"Image piled on top of image, each more chaotic and confused than the last: cave-coffered insect cities; towering black basalt pyramids; slave armies - hairy, heavy browed troglodyte humans, digging and building and cleaning up after their chitinous masters; earthquakes; slave rebellions; cave-ins; assassinations; an insect emperor making a pact with entities more ancient even than itself, a pact that gives it new powers, brings it victories, treasure, godhood; then come jealousies; betrayals; invasion by pale overdwellers; battles; defeats; hiding itself in the temple where once the others had come to worship it; the overdwellers locking it in with spells and wards; waiting, growing, waiting..."
- —Felix Jaeger learns of the ancient Sleeper.[1]
The Sleeper was a gigantic insectoid creature, deformed long ago by the warping influence of Chaos. It resided within an underground lair, deep beneath the Dwarf Hold of Karak Hirn. From here, it planned to use its sorcerous powers to enslave the Dwarfs and their Greenskin foes, forging a great army of mind-controlled servants.[1]
Quick Answers
What is the relationship between The Sleeper and the Tregara insect?
What role does The Sleeper play in the Warhammer Fantasy Gotrek series?
What is the significance of the pact made by The Sleeper in the Warhammer Fantasy Gotrek series?
History[]
The Sleeper had once been the emperor of a long-forgotten civilisation of intelligent, mantis-like insectoids. However, the combination of time, imprisonment and some dark pact with the Ruinous Powers had warped it into something infinitely more foul. Its translucent shell was white and waxy, like tallow, and through it could be seen white, striated muscle and the flow of viscous liquid through glassine veins. Eight long, sharp legs like glass sabres hung below a spined, carapaced head with ten, black, faceted eyes and a thicket of cruel mandibles. Thick, whip-like antennae curved up from its ridged brow.[1]
The insect's thin thorax was attached to the gelatinous ceiling from which it had rested for time immemorial. It appeared as a great fleshy mass that had grown into every room of its lair, and that had become so heavy that it had broken through the stone ceiling. This was the Sleeper's abdomen, a horrific mass that could very well have made it the largest creature in the Old World.[1]
Other things hung from its bulbous abdomen as well -- glistening translucent sacs, bulging at the end of twisted umbilical ropes. There were pale, angular forms inside them, with long forelegs and ten faceted eyes. These were Sleeper's children: and should they hatch, their coming would mark the end of the mortal world.[1]
Luckily, these creatures never got the chance to hatch, for the Sleeper was ultimately killed by the Dwarf Slayer Gotrek Gurnisson.[1]
Sources[]
- 1: Gotrek & Felix: Orcslayer (Novel) by Nathan Long