulled the realm’s grave-sand and death magic towards the centre, creating the Shyish Nadir, a vortex of death magic at the heart of the realm. Since then, the realm has been drawn inwards towards the Nadir, and underworlds have been dragged towards the centre or swallowed. Accounts from before the ritual describe a very different Shyish.

Who Rules Shyish?

Shyish is ruled, or at least claimed, by Nagash, the God of Undeath. Nagash is one of the oldest and most powerful beings in the Warhammer setting. He has been destroyed and returned many times, and he believes that every soul that dies belongs to him by right, along with every underworld in Shyish.

Nagash wants total control. He seeks to bring every underworld, every spirit and every dead soul under his will, replacing the varied afterlives of the realms’ peoples with a single eternity of servitude to him.

That ambition puts him at odds with almost every other power. Sigmar and Nagash were allies in the Pantheon of Order during the Age of Myth, but the alliance broke apart. Nagash betrayed Sigmar by withdrawing his forces at the Battle of Burning Skies. Nagash, for his part, sees Sigmar as a thief, because the souls Sigmar takes to forge his Stormcast Eternals are souls Nagash believes are his. The Chaos Gods are rivals for the souls of the dead too, and the peoples whose underworlds lie in Shyish resist Nagash, because his rule means the end of their afterlives.

What Was the Necroquake?

The Necroquake is the most significant event in Shyish’s history, and one of the biggest in the whole Age of Sigmar setting. It was a massive shockwave of death magic released by Nagash’s great ritual, which was meant to give him power over the souls of the Mortal Realms.

At Nagashizzar, his fortress, Nagash built the Great Black Pyramid. Through it he drew Shyish’s realmstone, grave-sand, and its death magic towards the centre of the realm. The aim was to make himself master of death across all the realms.

The Skaven sabotaged the ritual. Their interference with the Great Black Pyramid at the critical moment turned Nagash’s controlled working into an uncontrolled explosion of death magic, which rippled out from Shyish across every Mortal Realm. That shockwave was the Necroquake.

Across the Mortal Realms, the dead rose and long-quiet spirits stirred. The barrier between life and death grew thin everywhere. The Nighthaunt, hosts of malevolent ghosts, poured out of Shyish to attack the living, and magic itself grew wilder as the realms were flooded with arcane energy. This period of war became known as the Soul Wars.

The surge of death magic also made the Stormcast Eternals’ reforging more dangerous. Reforging was already imperfect, and in most accounts the Necroquake made it harder for Sigmar to reclaim the souls of fallen Stormcast before Shyish’s pull reached them.

What Are the Underworlds of Shyish?

The underworlds are one of the richest parts of Age of Sigmar’s setting. Each is a physical place in Shyish that reflects a specific culture’s beliefs about death. In principle the variety is endless, because every civilisation that has ever existed added its own afterlife to the realm.

Some underworlds are paradises where the dead feast, rest or are reunited with loved ones. Others are places of punishment and torment. Many are simply strange, reflecting ideas about death that don’t fit neatly into “good” or “bad”.

One of the best-known places in Shyish is Shadespire, the Mirrored City. Its people tried to cheat death with shadeglass, and Nagash cursed the city for it. Shadespire is the setting of Warhammer Underworlds. Beneath it lies the Nightvault, a prison that Sigmar built to hold dangerous beings, which features in the Nightvault season of that game. Nagashizzar, Nagash’s own fortress, is covered in the FAQ below.

Since Nagash’s ritual, the pull of the Nadir has dragged underworlds inwards, and many have been damaged, merged or swallowed. That upheaval has let Nighthaunt processions, Ossiarch Bonereapers and even living expeditions fight over territory and resources across the realm.

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What Factions Are Based in Shyish?

Shyish is home to the main Death factions of Age of Sigmar.

The Nighthaunt are spectral undead: ghosts, wraiths and phantoms bound to Nagash’s service. They are the souls of the dead, denied their afterlife and conscripted into his armies. Many are cursed with an ironic punishment that fits their sins in life. They are both pitiable and terrifying, and one of the most striking armies in Age of Sigmar.

The Ossiarch Bonereapers are built, not raised. They are constructs of bone and bound souls, shaped by Nagash’s will into exactly the forms needed for war. Unlike most undead, they are not animated corpses or loose spirits but purpose-made soldiers. They represent Nagash’s ideal of an orderly, efficient and loyal undead empire.

The Soulblight Gravelords are the vampire lords and their undead hosts. They serve Nagash, at least in name, but the vampire bloodlines have their own ambitions and ancient grudges. They rule kingdoms of undead subjects and living vassals, and their loyalty depends on Nagash’s ability to enforce it.

How Does Shyish Affect the Living?

Shyish is hard on the living. Its death magic drains vitality and dulls the senses. Staying too long, especially in the deeper places where death magic is strongest, can wear a living creature down and eventually kill it.

Even so, people do live in Shyish. The Cities of Sigmar have footholds here, such as Glymmsforge, and there are mortal cultures that have adapted to life in death’s realm. They tend to have strong traditions of ancestor worship, elaborate funeral rites and a practical relationship with the dead that would horrify people from other realms.

The Necroquake carried Shyish’s influence into every other realm. The dead grew restless and the barrier between life and death grew thin everywhere, so every realm now lives with the consequences of Nagash’s ritual.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Shyish the same as the afterlife?

Shyish contains the afterlives, plural, of the Mortal Realms rather than a single afterlife. Each underworld reflects a different culture’s beliefs about death, so where a soul ends up depends on the beliefs of the people it came from. Nagash wants to change this by bringing every soul and every underworld under his control.

Can you escape from Shyish?

The living can leave Shyish, usually through Realmgates, though the journey can be dangerous. The dead are far more constrained: Nagash doesn’t willingly let his subjects go, and the pull of the realm works against spirits trying to leave. Stormcast Eternals are a notable exception, because Sigmar’s power normally draws their souls back to Azyr when they fall.

What is the Shyish Nadir?

The Shyish Nadir is a vortex of death magic at the centre of Shyish. Nagash’s ritual created it by drawing the realm’s grave-sand and death magic inwards. It pulls death energy, and even parts of the realm, towards itself. The Necroquake erupted from this working, and the Nadir remains one of the most dangerous places in the Mortal Realms.

Did the Necroquake achieve Nagash’s goals?

No. The Skaven sabotaged the ritual, turning it into an uncontrolled explosion of death magic rather than the controlled working Nagash intended. The Necroquake did spread his influence and strengthen the undead across the realms, but it didn’t give him the domination over all souls he wanted. It led straight into the Soul Wars and further conflict in the Age of Sigmar story.

What is Shyish’s realmstone?

Shyish’s realmstone is grave-sand. In the lore, each grain is tied to a mortal life, which makes it immensely valuable to necromancers. Nagash’s plan to gather this death magic at the centre of the realm is what led to the Necroquake.

What is Nagashizzar?

Nagashizzar is Nagash’s great fortress in Shyish and the seat of his power. It’s where he built the Great Black Pyramid, the structure at the heart of the ritual that caused the Necroquake. The pyramid drew death magic towards the centre of the realm, creating the Shyish Nadir.

Where does the name Shyish come from?

Shyish comes from Warhammer Fantasy Battle, where it was the purple Wind of Magic, the Lore of Death. When the old world ended and Age of Sigmar began, each Wind of Magic became the basis of a Mortal Realm, so Shyish became the Realm of Death, still tied to amethyst magic.