A Celestial Knights short story for Age of Sigmar, Nick Kyme’s The Lightning Golem takes an unusual approach to exploring the effects of reforging upon the Stormcast Eternals. Lord-Veritant Issakian Swordborne is on the hunt for a deadly enemy, a hunt which takes him from a ruined city in Ghur and the company of his fellow Stormcast Eternals on a journey across the Realms, following dreams and dark visions. Relentless and uncompromising, Issakian sacrifices much in pursuit of his mission.
It’s not always the easiest story to follow on first reading, with slightly jarring time jumps and a deliberately opaque plot that gradually comes into focus as the story continues. Persevere, though, and you’re rewarded with a slightly stylised, omen-filled tale of reaching too far and not realising what’s being lost along the way. There’s an unusually human side to Stormcasts on display with Issakian, from his grief at the loss of a close companion early on to a genuinely unexpected (although perhaps it shouldn’t have been) interaction with another Stormcast, and that humanity makes the changes that Issakian goes through all the more powerful. If it’s occasionally a little blunt and over-complicated, that’s made up for by its ambition, and sense of tragedy.
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