Naggaroth - Naggarond, The Tower of Cold

Naggarond, The Tower of Cold

Naggarond is the most evil city in the world and the most mighty of all the cities of Naggaroth. Its black stone walls rise a hundred feet from the ground and set within them are four vast gateways with doors of iron fifty feet high. Above the walls are set a hundred towers, which rise as high above the walls as the walls rise from the rock. From these towers fly the banners of the Witch-King. The severed heads of those sacrificed upon the altars of Khaine are displayed from the spikes upon the battlements, and the skins of those flayed alive in the god's honour hang from the walls. Within its walls the city rises higher and higher, and at its pinnacle stands the tower of the Witch King, the Dark Lord of Naggarond, Malekith, formerly heir to the Phoenix throne. From his tall tower the Witch King rules his domain with a will of iron. His tower rises high above the city and from it spring battlements and lesser towers, for it is a great and impregnable fortress in its own right.

It is said that the sorceries of the Witch King enable him to look out upon the whole world from his tower, to direct his withering gaze where so ever it pleases his malicious intent. If his eye should fall upon a man then the Witch King's evil gaze can cause his mind to break and the flesh to fall from his bones, for such is the Dark Lord's evil power. He watches his armies ride to war, and sees the dark-clad messengers scurry about his land. Far off he watches the land of Ulthuan behind its protective mists of magic, and he feels the keen hatred burning within his heart.

The city is shrouded in a perpetual pall of sacrificial smoke that rises from the burning altars of Khaine, the God of Murder. Upon these altars the Hag Queens tear Men and Elves apart. They pluck beating hearts from living bodies and pull entrails from bellies and burn them in the sacrificial flame of the God of murder. In the temples of Khaine blood flows night and day, and more honour Khaine with their deaths than anywhere else except perhaps the city of Har Ganeth itself, where even the pavement is stained with blood.