September Battle Pack | Drakkisan Wyrmspawn Gallery and Lore (Patreon)

 Every month BattleYak Miniatures will release a new Battle Pack, featuring 3D printable miniature files! The Battle Pack for September is the Drakkisan Wyrmspawn, an army of draconic monsters ever-seeking to grow the great golden hoard of their master!  September's pack includes modular weapons, tons of customization options, bonus figures, and more! It also includes a set of themed sculpted bases representing the great treasure hoard itself!

Become a Patron now and gain access to the Drakkisan Wyrmspawn here! 

Now please enjoy this gallery of the Drakkisan Wyrmspawn miniatures and a glimpse into the lore behind the faction!

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"Great Drakkisan, we worship you! We tremble and we obey! Your essence enlightens us! Your blood transforms us! Your hunger empowers us! We offer you this sacrifice! The blood of the defilers, who would dare to desecrate the sacred hoard! The blood of the world, made glittering and golden, so the hoard may grow! Feed upon both, be nourished and grow stronger, until the inevitable day when you awaken and rise again! Praise to Drakkisan, and ever praise!"

-Sacrifical Rite of the Great Old Wyrm

Deep underground in vast caverns and abandoned mountain strongholds, an ancient power is on the rise. In the dark, enormous mountains of treasure glitter by the light of torches, vast amounts of gold coins and jewelry filling entire halls and grand chambers top to bottom with incalculable wealth. Humanoid creatures covered in reptilian scales, with horned heads and lashing tails, endlessly patrol in the dark, their slit-pupil eyes ever watchful. Through dark tunnels and hidden passageways that span the world, they drag sackfuls of coin and chests of golden treasure back to their lair, hurling the wealth onto the great hoard, growing it ever larger. It is more than mere mortal greed or avarice that drives such creatures. They are the servants of a vast and alien intelligence, a being older than myth, and terribly, terribly hungry. They are the Drakkisan Wyrmspawn.

The Wyrmspawn were all once mortals, belonging to many different races but sharing a love of gold and treasure and material wealth, united by their common greed. Through their avarice, the slow corruptive influence of Drakkisan, the Great Old Wyrm, the Dreaming Dragon, wormed its way into their minds. In their dreams they saw visions of fabulous wealth, tempting them to venture into the dark and buried corners of the world in search of vast fortunes. By the time they finally discovered the source of their visions, their wills had fallen completely under the thrall of the Great Old Wyrm. Down in the depths, before the great treasure hoard, the enthralled mortals are instilled with the dark essence of Drakkisan, their bodies undergoing a painful transformation. Soft skin splits to reveal knobbly scales and rough lizard-hide, bones reshape themselves into new forms, horns and claws and tails and even wings sprout from the twisting bodies of the enthralled. In the end, they are unrecognizable as whatever they were before their transformation. Thus do they become the Wyrmcult Supplicants.

Supplicants barely remember who and what they were before their re-shaping by the essence of Drakkisan. No longer do they hold desires and dreams of their own, nor do they retain the lust for riches that allowed the Dreaming Dragon to gain a foothold in their minds to begin with. Supplicants make up the vast majority of the Wyrmcult, worshiping Drakkisan with zealous veneration. The Wyrmcult's prime objective is to increase the treasure hoard of Drakkisan at any cost, and the supplicants bear the Wyrm's will out into the world with this goal in mind. To outsiders, the Wyrmcult is presented as a religious order, a secretive brotherhood that attempts to attract wealthy patrons and sponsors in exchange for promises of power and influence. But when subtle means fail the Wyrmcult will arm itself and launch raids upon treasuries, prosperous settlements, and the manors and palaces of wealthy nobility, gathering every last gold coin they can find to bring back to the great hoard, slaughtering any who stand in their way.

Should a supplicant distinguish themselves in the efforts to enlarge the hoard of Drakkisan, they may be granted the opportunity to partake of a greater portion of the Great Old Wyrm's power. Throughout the underground lairs where Drakkisan's disembodied essence permeates, his power manifests itself in the form of egg-like growths, their spiny shells containing the very blood of Drakkisan himself. In a dark ritual, chosen supplicants will crack apart these shells and feast on the blood-yolk within, their bodies twisting and contorting with monstrous changes as the power of the Wyrm floods into them. Those that survive grow larger, stronger, and closer to the mind of their master. When the process is complete, a new Drakkisan Wyrmidon has been born. These hulking warriors are the elite champions of the Wyrmcult, and in battle even a small handful of them can tear through a battalion of mere mortals, hewing their foe apart with their ornate and deadly weapons.

The great hoard of Drakkisan is not located in one single lair, but in many different ones. Some are made in natural caverns, others in abandoned underground strongholds, lost sunken cities, and other dark places hidden deep beneath the surface of the world. Despite this division of lairs, all the hoards are one hoard, bound to Drakkisan's essence. Each lair is overseen by a singular guardian of terrible power, a wyrmspawn that holds the greatest share for Drakkisan's power. These are the Wyrmsired Hoard-Tyrants, monstrous draconic humanoids who tower over their lesser supplicant brethren, dwarfing even the mighty wyrmidons. Hoard-Tyrants almost never leave the lair, taking a place of honor seated atop the hoard, ready and waiting to defend it should any interlopers dare intrude in search of treasure. When roused to battle, Hoard-Tyrants charge the enemy in a bellowing fury, dashing the enemy apart with their massive weapons and roasting their bodies with gouts of fiery breath.

The Wyrmcult itself is overseen by the Brood-Watchers of Drakkisan, a wyrmspawn breed apart from the lowly supplicants and the mightier spawn born for combat. By Drakkisan's will, certain supplicants that feast upon the Wyrm's blood will transform into brood-watchers rather than wyrmidons. Gifted with increased intelligence and independence as well as a greater understanding of Drakkisan's will, the brood-watchers guide the efforts of the Wyrmcult, dealing with agents in the outside world and orchestrating plundering efforts to grow the great hoard. Brood-watchers also oversee the development of the egg-growths in the depths of the lair, choosing which supplicants will be granted the honor of feasting on them to obtain more of Drakkisan's power. Should the brood-watchers be called upon to do battle, they employ frightful and alien magical powers gifted to them by the Great Old Wyrm.

The existence of Drakkisan and the wyrmspawn is not widely known. Many in the outside world consider them to be a myth, the notion of piles of treasure guarded by a fearsome beast mere fairy tales. But Drakkisan is not simply some overgrown winged lizard out of old children's stories. His true nature is of a monstrous and malign entity, a being older than the world, existing in dimensions outside the perception of mortal comprehension. In some ancient cosmic epoch, beings such as Drakkisan fell into dormancy, neither living nor dead but slumbering, locked away, their power shackled. As the cosmic tides changed, Drakkisan stirred into his sleep, his power reaching out, the wyrm seeking to manifest himself in his full glory once again.

As his essence oozed back into the world, Drakkisan sought a way to empower himself further, to accelerate the process of his reawakening. All the Great Old Wyrms such as Drakkisan feed upon elemental energy, and ancient cosmic law dictated that each wyrm would be attuned to a different element. Some feast on the energy of the classic magical elements, such as fire or water or the essence of air. Others are attuned to even more esoteric elements, such as shadows, moonlight, or gravity. Drakkisan himself is attuned to the elemental energy generated by a particular type of metal - gold.

The work of gathering the vast treasure hoard is not simply avarice on the part of the Great Old Wyrm. Drakkisan literally draws upon the elemental energy contained within gold to increase his eldritch power, the wyrm growing mightier with every coin added to the great hoard. The larger the hoard, the more power Drakkisan absorbs, and the more his essence manifests in physical form. The egg-growths that sprout in the depths of Drakkisan's many lairs are only the beginning of the Great Old Wyrm taking on physical form. The wyrmspawn born of his power are extensions of the dragon as it rends away at the cosmic bonds keeping it from the world. Even now in the deepest lairs of the wyrmspawn, new and dreadful expressions of draconic might are taking shape, fueled by the elemental power of the ever-growing golden hoard.

The Drakkisan Wyrmspawn are growing in number in their dark and hidden lairs, and they are coming for all the treasures of the world. The will of the Great Old Wyrm will not be denied.

The hoard must grow!