AN INDEPENDENT WARHAMMER REFERENCE ARCHIVE ONLINE // EST. M026
Index Obscura.THE WHITE DWARF ARCHIVE

FICTION·WHITE DWARF 523

Drakana’s Trial

April 2026·p. 74

THE SHORT VERSION

Drakana’s dwindling party confronts a captive Treelord on an icy floor of the Tower of Blades. A coordinated distraction and poisoned shot bring down the forest spirit, but the surviving gladiators remain fiercely distrustful even when one offers another a hand. Their progress to the next floor exposes the contradiction at the heart of the trial: cooperation keeps them alive, while their culture treats dependence as weakness.

FOLLOW A THREAD

Tower of Blades Drakana

Back to the original

Find this article in White Dwarf 523, p. 74.

This is an original summary. Refer to your magazine for the complete article, rules, images and painting steps.

KEEP EXPLORING

Another page to turn.

Back to the archive →
RulesWD 523 · pp. 66–81

Tower of Blades

An exploration of Khainite gladiatorial worship leads into a cooperative battlepack in which four challengers attempt to ascend the Tower of Blades. Players combine fighting styles, random origins and flaws, then face generated floors with increasingly resilient enemies, magical hazards, injuries and upgrades. The tower can be run by an additional player or through an enemy behaviour chart, supporting both group play and a single player controlling the whole party.

Age of SigmarDaughters of Khaine
April 2026Read summary
LoreWD 523 · pp. 66–69

Khainite Arenas and the Trials of Draichi Ganeth

For the Daughters of Khaine, arena combat simultaneously honours their god, hones collective battlefield skill and offers a route to prestige. The austere Draichi Ganeth sect takes that ideal to its extreme in the Tower of Blades, where ordinary monsters share floors with magical ordeals, lethal reflections and psychological trials. The Iron Hags choose most entrants, but Death Night opens the challenge more widely; only eight warriors are said to have conquered the tower.

Age of SigmarDaughters of Khaine
April 2026Read summary
LoreWD 523 · p. 69

Fighting Styles

The arena’s champions belong to distinct martial traditions, from showy Gladiatrixes and polearm-wielding Valthrain to illusion-using Mircaitha and devotional Hekaritrices. Rarer specialists include masked Slaughter-Sisters, aelves borrowing Scathborn arms and blindfolded Corvintathi associated with Morai-Heg. These descriptions explain why superficially similar Khainite gladiators may approach an ordeal through spectacle, faith, precision or deception.

Age of SigmarDaughters of Khaine
April 2026Read summary