TL:DR version: magic rocks did it.
I'll write up my own ridiculous fanfic here, but you'll have to click through to read it because I'm already sure that it will be long as shit and twice as pungent.
[*Edit: No really, I'm writing something that makes the game make sense. This isn't a joke post.]
Highlight for the TL:DR version: The entire game is Tzeentch's proving grounds for a new battalion of Destruction champions that resurrect from death as any of the heroes that the Chaos God has tricked into selling their bodies and souls.
The Raven God is restless. The Chaos God of Change, Tzeentch, is quietly suffering due to the stalemate taking place in this Age of Reckoning.
His machinations have led to great upheaval across the known world as his warrior forces of Chaos, along with vast Greenskin warbands and Druchii legions clash with allied armies of the Empire, Asur and Dwarves. Still, even after all the carnage, the God of Change is thwarted by his adversaries. The Empire of Man still stands. Malekith's Dark Elves fruitlessly crash and ebb along the shores of Ulthuan. The great Waaagh! of the Greenskins is fought back with sheer Dwarven mettle. At every turn, The Raven God sees an awful, tightly-knotted impasse leading only to unbearable inertia.
Tzeentch seeks to twist the threads of fate by his own hand, augmenting his armies with unstoppable warriors. His acolytes, so many wild marauders and crazed zealots, are but simple, savage men of the north. Even with his many blessings bestowed upon them, his Chosen are still too predictable, too soft on this world. These packs of Norse dogs serve him well only as cannon fodder, as pillagers and foot soldiers.
But now the Raven God yearns for a great wind to sweep across the horizon and tear the world asunder.
While his soldiers are malleable like clay, they still lack the great adaptability needed to emerge from this bloody deadlock. Tzeentch works to build an an army of horrific surprise, an entire army that's very shape and form mutates and transforms in the midst of battle. An army of true change.
The Great Schemer sends out his spies to be his eyes in the shadow, stalking great champions across the Old World and beyond. They seek out those that conquer, they seek those that seek greatness. And those that seek greatness do so with great pride. A weakness Tzeentch plans to make his strength.
These heroes from across the globe are soon entangled in webs of dark conspiracy, all leading to a promise of power they cannot resist. They are sent on missions to seek out an ancient weapon, an artifact of their people that only they have the privilege to wield. They seek out a lie.
Led to the dark, isolated corners of the Chaos Wastes, our heroes each find themselves uncovering this lost weapon deep in an underground temple shut off to the world. The weapon appears to be whatever its beholder wishes it to be. A Dwarf great ax. A silver hammer. A shroom-covered stick.
What these heroes do not see, what their pride does not allow them to see, is that this weapon is pure Chaos sorcery, a direct extension of the God of Change's power - pure Tzeentch-force made real. It is a living, thinking, binding contract that signs over its holder's body and soul into service to Tzeentch for eternity.
Each new hero that progresses through this black temple makes sacrilege within it, each step they take an oath sworn to the Chaos God. Their hubris deafens them all to the echoes of mad tongues filling the halls with daemonic whispers, chanting the terms of these poor fools' damnation. And lifting the inscribed blade, the champions sign themselves wholly over to Tzeentch, becoming mindless thralls imprisoned deep within this forsaken place.
Tzeentch then begins building his horrific new army of changing, teaching his lesser daemons and Norse grunts to slowly learn a new... art of change. These hand-picked minions are given this strange new gift from their master - the ability to tap into the Raven God's power and pluck from it a new form, a new bodily husk to assume: the exact, enthralled form of one of Tzeentch's new soul-sworn heroes.
To the Raven God's dismay, things do not go quite as planned in the initial skirmishes. There is terrifying awe and shock when the enemy sees his zealots resurrect fallen Chosen as swarms of female Bright Wizards. There is also astonishing delight as these same Bright Wizards singe themselves to dust with their own breath.
And so it goes. Freshly dead marauders are brought back to fight on, changed into ferocious River Trolls that immediately turn on their own, ripping off the heads of the dark priests that had just given them new life.
Only a small handful of his champions have the mental temerity and resolve to withstand resurrection into a completely alien, enemy body complete with all its original owner's memories dancing in the back of their skulls. Most go mad as soon as the changing takes place, attacking anything in sight, perhaps bashing their own heads open on rocks. This was not the sort of unpredictability Tzeentch sought for.
Yet, it would be a colossal waste of such a collection of power to just abandon his enthralled playthings. Tzeentch needs only to find warriors capable of fighting a mad war while suddenly in another's body, using another's thoughts.
...
Dark harbingers meet within the bowels of the Inevitable City. A hooded messenger of The Raven Host, cloaked in a shroud of ebon feathers. A disciple clad in glinting, jagged armor marked with a bright crimson hand. A scowling beast of a man with cloven hooves and glossy black tusks angrily erupting from his jaw. A towering orc with gaping scars riddling his stony, olive-hued flesh.
One a war-herald of the Blood God, Khorne, lord of violence and rage.
The other, a prophet of the Bloody-Handed God, Khaine.
The last, an elder shaman capable of speaking to either Gork, or Mork, sometimes both, sometimes neither.
Tzeentch's messenger relayed his master's challenge:
A magnificent contest of bloodshed was to be held, one with the greatest heroes of each of the many races of this world.
The Slayer, Thagison, emerges from the shadows flanked by a White Lion, Aessa, and a massive Ogre, Sackchewer.
All the world's most ferocious warriors will battle in blood-soaked arenas and places of great power. They will fight and die and fight again, for the glory of battle and bloodshed. You would do your gods a great disservice to ignore this opportunity. You will never find a more ample source of blood and death and honor to pay tribute to your lords, to your races.
The emissary of Khorne bristled and spat his disbelief. Your Tzeentch is a trickster, a fool busy with petty games and meddling. The cruel-eyed servant of Khaine nodded coldly. The old Ork grinned. Show us da scrappin', pecker-face. Hurr Hurr!
From the belly of the Inevitable City's arena spilled forth a stream of grim champions. Stoic Warrior Priests. Swarms of twitchy-eyed Skaven Gutter Runners. Waves of shambling Lich Priests. Dryads. Beastmen. Stealthy reptilian creatures flittering out of sight. Grease-splattered dwarves plodding forward, wrenching together lethal iron machines.
Tzeentch's man snapped his finger and where but a moment before the arena was full of combatants and dust, now in a flash there only remained corpses in blood-caked mud and a team of six mangled, but standing, gladiators.
Tzeentch's man snapped his fingers again. A fleet of skeletal Tomb Guards sprang forth from the arena gates, followed by groupings of Grey Wizards, Grail Knights, Vampire Counts, Painreavers of Slaneesh, all rushing forth into a mad orgy of violence.
Tzeentch's man motioned to his guests. You'll be sure to send your toughest lot, if you've really got anything to prove here.
And with that, all three agreed and began voluntarily sending their most hardened, resolute warriors to Tzeentch's hands. Now, he may hone this new army in the art of changing - the skill of mastering the fighting skills of many.
For the forces of change cannot be stopped, and nor will the coming armies of the Raven God...
[Note: now you've got some rationale behind the threeway fighting. You're tallying kills for one of the three sides supplying the new fighters - Khorne, Khaine, Mork/Gork.
Players atop the leaderboards would officially be designated as a champion in Tzeentch's new elite Army of Changing, which would give them an exclusive title. 'the Champion of Change'. Or something.]
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