Spoilers: The FAQ’s account of his death and raising, and the End Times jacket. No campaign ending.
Who he is in Total War
Arkhan leads the Followers of Nagash inside the Tomb Kings pack. Death magic is his battlefield lore. The Academy says he adds vampiric units to the roster, so some of the foulest beasts of the Vampire Counts can stand in a Tomb Kings army that the other three kings do not recruit the same way. A skeleton line still has to hold while those units and the caster do their work. He is a hard start on that Academy page: a thin settlement, and Dwarfs among the neighbours.
The FAQ gives him easier diplomacy with Vampire Counts, regions that ignore public-order penalties from vampiric corruption, melee help for embedded heroes, and a larger Winds of Magic reserve. The bonuses are the shape of the faction. The percentages are not reprinted here. Settra, Khalida, and Khatep share the DLC and not this allegiance.
Nagash’s lieutenant
The Rise of the Tomb Kings FAQ calls him Nagash’s lieutenant and says he helped lead the coup that first brought the arch-necromancer to power. He led armies against Nagash’s enemies. The FAQ then says he was slain in a suicidal counter-attack against the Priest King’s soldiers, and that the attack let Nagash escape. He was raised again by his master and became the Liche King. For generations after Nagash’s death at the hands of King Alcadizaar, the spelling on that FAQ, he has vented his wrath on the lands of the living.
The Meet Nagash biography uses Alcadizzar for the king in the ritual chamber. The two spellings stay on the pages that print them. Arkhan’s service is the through-line: lieutenant, death in the counter-attack, raising, and a long war on the living. The roster reveal adds the practical motive used for the campaign. He fights for Tomb Kings who can pay, until he can restore Nagash. A skeletal steed and a chariot are mount options on that reveal.
The End Times novel
Josh Reynolds’s The Return of Nagash is book 1 of The End Times. Mannfred von Carstein and Arkhan put aside their difference and plot to resurrect Nagash while Chaos threatens the world. They gather artefacts for a ritual in Sylvania. Armies converge to stop them. The jacket leaves the ritual’s result unstated. On this guide both of them are protagonists of that book, and Nagash is the supporting figure the ritual is for.
That is an End Times plot. It is not the default history of an Immortal Empires game, and it is not the Mortal Realms. Mike Lee’s Nehekharan trilogy is Nagash’s earlier story and does not list Arkhan as a role on those book pages. Use the lord page for Death magic, the mixed roster, and the pack. Use this page for the lieutenant and for the novel.
Arkhan the Black: gameplay and availability · More character stories
Sources
- Rise of the Tomb Kings FAQ — Total War — totalwar.com
- Tomb Kings: Legendary Lords — Total War Academy — academy.totalwar.com
- The Return of Nagash — Black Library — blacklibrary.com
- SEGA Immortal Empires DLC Ownership Guide — support.sega.com