The Obsidian Shard

Lore & Background

In the deep forges beneath the mountains that border the known world, obsidian is not merely stone. It is the glass left behind when a volcano's heart stops breathing, and the Old World's oldest alchemists believed that a fragment cut at the exact moment of that silence would retain a sliver of the mountain's dying will. The Obsidian Shard fits that description perfectly: a jagged, near-black chip no larger than a dagger's pommel, yet heavy as a lead weight and warm to the touch despite the frost that beads on its surface in any climate. Those who have carried it report the same sensation—a low, subsonic thrumming that seems to sync with the pulse, and a growing certainty that the next strike will land harder than it should. In the taverns of Erengrad and the scriptoria of Altdorf, whispered accounts describe heroes who, after equipping the Shard, found their abilities chaining together in ways that defied the usual rhythm of combat, as though the relic were feeding their momentum back to them in a slow, hungry loop. The Shard's true origin is debated. Some attribute it to the volcanic vents that scar the lands east of the Reik, where Skaven warrens have burrowed close enough to the magma to temper their own weapons in it. Others, more superstitious, insist it is a splinter of something far older than the mountains themselves—a shard of the world's first wound, left over from before the gods finished shaping the land. What is not disputed is that it does not belong to any single faction, and that it changes hands as easily as it changes the hand that holds it.

In Their Own Story

The rain over Middenheim came sideways, black with soot from the forges, and the Warden wiped it from her brow with the back of a gauntleted hand. She had been tracking the Skaven raiders for three days through the undercity, and the tunnels had a smell like wet ash and old blood. She found the Shard in the nest of a dead war-moulder, wedged beneath a rib of calcified bone, its surface catching the guttering light of a drowned torch. It was warm. That was the wrong part. Everything in the Under-Empire was cold, damp, and dead. The Shard was warm, and it pulsed, just once, like a finger tapping a table to say *I'm still here, pick me up.* She did. The moment her fingers closed around it, the thrumming started in her molars, and the next time she swung her axe into a skulkers' cluster, the impact felt less like steel meeting chitin and more like the world cracking along a fault line. She pocketed it. She did not tell the Loremaster. Some things you keep for yourself, in a city that has forgotten how to sleep.

Reader's Guide

The Obsidian Shard functions as a passive relic that modifies how your hero's abilities interact with one another. In practice, it rewards sustained, aggressive engagement: the more you chain hits and maintain pressure, the more the relic's conditional bonuses compound, making each successive ability in a combo feel heavier and more decisive. It shines in co-op play when a team commits to a sustained push—think a Slayer or Executioner holding the front line while a Witch Adept or Warden cycles support abilities. The Shard's momentum-based scaling means that the longer the fight stays in your favor, the more it amplifies your damage output, making it a strong pick for extended campaign chapters or higher-difficulty encounters where you need to outlast the enemy rather than burst them in one hit. It is less effective in hit-and-run or kiting strategies, since the relic's scaling depends on sustained engagement. If your playstyle favors disengaging and repositioning, the Shard's bonuses will reset more often than you'd like. Pair it with heroes who have long-duration active abilities or sustained damage-over-time effects to keep the chain unbroken. As with all relics, it can be found through standard loot rolls, and its presence on your character sheet is indicated by a small obsidian icon. It does not stack with other relics of the same conditional type, so choose carefully when building a loadout around it.

Did You Know?

• In Warhammer Fantasy lore, obsidian has long been associated with volcanic regions and the forges of subterranean peoples, making it a natural material for weapons and artifacts that carry a sense of ancient, buried powe
• Relics in Vermintide 2 are designed to alter the *feel* of a hero's kit rather than simply add flat numbers, and the Obsidian Shard's momentum-based design is a good example of that philosophy in action.
• The Under-Empire, the Skaven warren network beneath the Old World, is one of the most frequently visited locations in Vermintide 2's campaign, and its volcanic and geothermal imagery makes it a natural home for obsidian-
• The Warhammer Fantasy setting deliberately avoids the clean heroism of high fantasy; even powerful relics like the Shard carry an implicit cost or unease, reflecting the grimdark tone that defines the entire franchise.