Nagash origin: was Warhammer's necromancer born evil?

Everyone seems to be playing as Nagash in Total War: Warhammer 3 (2022), developed by Creative Assembly. He's a giant skeleton who looks like he robbed an entire graveyard and piled the contents on his head. My argument is that the most frightening thing about him has nothing to do with magic. He was already a monster before he cast a single spell, and a human who chose all of this is worse than a demon born evil.

His story runs from a jealous prince in Warhammer's version of ancient Egypt, to the man who invented the dark arts, to the spell that wiped out an entire civilization. It explains who Nagash is and why the Tomb Kings exist. There's also a scene in the books that tells you everything you need to know about him. It happens long before the skeleton and the hat, and it involves his brother and their father.

Games Workshop calls Nagash the most petty and vengeful of those who lived, died and came back

It's funny to see Nagash everywhere all of a sudden, because he has been causing trouble in the Warhammer world for decades. He's one of the most horrific characters in that setting. That isn't only because he is responsible for the deaths of an enormous number of people. It's because he is unbelievably petty.

Games Workshop itself describes him as the pettiest and most vengeful character of anyone who has lived, died and come back to life. Considering some of the characters in Warhammer, I think that's quite an achievement.

In short, Nagash started as a prince and then invented the dark arts. He murdered his way to power and decided that death was something that only happens to other people. Unfortunately for him, he kept getting killed by a king, by Sigmar. He even survived the end of his entire world, and he always keeps coming back. Now, in the Age of Sigmar, he's an actual god of death who believes every dead soul belongs to him. Put simply, he's an evil genius with the emotional maturity of a toddler, and that's a fairly kind description.

Nagash was a jealous prince of Nehekhara before he was a monster

Before he became a huge skeleton in a silly hat, Nagash was a prince of Nehekhara. He was the eldest son, but his younger brother was chosen to inherit the throne. Nagash was sent to become a priest instead, and he did not take it the way you might hope.

To be fair, he was fairly good at it. By the age of 32 he was the youngest high priest in history. That wasn't enough for him. He began learning dark magic from captured dark elf soldiers, and it turned out that pain and human sacrifice made his spells far more powerful.

This is the scene from Nagash the Sorcerer that tells you who he is. His brother tries to arrest him, but Nagash overpowers him and seals him alive inside their father's tomb. Then Nagash takes the throne himself. All of this happens before he turns into a giant undead monster. He's simply a thoroughly awful human being, and that's what I find interesting about him.

He doesn't become evil because of death magic. He isn't an ancient demon born evil either. He's a jealous older brother who couldn't stand being told no. He is completely despicable before any of the magic happens, and unfortunately for everyone, he was also a genius.

The blood elixir, the Black Pyramid and the murdered architect

Next, Nagash invented an elixir made from blood that stopped him from aging. That research is where Warhammer's vampires came from. As if that weren't enough, he had thousands of slaves build him an enormous black pyramid to make himself even more powerful.

When they finished it, he ordered his right hand, Arkhan, to kill the architect. That tells you a great deal about Nagash.

How Nagash escaped death as a swarm of beetles and became a lich

Unsurprisingly, the other kings of Nehekhara weren't pleased with all the murder, the dark magic and the raising of their relatives from the dead. So they all united against him. After years of war, even Nagash's allies turned on him. His army was defeated and he was mortally wounded.

But when his enemies finally reached his tomb, nobody was there. Only a swarm of beetles flew out, and that swarm was Nagash. He turned himself into beetles to escape, which is an impressive way to avoid the consequences of your actions.

He wandered the wasteland close to death until he ran into some Skaven carrying warpstone. Warpstone is essentially solid chaos: incredibly powerful and extremely dangerous, so naturally Nagash decided to use it. Instead of dying, he turned himself into a lich, an undead skeletal sorcerer. He then found a mountain sitting on top of a huge pile of warpstone and built himself a fortress he named Nagashizzar, where he grew even stronger.

There he forged his famous crown, armor and sword, and he wrote down everything he had learned in the Nine Books of Nagash. The kings thought they had finally gotten rid of him. In reality, they had turned a very dangerous man into a nearly invincible skeleton who owned a mountain of magical explosives.

Neferata, Alcadizzar and the Great Ritual that ended Nehekhara

This is where Nagash goes from a terrible person to a truly terrifying entity. Remember that blood elixir: Queen Neferata made her own version and became the first vampire. When her city was destroyed, some of the surviving vampires fled to Nagash and joined his army of the dead.

There was a problem, though. Nehekhara now had a king named Alcadizzar, and he was very good at his job. He defeated Nagash's armies, and Nagash, being Nagash, decided that if he couldn't rule Nehekhara, no one would.

So he poisoned the great river, spread a plague, and then performed what is called the Great Ritual. It was a spell so powerful that it wiped out what remained of life and raised the dead across Nehekhara to become his army. An entire civilization ended because one man couldn't accept losing.

Why even the Skaven thought Nagash went too far

Now comes the most absurd part. Even Warhammer's Skaven, who are awful rat men, thought he had gone too far. They freed Alcadizzar from Nagash's prison and handed him a magic sword, and Alcadizzar used it to cut Nagash to pieces.

Because Nagash no longer controlled the spell, the ancient kings he had raised kept their minds. That's why the Tomb Kings are their own faction in Total War rather than working for Nagash.

I don't know whether to laugh at how petty it all is or to be horrified. Maybe both. But when the Skaven think you're overdoing it, it might be time to reconsider your life choices.

Rise of Nagash by Mike Lee is the book to read

If you do one thing after reading this, go and read Rise of Nagash by Mike Lee. It's genuinely gripping, and it's one of the best Black Library books I have personally ever read. Nagash the Sorcerer, the book with that tomb scene, is a big part of why I enjoyed it so much, and this volume collects all three Nagash novels.

It gives you the complete story of how a deeply disgruntled prince became the most powerful necromancer in the Warhammer world. It runs to 944 pages, so there's plenty to keep you busy. By the end you'll understand why everyone inside the Warhammer world hates him, while we as readers absolutely adore him.

You might think being cut to pieces with a magic sword would be the end of Nagash. It wasn't. How he came back, why he picked a fight with Sigmar, and how he ended up an actual god of death is the rest of the story.