The Ossiarch Bonereapers are constructed undead who serve Nagash. Mortisans shape their bodies from bone and assemble animating identities from selected fragments of souls. They are deliberately manufactured soldiers, rather than simply dead people raised intact from their graves.[1]
How the bone tithe works[edit]
Bonereaper rule can leave living communities in place, but demands payments of bone. The tithe turns conquest into an ongoing supply system: subjects must meet their quota, and the legions enforce the obligation. Their organization allows initiative and administration while remaining bound to Nagash's authority.[1]
Vokmortian, Master of the Bone-tithe, embodies this relationship between bureaucracy and terror. Bone supplies bodies; captured souls provide another resource for the legions. Understanding both helps explain why these armies seek more than territory or a single battlefield victory.[2]
Specialists and constructs[edit]
Soulmasons work with the spirits that animate the army. Necropolis Stalkers combine multiple warrior aspects in a single construct, while Mortek Crawlers extend the same manufactured-undead principle to siege engines. The army's skeletal appearance consequently hides considerable specialization: a soldier, a magical artisan and an animated war machine do not have the same function.[2]
For a reader following an individual unit, identify whether its role concerns collecting resources, shaping bodies, directing spirits or fighting. This is a useful way to organize the directory below without assuming that every bone construct is just a larger version of a basic infantryman.
Expansion has limits[edit]
Katakros established Arx Terminus in the Eightpoints, near the route to Shyish. But Bonereaper expansion is not an uninterrupted sequence of inevitable victories. The official 2023 account describes rebellions among their subjects and trouble with beast-bone from Ghur, which introduced feral instability into their creations during the Era of the Beast.[1]
Those setbacks matter when interpreting their claims of perfect order. Distinguish what Nagash's servants intend from what a particular campaign actually achieves. For a campaign chronology, follow the dated source; for an army list, use the current-rules guide. The 2024 faction preview remains a background reference here, not a declaration that its rules are still current.
Units
- Gothizzar HarvesterBehemoth · Monstrous ConstructA lumbering harvest-engine of the Mortisans that gleans bone from the battlefield dead and feeds the legions' endless repair: the tithe collected mid-battle, in full view of the debtors.
- Immortis GuardElite · InfantryTowering bodyguard constructs of the Ossiarch nobility, built from souls refined down to a single mineral virtue: loyalty that outlasts death itself.
- Kavalos DeathridersCavalry · CavalryTireless bone cavalry atop skeletal Kavalos steeds, whose lances land with the mathematics of a landslide and whose pursuit never, ever ends.
- Kavalos LancersCavalry · CavalryBone-cavalry poured from the souls of history's finest riders, striking home with nadirite lances in a single flawless, shattering charge.
- Morghast ArchaiElite · Winged InfantryWinged harbingers wrought by Nagash's own hand in elder days: armoured annihilation on pinions of bone, sent wherever the Great Necromancer's wrath must be witnessed.
- Morghast HarbingersElite · Winged Monstrous InfantryTowering winged death-constructs forged from the bones of Nagash's ancient enemies, descending on beating pinions to reap ruin with spirit-halberds.
- Mortek CrawlerArtillery · War MachineA colossal siege-catapult of bound bone that flings shrieking cargoes of cursed skulls to burst over the foe in storms of splintering nadirite.
- Mortek GuardBattleline · InfantryThe measureless phalanxes of the Ossiarch Empire: shield-locked constructs bearing nadirite blades, advancing, reforming, and killing with a single shared will.
- Mortisan BoneshaperHero · InfantryA master artisan of the Mortisan orders who sculpts fresh warriors from raw bone mid-battle and knits shattered constructs whole again.
- Mortisan SoulmasonHero · InfantryA soul-sculptor throned upon animated bone, harvesting the spirits of the dying and pouring their stolen will into the legions around him.
- Mortisan SoulreaperHero · InfantryA warrior-priest of the soul-harvest who wades into the killing to reap spirits at the very moment of death with a whirling nadirite scythe.
- Necropolis StalkersElite · InfantryFour-armed, four-faced duelist-constructs that rotate through aspects of war (precision, fury, patience, and dread) faster than any foe can adapt.
Characters
- Arch-Kavalos ZandtosThe Dark LanceThe grim cavalry lord of the Ossiarch legions, a merciless hunter who leads the Kavalos charge and despises the living for the sin of drawing breath.
- Arkhan the BlackThe BlackThe oldest and most faithful of Nagash's lieutenants: a liche from a world that no longer exists, whose loyalty has long since ceased to be a choice.
- NagashThe Great NecromancerThe undying god of death itself: architect of the Ossiarch legions, who would see all life extinguished and every soul enrolled in his silent, perfect empire.
- Orpheon KatakrosMortarch of the NecropolisNagash's supreme general: the greatest mortal commander who ever drew breath, rebuilt in bone and ivory and set at the head of the deathless legions he was born to deserve.
- VokmortianMaster of the Bone-titheThe dread emissary of the Ossiarch Empire: the patient, courteous voice that offers every living nation its single choice: pay the tithe, or become it.
Subfactions
- Ivory HostThe flawed legion, its soul-blends contaminated by the spirits of great beasts and the berserkers who hunted them, leaving a seam of fury through every warrior. In battle the Ivory Host's composure cracks into shocking savagery, and the other legions wield them the way a duelist draws a knife he does not quite trust.
- Mortis PraetoriansThe first and greatest of the Ossiarch legions, crafted under Katakros's exacting eye from the souls of history's finest soldiers. The Mortis Praetorians garrison the heartlands of the Ossiarch Empire and guard the approaches to Nagashizzar, and their pale ranks are the standard against which every other legion is measured.
- Petrifex EliteA legion obsessed with permanence, whose ossified bone turns blades like fortress stone. The Petrifex Elite treat war as a quarry treats a mountain (methodical, tireless extraction), and they strip conquered lands so thoroughly that even the enemy's graveyards march away with them.
- Stalliarch LordsA legion built around the charge, its ranks thick with Kavalos Deathriders poured from the souls of horse-lords, outriders, and steppe khans. The Stalliarch Lords wage wars of encirclement and pursuit, running down the routed so that not one skeleton escapes the tithe, and they honor the hunt as other legions honor the phalanx.
Sources & further reading
- Who Are the Ossiarch Bonereapers, and What Do They Want With Our Skeletons?. Warhammer Community, , Construction, tithe, Katakros and setbacks during the Era of the Beast. Accessed .Official source checked during the 2026-10-03 assisted audit; whole-page human review pending.
- Warhammer Age of Sigmar Faction Focus: Ossiarch Bonereapers. Warhammer Community, , Vokmortian, soul resources, Soulmasons, Stalkers and Mortek Crawlers. Accessed .Official source checked during the 2026-10-03 assisted audit; whole-page human review pending.
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