The Sylvaneth are forest spirits associated with Alarielle, goddess of life. Their origins in Ghyran connect growing woodland with the souls she preserved and planted. They organize into glades, communities whose identity is rooted in the living landscape rather than a conventional human kingdom.[1]
Spirit-song and memory[edit]
The spirit-song connects Sylvaneth to one another. That bond is not universal: the embittered Spite-Revenants stand apart from its harmony. A description of the faction as a single peaceful consciousness would therefore miss an important division within it.[1]
Lamentiri preserve the essence and experience of fallen Sylvaneth. Recovering them protects something more valuable than a body or weapon: accumulated memory. Their importance should not be mistaken for a guarantee that every casualty returns safely. The recovery itself is a meaningful part of the faction's struggle.[1]
Alarielle's people have fought Nurgle's corruption in Ghyran and opposed Nagash's disruption of the balance between life and death. Their defence of nature includes violent resistance to forces that would reshape it.[1]
Belthanos and the Evergreen Hunt[edit]
Belthanos, First Thorn of Kurnoth, has a different responsibility from ordinary territorial defence. His continuing hunt preserves the surviving spark of Kurnoth, the god of the hunt. He leads the Evergreen Hunt and holds authority over the Kurnoth Hunters.[2]
His mount, the Carnelian Greatspite, is a manifestation of life magic. The 2023 introduction places him in the story of the Twin-tailed Crusade in Dawnbringers: The Long Hunt. This gives readers a specific campaign context for his appearance rather than presenting every Sylvaneth story as one timeless conflict.[2]
Reading the faction[edit]
Three questions provide a useful route through Sylvaneth background: which glade is involved, how its members relate to the spirit-song, and what they are trying to protect or recover. For a Belthanos story, add the continuing hunt to those questions. These distinctions are more informative than treating all tree-shaped models as equivalent inhabitants of a forest.
The sources below introduce background from 2023 and 2024. Their accompanying army rules belong to those publication dates. Use the rules-checking guide for current play, and the faction directory below to explore individual units and characters.
Units
- Arch-RevenantHero · InfantryA martial champion of the glades who soars above the host, rallying the wargrove to ever-greater feats of slaughter.
- BranchwraithHero · InfantryA haughty forest-noble who channels the lifebloom of Ghyran to birth new Dryads even amid the carnage of battle.
- BranchwychHero · InfantryA slender spirit-sorceress bound to a single glade, reaping the enemy with her greenwood scythe and the songs of the forest.
- DryadsBattleline · InfantrySwarming branch-spirits of the deepwood: capricious, keening, and merciless to any despoiler who raises an axe beneath their boughs.
- Gossamid ArchersScout · Winged InfantryWind-borne skirmishers lifted on zephyrspite wings, loosing living arrows from above the canopy where no despoiler thinks to look.
- Kurnoth HuntersElite · InfantryTowering huntsmen grown in the image of the lost god Kurnoth, whose greatbows, scythes, and blades answer the wild's oldest law: everything is prey to something.
- Spite-RevenantsElite · InfantryThe forest's nightmare made flesh of splinter and thorn: dissonant outcast spirits whose very presence frays the spirit-song and the courage of everything nearby.
- Spiterider LancersCavalry · Winged CavalrySwift spite-revenant riders mounted on giant dragonflies, striking with venom-tipped lances before darting out of reach.
- Tree-RevenantsBattleline · InfantryNoble spirits who walk the hidden ways between groves, arriving on the wind's heel to enforce the Everqueen's will with glaive and waypipe.
- TreelordBehemoth · MonsterAn ancient noble spirit grown to colossal size: a walking piece of the deepwood whose strangleroots and sweeping limbs unmake armies like rotten fences.
- Treelord AncientBehemoth · MonsterAn age-old tree-spirit of immense wisdom and power, calling upon the forest itself to ensnare and strangle the foe.
- Warsong RevenantHero · MonsterA spellsinger spirit whose ancient laments twist reality, choking the foe with brambles as it sings the forest to war.
Characters
- Alarielle the EverqueenThe EverqueenThe goddess of life herself: mother of the sylvaneth, mistress of the spirit-song, a deity whose moods are seasons and whose grief once nearly ended a realm.
- BelthanosFirst Thorn of KurnothThe foremost of Kurnoth's hunters, a stag-borne revenant who leads the wild hunt against the despoilers of the forest.
- Drycha HamadrethThe Splintered SongThe eldest and angriest of the forest's spirits: an outcast queen whose hatred predates the glades and does not distinguish between Chaos and civilization.
- DurthuLast of the Elder TreelordsThe eldest and most wrathful of Treelord Ancients, who remembers the World-That-Was and hates all who wield axe and flame.
- The Lady of VinesThe Everqueen's ShieldAlarielle's truest servant, grown from the goddess's own essence: the handmaiden who carried a dying deity to safe soil, and who returned from death bearing a share of the divine.
- YlthariThe RebornA once-slain Branchwych returned from the underverse, leading her loyal guardians in an unending quest to protect the glade.
Subfactions
- GnarlrootThe loremasters of the sylvaneth, keepers of grove-magic and the deep memory of the lamentiri. Gnarlroot works more closely with the wizards of the free peoples than any other glade, trading wisdom for wardenship. Blight and betrayal have scarred its rootways, and its generosity now comes twinned with watchfulness.
- HeartwoodThe most martial of the glades, honoring the hunter-god Kurnoth in every drawn bow and every silent kill. Heartwood answers the call to war faster than any of its kin and fields Kurnoth Hunters in unmatched numbers. Its spirits hold that protection is not a mood but a discipline, practiced daily and forever.
- OakenbrowThe eldest of the great glades, rooted in lineages that remember the world-that-was. Oakenbrow marches beneath more Treelords than any other glade, and it wakes to war the way mountains wake: slowly, and then all at once. Its nobles counsel patience in all things except the defense of the old groves.
- WinterleafA glade scoured by an unending winter of war, whose survivors' sap froze and never wholly thawed. Winterleaf fights without mercy and largely without song, killing with the quiet of snowfall. Other sylvaneth mourn what the glade lost; Winterleaf considers grief a weapon like any other, and keeps it sharpened.
Sources & further reading
- Warhammer Age of Sigmar Faction Focus: Sylvaneth. Warhammer Community, , Alarielle, glades, spirit-song, lamentiri and conflicts. Accessed .Official source checked during the 2026-10-03 assisted audit; whole-page human review pending.
- Warhammer Day Preview – Belthanos, First Thorn of Kurnoth, Calls the Hunt. Warhammer Community, , Belthanos, Kurnoth, the Carnelian Greatspite and The Long Hunt. Accessed .Official source checked during the 2026-10-03 assisted audit; whole-page human review pending.
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