"Man-things, harken! Your rule-law is ended, over-over. There is only Skaven rule-law now. Listen-obey and live-live. Fight us, man-things, and you will die quick-quick."
- —Grey Seer Asorak Steeleye, upon taking over Talabheim.[1f]
Only one of the Grey Seers, the wizard-prophets of the Skaven’s Dark God, the Horned Rat, would presume to manipulate a Plague Priest. Asorak Steeleye, a Grey Seer, has far more ambitious plans for Talabheim than the mere cultivation of a new epidemic. He mystically influenced Nelrich’s new disease so its potency could be greatly increased, or readily cured, with the right substances.[1a]
History[]
Once Nelrich delivers his new “gift” to the people of Talabheim, Asorak intends to greatly augment the disease’s virulence outside of the city and murder The Suppurater and his followers, so they cannot disrupt his plans or destroy his soon-to-be workforce with their diseases. Asorak allied himself to the cunning mystical engineers of Clan Skryre, the deadly innovators of the Skaven. As the Talabheim authorities seal off the city from the Empire to contain the new plague, Asorak and his Skryre allies will attack the city in force from the Undgrin Ankor. After the city falls, the Grey Seer will not only allow word of his victory to spread, he will purposefully send messages forth concerning both the Skaven attacks and the deadly new plague, for his ultimate goal is far more insidious.[1b]
In order to advance his plans according to schedule, the Grey Seer Asorak Steeleye has been setting various devious plots into motion for some time now. When he first decided he was going to seize Talabheim for his own, he knew sealing the city off from the outside world was an essential component to his plans. Long ago he concluded the best way to do so was to convince the city a plague in Taalagad was raging out of control, as he believes Humans are overly fearful of disease. He manipulated Nelrich the Suppurater into making a new version of an old disease, one the Grey Seer tampered with extensively. The Skaven have been seeding Taalagad and its many refugees with the Grey Ague for some time now in preparation for the next phase of the Grey Seer’s plans.[1c]
In order to ensure the plague was taken very seriously within the city, the Grey Seer decided he needed to co-opt Nierhaus into doing his bidding when the time was right. An agent from the Skaven Clan Eshin gave Kristiane Nierhaus the Grey Ague and informed Nierhaus he would only be given an antidote if he complied with their wishes.[1c]
The Skaven have always been quick to eliminate those standing in their way, no matter what race they belong to, and Grey Seers are particularly notorious for eliminating “tools” that have outlived their usefulness. To Asorak Steeleye, the time has come for Nelrich the Suppurater to complete his final task, which the Pestilens Plague Priest is completely unaware of, though he now suspects he has been used. Steeleye ordered his Skryre troops to eliminate the majority of the Suppurater’s followers, make him desperate, and then press him so hard the Plague Priest will have no choice but to retreat to the surface with the last remains of his once-mighty strike force. The resulting panic among the man-things of Talabheim is exactly what the Grey Seer wants.[1d]
The Grey Seer Asorak Steeleye has nearly broken his arm patting himself on the back for his own cleverness. Nelrich the Suppurater performed on cue, seizing part of the city, enough to frighten the man-things and get them to send for aid but not enough to unduly panic them.[1e]
To sow further confusion, Steeleye has activated a key agent of his in Talabheim, one he has prepared for years for the coming days.[1e]
Steeleye has near-white fur with a few small patches of grey. A pair of curling ram-like horns grows from either side of his head, just behind his ears. His namesake was given him courtesy of a rival that clawed out one of his eyes when he was young. He replaced his eye with a smooth chunk of steel carved with Skaven runes. If he must fight physically, he uses an elongated staff studded with Warp Blades, a gift from his Skryre allies.[1g]