Loremachine – Who is the Cryx Dread Armada warcaster, Captain Malroan?
All hands on deck! The Cryx Dread Armada FronTier is sailing toward launch on October 15, bringing a brand new army for a major faction into Warmachine 3D.
This week, we're turning our spyglass toward a captain even Warmachine veterans won't have encountered before.
Although the Dread Armada is recruiting some familiar faces from other Cryxian fleets, Eydis Malroan isn't among them. No, this Wraith Captain has never before been seen on the tabletop — but don't mistake her for a lowly scallywag. She may be new to you, but Eydis has sailed under more than one flag and left more than a few enemies wishing they'd never crossed her path. She has a particular talent for trouble, even after death.
So grab your cutlass and batten down the hatches. It’s time to hand over to our resident Loremaster, Sherwin Matthews, and find out how Eydis Malroan went from pirate captain to wraith of the Broken Coast…
Once a mercenary warcaster whom sailed from the lawless Ordic port of Five Fingers, Eydis Malroan was known across the underworld as not only a pirate captain but also for her lack of scruples and willingness to work for any client, including the agents of the Nightmare Empire—assuming, of course, their purses matched her demands.
Although typically her marks were desperate merchants or rheumy-eyed old sailors chasing rumors of shipwrecks and lost fortunes, Malroan made her best coin in times of war between the nations of the Iron Kingdoms. From simple and discreet escort duty or arms smuggling, all the way to sinking merchantman shipping or raiding a local fort, few tasks were beyond Malroan’s self-appointed remit, nor her boastful claims during negotiations.
As it was for many mercenaries, the extended peacetime following the Infernal War bought only misery to Malroan’s door as contracts dried up. Desperate and increasingly addled by liquor, she turned to dueling—half for the coins thrown by baying crowds in the underground fighting pits, and the rest in the backstreets to resolve disagreements caused by her drunken behaviour. Her finest kill was an aging gun mage, whose corpse she liberated of the magelock pistols of his trade. Thereafter the weapons became part of her growing infamy, attracting ever more deadly opponents, and with them, greater rewards.
Her story might have ended there, were it not for a duel with the son of a rich Cygnaran baron. Barely more than eighteen, the brash youth’s challenge ended almost on the spot, but in the aftermath Malroan found herself fleeing the authorities as his dismayed father put a hefty bounty upon her head. Untrusting of her peers in Five Fingers and unable to find refuge in Cygnar, Malroan and her crew fled Ord, escaping her pursuers amongst the islands that made up the Broken Coast. For several months, bounty hunters prowled the Cygnaran coastline, awaiting her return. Over time, when no such evidence was found, even the attention of the outraged Baron wandered, and stories of Malroan faded from memory.
Malroan’s ship returned some five years after her disappearance, as a vessel in the Nightmare Empire’s Pirate Fleet. Malroan herself had been transformed into a baleful wraith. There was little of the shrewd mercenary she had once been in her bearing; were it not for the stolen magelock pistols by her side, she might have been unrecognizable.
Her first act was to return to the estate of the baron that chased her from the mainland. Several days later the housekeeping staff discovered his drowned corpse, bloated with seawater despite being found by a smouldering fire in his living quarters and several leagues inland. Since that time, Malroan has been spotted several more times during raids on coastal villages and outposts, a wicked grim perpetually struck across her cold features.
Once at risk of falling out of memory, Malroan’s legend has resurfaced in Five Fingers and steadily spread across all of Ord. On bleak nights when the mist sits along the Broken Coast like a shroud, she returns to haunt the old dens from her mortal life, each time to challenge a new foe to a duel in the deadly fighting pits.
Where will you stand when the dead set sail?
The Dread Armada is already making waves. Cryx Dread Armada launches October 15 in STL form, so get ready to print, paint, and play this major new army using the free rules in the Warmachine app.
If you missed the previous lore dive, discover the story of Skarre Ravenmane, Queen of the Dread Armada and how she came to command Cryx’s feared blackship fleet.
