The Rebel King – Tomb King Setep
This is a campaign mod which adds to the skill tree of the DLC Rise of the Tomb Kings technology tree acquired Lord – King Setep.
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The Tech tree granted Tomb King Lords can be a bit bland, effectively re-skinned base Tomb Lords with no additional skill abilities and a dynasty ability to give them a bit of flavour. This mod attempts to add to the depth that Tomb King Setep has, effectively making him upto near Legendary Lord campaign-level status by adding powerful unique campaign skills.
King Setep, its fair to say, when I started delving into the lore not what I expected. Given his dynasty ability I was expecting some kind of Priest etc. Not anything of the sort as it turns out. I was expecting to be simply adding the Lore of Nehekhara or similar to this Lord, as it turns out he’s a little more interesting than that. The information contained in the Warhammer Armies, and most usefully the Liber Necris suppliment were invaluable resources for fleshing out my background understanding of King Setep’s story, his reasons for rebellion and his rise to power.
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The seeds for Setep’s actions were actually laid in the story of King Lahmizzash. King Lahmizzah smashed Nagash’s forces and made him flee Nehekhara. Unfortunately while he was doing so his daughter Queen Neferata was falling into the thrall of Nagash.
After the defeat of Nagash, which cost untold thousands of Nehekharan people and soldiers lives, King Lahmizzah literally had Nagash’s name stripped from the history books. Statues had his defiled name literally chiselled off them, and Nagash’s very name became a vulgar insult. Needless to say, given the depth of damage of the War of the Dead, and the defilement of everything they held dear, the Nehekharan people hated Nagash and everything he stood for, and this hatred is useful to remember for context for Setep’s later actions.
Years passed and King Lahmizzash begat Lakhashar begat Lahkashaz. All the while Queen Neferata’s obsession with Nagash grew. She created and drank the tainted Elixir of Eternal Life, and started her realm of Vampires. In time, what had started in Lahmia as a secret cult to Nagash, was in the open. The Liber Necris speaks of Nehekharans who travelled to Lahmia disgusted and horrified by a city littered with statues and similar exalting as a god someone who was generally held as a butcher and demon.
These tales of Lahmia’s corruption spread across Nehekhara, but King Lahkashaz did nothing. Did family loyalty sway him into inaction? Or something else? The lore is quiet on that. Whatever the reason, this inaction caused fear and incensed many. In particular the Mortuary Cult, always the real power behind the throne in Nehekhara, who were driven to desperate measures by Nagash in the War of the Dead feared that he would arise again. The attitude of the King troubled them greatly.
Into this context appears General Setep, a celebrated General of King Lahkashaz’s armies. The lore is quiet on exactly how or why he took up to rebel, but it is clear that the Mortuary Cult fully backed him, and that his rebellion was very, very popular with the common soldiers and people, for whom Nagash would have been held up as monsterous, and inaction against Nagash worship by the King would have been regarded as highly heretical. Especially given King Lahmizzah’s edicts in destroying Nagash’s very name in Nehekhara.
General Setep then was no Priest King or Liche Priest himself, he was a soldier, and a good one at that. He led a highly popular rebellion against King Lahkashaz persuading previously loyal soldiers to turn for him and inspired them with the idea of destroying Lahmia. The Mortuary Cult threw their weight behind Setep, and his rebellion was successful. He claimed the throne and restored the Mortuary Cult to the height of its power. Nehekhara flourished under his rule, and the Mortuary Cult at this time was at its most powerful.
Unfortunately for King Setep, while he was successful against King Lahkashaz, Vampiric Lahmia stood strong against his forces many times. The Liber Necris notes that Lahmia resisted not only King Setep’s attempts to rid the world of it, but also three more generations past him who tried the same.
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I will at some point probably return to this mod at a later date to add a couple of unique items.
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Many thanks to everyone on the Lore board and forums of the C&C Modding Den for their help on this. In particular @Rahveel and @PsychD’s help was invaluable.
Required DLC:
These DLC should be installed in order to use this item.
Total War: WARHAMMER II - Rise of the Tomb Kings
