One of the most ubiquitous acoustic weapons of the Naga, the Dread Chimer Gong Altar rumbles in the wake of the Snake Men armies, inspiring the Khureshi into vigorous action while striking primal fear into the hearts of all others with its sonorous dirge. Known also as the Wain of Tremors, the sound of the Chimer has reverberated across many ancient battlefields and accompanied almost every massed Snake Men assault since the Stranglehold. The assembly consists of an upright crescent-shaped sound box affixed with twelve gongs - the key component of the altar - mounted atop a large gilded carriage called a Rajarot. These spirit-possessed vehicles are capable of propelling themselves across the battlefield and are considered sacred to the Naga, woe betide any intruder or thrall that damages them within sight of a Snake Man.
The Chimer has its roots in the Naga’s ancient research into percussion idiophones, lithophones and metallophones. These early devices were built for entertainment, to broadcast warnings and messages, as artefacts to influence magical bindings, and as tools to rapidly crush stone for the purposes of mining and demolitions. These developments were consolidated when a Snake Men expedition sent to the lands of the Skytitans returned with the head of one of the intelligent giants that roamed those lands. Offering it up as a sacrifice to their enigmatic deity Nagendra, the Naga were bidden to forge weapons from its remains.
From its massive jaws and teeth the Naga fashioned two of the first Chimers, channeling the stuff of Chaos into their frames. The resulting weapon-instrument could absorb magic and damage the nerves of living enemies with noise that the Snake Men themselves could not perceive, inducing the listener to claw at their own ears and faces in futility to stop the pain. Though future Altars were no longer built with the jaws of Skytitans, they retained the potency of the first creations and retained their general shape. Since then, the Altars have been utilized by the Snake Men in war, as well as ritual processions and propitiation ceremonies for their serpent deity.
Though nearly every marga is capable of building their own Chimer Altars, the finest ones are assembled and repaired at the Temple of Teeth, located within the Golden Cradle-controlled artificer sanctum of Horadan. A place of gilded teak pillars and gold-painted lacquer canopies, the workshop-sanctum houses innumerable trophies and relics of teeth, nails and bone from every race in the world, and is said to contain a shed fang of the Coiled One himself.
The Chimer's twelve black metal gongs - called Danta - are built to resemble molars, which together with the large crescent frame evoke the torn-out lower jaw of a giant. The crescent gong set acts as a transducer where the Winds of Chamon and Shyish can be channeled and focused, then emitted forward in pulsating waves of ruin. Naga Kanya instrumentalists strike the gongs in their performances with special mallets, producing eerie ringing tones to the rhythm of a beating heart. Strung up on the exterior frame are mutated humanoids whose faces and bodies bear multiple lamprey-like maw mutations that amplify the noise of the gongs. By modulating the tone and changing the sequence of melodies, the Kanya is able to generate different effects in objects or entities caught in its frequencies. These effects range from nausea and spitting headaches as the sound waves vibrate and irritate the nerves, to overpressure that pulps internal organs and splatters heads.
In combat the resonance of the Chimer pervades the air from a great distance, growing louder as the fight rages to batter the senses of all enemy combatants within earshot. As the battle reaches its climax and fatalities mount, the Chimer Altar gathers the building wind of Shyish permeating the field into its gong frame and unleashes deafening kinetic blasts with enough force to pulverize teeth, bone and masonry. With a change of melody the Kanya can also unbind the animated constructs of enemy sorcerers, crumbling war statuary or necromantic armies. Perhaps as an aftereffect of Shyish infusion, a black oily substance perpetually leaks from the gongs, giving the crescent Chimer frame the disquieting appearance of a severed jaw with bleeding gums.
The Greenskins and Skaven particularly detest this weapon. The former because the reverberations often destroy their valuable teeth along with any scavenged teeth they have in their possession. The latter because the Skaven’s sensitive ears make them highly susceptible to its effects, a significant factor that prevents their Undercities from spreading far beneath Khuresh. On the occasions when the armies of the Ratmen and the Snake Men confront each other, the former will attempt to drown out the sounds of the Chimers with their own Screaming Bells and chanting Plague Monks.
The Ebon Stone marga, whose territory borders the Elven colonies of the south, continues to experiment with Warpstone on their Chimers with the aim of cracking the shield of Saphery magic protecting the northern Gate of Calith. When they finally achieve their goal, the sorceries permeating the tainted lands of Khuresh will flood south into the waystone that anchors one of the last uncorrupted leylines still present in the southeast of the world, bringing about catastrophic consequences.
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