The Age of the Three Emperors

The Age of the Three Emperors was the Empire's long dark night, an interregnum of more than a thousand years in which Sigmar's realm broke into warring fragments. It began when a disputed election split the Electors, and rival Emperors were crowned in Reikland, in Talabecland, and in the Ottilian line, each claiming the sole right to rule, none able to master the whole.

The division bled the Empire of Man white. Province turned against province in endless civil wars, border grudges festered into open slaughter, and the unity Sigmar had died to forge was squandered by petty ambition. Into this weakness crept every enemy: greenskin raiders, beastmen from the darkening forests, and the scheming ratmen who thrive on the ruin of men.

Worst of all came the pestilence. When the Black Plague swept out of the east, it found an Empire too divided to resist, and whole cities were emptied of the living. Villages vanished from the maps, and in the depths of the dying land the skaven crept up from below to feast on the corpses of civilisation.

For twelve centuries the Empire endured as a wounded, quarrelling shadow of Sigmar's dream, its provinces sundered and its faith tested. Only the coming of a chosen hero, born as prophesied in its darkest hour, could hope to bind the shattered realm whole once more.