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Wrath, The - Notable Campaigns: Paradise Lost (366.M40) - The Wrath fall upon the verdant Aeldari Exodite World of Klithaine. In just three solar months they reduce the paradise to a blood-drenched hell and then slaughter the Biel-Tan warriors who attempt to intervene, devouring their corpses in a horrific feast.First War for Armageddon (444.M41) - Several hosts of Khorne Daemonkin, including The Wrath and the Blades of Rage, join the Daemon Primarch Angron's attack upon the Hive World of Armageddon.All is Death (793.M41) - Like the fury of Khorne himself, The Wrath and The Eightscarred fall upon the Tau colony of Shau'Nesh. The aliens fight bravely, deploying incredible technologies to blast great furrows in the Khornate ranks. Still, the Tau are outnumbered and, despite their heroics, overrun. Crazed with battle-lust, the two Daemonkin hosts then fall upon one another, battling frenziedly until both are all but wiped out.Disaster on Yngroth (994.M41) - Whilst pursuing Harlequins of the Masque of the Silent Shroud, The Wrath battle their way through the Grey Canyons of Yngroth. Just as the Harlequins seem cornered, a warhost from Craftworld Yme-Loc springs from ambush, catching The Wrath in a devastating crossfire. For long moments the Asuryani plan looks set to work, until Arbra'Gax, Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage, bursts into reality to save his devotees. Led by this unstoppable demigod of war, the Khornate horde smash their way out of the Asuryani ambush, which swiftly devolves into a massacre as the Blood God's forces punish their devious foes.Visions of Blood (999.M41) - Warmaster Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade bursts from the Eye of Terror and falls upon the Cadian Gate. As the same moment, all across the galaxy, Khorne's Daemonkin are stricken by bloody visions of carnage on a scale none have seen before. Compelled by their wrathful god, the Daemonkin turn as one and begin to carve a path toward the Cadian Gate. It seems likely that, while there is blood still to spill, neither side will be safe in the war to come. |
Wrath, The - Warband Colours: The Renegades of The Wrath have bone helms and bolters, black power armour, and red greaves and shoulder guards. They show their warband's rune on their left shoulder guard.The Khorne Berzerkers of The Wrath have bone helms and weapons, as do the warband's Chaos Terminators. The Daemons they summon forth have distinctive blackened limbs and carry weapons that appear to be fashioned from bone. |
Wrath, The - Warband Badge: The badge of The Wrath is a bone Khornate rune set upon a crimson background the colour ofwet, flayed muscle. |
Wrath, The - Sources: Codex: Khorne Daemonkin (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), "The Bloodsworn Hordes -The Wrath", "Slaughter Without End" (Chronology), "The Wrath" (Gallery Images) |
Wrath - Wrath: The Wrath or Wrath Pattern Starfighter was a starfighter formerly utilised by the pilots of the Legiones Astartes and the Imperialis Auxilia during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millennia. By the beginning of the Horus Heresy, the Wrath had become obsolete, and was increasingly replaced in Imperial service by the Fury Interceptor since the Fury was easier to manufacture, its pilots found that it handled more smoothly, and it suffered technical malfunctions at a much lower rate.However, the more veteran pilots in the Imperial Army fleet still preferred the Wrath, seeing it as a finer instrument of void war over the much more "sterile" Fury. Like its successor, the Wrath was also crewed by a mix of human or Space Marine pilots and Servitors. |
Wrath (Planet) - Wrath (Planet): Wrath is an Imperial Fortress World within the Achilus Crusade's Canis Salient in the Jericho Reach. It acts as both the Achilus Crusade's secondary command centre for the salient, as well as the salient's primary source of internal security.While the Fortress World of Spite drives the Canis Salient's forces onwards, Wrath guards the worlds already claimed and watches for treachery, sedition and the scourge of xenophilia.Wrath oversees matters of security and defence across the salient, its gaze spread across dozens of worlds thanks to the arcane sophistication of the Eyes of Wrath, a multi-planetary surveillance system on a colossal scale covering many of the Imperial-held worlds in the Canis Salient.A world of unrest, its primitive populace still not entirely pacified, Wrath is not universally fortified like Hethgard or united in defence like Karlack.Instead, it is covered in countless smaller fortified structures, each housing some distinct facet of Imperial rule, defended not only from alien aggression, but also from the actions of recidivist groups.This scattering of fortresses has produced an isolationist mind-set amongst Wrath's adepts, with each group working apart from others who serve Terra, separated by thick, blast-proof walls.Lord Commander Sebiascor Ebongrave encourages this sense of mistrust and paranoia, for he believes it to be a vital state of mind when combating the insidious T'au.Beyond the fortress walls, on the shores of the numerous islands that form Wrath's only land masses and roaming the vast seas in primitive ships, is the native population of Wrath, their world subjugated to the will of some distant Emperor.Still retaining a fierce sense of independence, these people continue to struggle against Imperial rule where they can, and while many refuse the aid of outsiders who may simply replace the rule of the Imperium, some have chosen to seek assistance.Adept presence is high on the planet. The Departmento Munitorum employs Wrath as a major command centre and supply depot for Canis Salient operations, while extensive Adeptus Arbites and Adeptus Administratum presences monitor Imperial activity within the salient.Meanwhile, 65% of Wrath's population is engaged in actions of a military nature or in support of military operations. Actual armed forces (as opposed to support personnel) comprise 29% of the population, consisting primarily of the Astra Militarum and Adeptus Arbites.A few groups return to the old gods who ruled long ago and whose realm can be seen as the glowering crimson star of the Hadex Anomaly that rules the night, while others find allies in the servants of the grey-skinned outworlders, the T'au, who speak of unity.Wrath has no exports of any kind, and has high supply requirements in terms of munitions and food. The planet's water has an extremely high mineral content and is not regarded as fit for Human consumption without purification and filtration. |
Wrath (Planet) - History: Never regarded as a particularly significant world during the time of the Jericho Sector, Wrath had been largely ignored for most of the region's "Age of Shadow" before the arrival of the first emissaries of the T'au.These visitors offered the people of Wrath an opportunity to join with others of their kind, to sail the sea of stars and a return to the glory and might their ancestors once possessed.This much can be gleaned from testimonials and interrogations performed shortly after the Imperial conquest of the world, though there is little more information on the event.Operation Hammerfall saw the initial conquest of many of the worlds in what is now the Canis Salient, including Wrath. With several companies of the Adeptus Astartes at their head, crusade forces smashed into Argoth, Rheelas and Kaggeran simultaneously, subduing the populations and governments within solar hours of making planetfall.Finding no evidence of a T'au presence on any of those worlds, Lord Commander Ebongrave ordered the next stage of the advance: Wrath.Located a short distance from a major Warp route that led towards worlds known to have fallen to the T'au, Wrath had been earmarked by Lord Militant Tiber Achilus as a prospective Fortress World early in the crusade's planning phase, and was an obvious target for the Imperium.The T'au, apparently, had come to a similar conclusion, and had placed elements of their fleet and ground forces within the system, concealing their presence with advanced technology so that they could ambush the crusaders. As the battlegroup's transports reached Wrath's orbit, the T'au struck, crippling half a dozen vessels before the Imperial Navy could respond.Only the swift retaliation of the 2nd and 3rd Companies of the Dark Sons Chapter, accompanying the battlegroup, prevented the total destruction of the Imperial forces above Wrath, allowing Astra Militarum and Adeptus Astartes forces to make planetfall and clash with the T'au Fire Caste forces on the surface.The ground war was brutal and swift, with T'au forces continually in motion from island to island to elude the rapidly advancing Space Marine forces, and the Imperial Guard who followed behind them. After eighteen solar days of almost continuous conflict, the T'au withdrew completely, retreating back towards more securely held worlds.While arguments raged about the next course of action for the crusade's forces, architects and engineers descended upon Wrath to begin its fortification, while the Imperial Guard turned its attentions to pacifying an aggressive and resistant native population, and the Dark Sons departed for newer warzones.Within a solar decade, a veritable city of structures had sprung up along Wrath's equatorial archipelago and an army of Imperial adepts had arrived to take their places within the Jericho Reach's newest Fortress World.Since then, little has changed on Wrath. Intermittent insurgent actions against the Imperium have caused disruption in some places, and probing attacks by the T'au and an assortment of itinerant raiders over the years have tested Wrath's defences, but no enemy of any strength has set foot upon Wrath as they did when the Imperium first claimed it. |
Wrath (Planet) - Native Populace: Wrath's native population are a technologically regressed branch of Humanity, made aggressive by long millennia of confinement to a single resource-poor world.Records indicate that Wrath has never been particularly well-favoured by the Imperium, even during the days of the Jericho Sector, and the ruins of an orbital way-station are the only significant and enduring Imperial structure remaining in the system from before the Age of Shadows.The people of Wrath are tall, swarthy and heavily built, within prescribed Human norms, and well adapted to the planetary conditions, having a high tolerance for the mineral content in the world's waters, which otherwise causes illness and allergic reactions in non-native Humans.The general lack of resources, and the scarcity of arable land, has resulted in a belligerent nomadic lifestyle focused around ocean-going ships capable of supporting an entire clan.Imperial settlement has changed little; the natives regard outsiders as thieves for taking what little valuable land exists, and act against Imperial authorities when they can.Contact with the T'au Empire before the arrival of the Achilus Crusade has led to small xenos sympathiser groups springing up, though most natives regard the T'au as undesirable outsiders, much as they view the Imperium.However, what is worrisome is the increasing tendency of the natives to return to an old religion, focused upon the gods of a distant realm called Aithess, rather than accept the Imperial Creed.Order Dialogous analysis suggests that this may be a mutation of the term "Hadex," in reference to the Hadex Anomaly that blights the heart of the Jericho Reach, leading to some unpleasant conclusions about the indigenous religion of Wrath. |
Wrath (Planet) - Key Locations: The following are a number of significant locations on Wrath, ranging from overt manifestations of the monolithic rule of the Imperium, to locales intended for more clandestine purposes. |
Wrath (Planet) - Bastion Ocularis: A spire standing almost a kilometre tall, the Bastion Ocularis is one of the tallest structures on Wrath, and one of the most significant. The Bastion serves two distinct, but interlinked, purposes.The first is as the administrative and military capital of Wrath, home to its Imperial Commander and command centre for the world's garrison. The second purpose, which dominates the majority of the spire's internal volume, is as the heart of the Eyes of Wrath.Colossal chambers filled with cogitators and infolooms, attended by thousands of lexmechanics and tens of thousands of purity-screened scribes and ordinates, fill much of the upper levels of the Bastion Ocularis, linked to vox networks, pict-thieves, spoor-trackers and every other conceivable form of surveillance device.They are supplied with thousands of personal testimonies, mission reports and interrogation logs gathered every day from Arbitrator patrols and purity testing.Above that is chamber after chamber filled with Sanctioned Psykers and astropaths in auto-séance trances or gathered in choirs to perform the vital task of sending and receiving this colossal amount of gathered and compiled data to and from every other world under the gaze of the Eyes of Wrath.Access to the Bastion Ocularis is heavily restricted -- visitors are subject to intensive purity testing and interrogation before they can access more than the spire's ground level, and permanent staff are subject to continual scrutiny and routine tests even more intensive than those imposed on the rest of Wrath's population, in order to ensure the absolute loyalty and purity of those who labour over this most vital and sensitive of facilities.The Bastion Ocularis, as a sign of Imperial authority on Wrath, is an obvious target for terrorist attacks and seditious protests, and there have been numerous attempts each year to damage, interfere with or otherwise disrupt the Bastion or its operations in the three solar decades it has stood. Retaliation against these crimes is swift and universally merciless, with those responsible surviving only long enough to be thoroughly interrogated by the Adeptus Arbites, the Inquisition, or sometimes both. |
Wrath (Planet) - Officio Redigire: Based within a small, unassuming building within the long shadow of the Bastion Ocularis, the Officio Redigire is ostensibly a minor office of the Adeptus Administratum on Wrath.It is officially responsible for certain matters of doctrinal oversight within the salient regarded as being too obscure and overly complex for anyone not of the Administratum to care about, but which grants it access to a startling quantity of information.In truth, the Officio Redigire is a front for the Inquisition, and while some in the higher echelons of the Canis Salient's chain of command have their suspicions, actual evidence is impossible to find beneath the mountains of official bureaucracy and legislation that surround the Officio and its function.Rumours within the Inquisition itself suggest that the Officio is so thoroughly infiltrated by the Inquisition that even the lowest scribe has ties to the Holy Ordos.Whatever the case, this minor but remarkably influential office is a façade for Inquisitorial activities, as are many like it across the Jericho Reach and Calixis Sector.Headed by Praefect Primus Hannis Durander, the Officio Redigire building on Wrath serves as a safe house, prison and listening post for passing Inquisitors.The interior of the building appears to be nothing more than what it claims to be, yet hidden passages and subterranean vaults lead to interrogation chambers, stasis vaults and even a substantial weapons cache, which has been expanded to contain small quantities of Deathwatch equipment at the request of the Master of the Vigil.Access to the building is through the public entrance, guarded by Inquisitorial agents disguised as Wrath Planetary Defence Force, or via the subterranean Teleportarium, constructed decades ago by Inquisition-affiliated Tech-priests to allow unseen entry to the facility from anywhere on the planet or any suitably equipped starship in orbit.The Teleportarium, for obvious reasons, is the main method of entry for Battle-Brothers of the Deathwatch, as entering an Administratum facility on foot would draw unwanted attention to both the Officio Redigire and the Deathwatch. |
Wrath (Planet) - The Float: Rather than being a single location, "the Float" is the common name given to the ghetto-like settlements that exist on the shores of the islands upon which the Imperium has built its fortresses.Consisting of rough floating platforms and lashed-together boats, these shanty-towns are home to most of the native population of Wrath, and are ill-regarded by the local Planetary Defence Force, the Adeptus Arbites, the Inquisition and most of the adepts present on Wrath.With no discernably planned layout, and connected together by rope and chain from large floating sections, the Float is a maze at the best of times, and even harder to navigate when the population disconnect the platforms and rearrange their "district."The populace of the Float has little love for the Imperium, and discontent within one of the thousands of ad hoc "districts" frequently flares up into mob violence or seditious activity.This in turn spurs the local Planetary Defence Force or the Adeptus Arbites into action in order to quell these rebellious acts, though such purges are typically stymied by the irregular and unpredictable arrangement of each district.It is common knowledge that the Float is a breeding ground for cults, rebels and heretical sentiment. While action to cleanse the area has been planned in excruciating detail, the overwhelming majority of Wrath's unskilled workforce comes from the native population, and to eliminate it entirely would leave the world lacking a vital resource, forcing those plans to be placed on hold indefinitely. |
Wrathful Dead - Wrathful Dead: The Wrathful Dead are a warband of Chaos Space Marines that splintered from the World Eaters Traitor Legion. Most recently, during the 13th Black Crusade, this warband fought alongside the monstrous Butcherhorde, a conglomeration of multiple World Eaters warbands led by the infamous Khârn the Betrayer, who led them in the slaughter of the Imperial world of Amethal in the Diamor System against the valiant defence of the Blood Angels Chapter. |
Wrathful Dead - Notable Campaigns: Diamor Campaign (999.M41) - The Diamor Campaign took place during Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade within the Diamor System. Initially led by the Chaos Lord Kranon the Relentless, his Renegade Chapter, known as the Crimson Slaughter, spearheaded the attack on the Imperial world of Amethal on behalf of Abaddon in order to obtain something the Despoiler desired. Due to the madness and unpredictability of Kranon, the execution of the invasion instead fell upon the Black Legion's Chaos Lord Xorphas. The Wrathful Dead warband would later join the monstrous Butcherhorde alliance, comprised of a coalition of multiple World Eaters warbands and led by the infamous Champion of Khorne Khârn the Betrayer. This Khornate host descended upon Amethal with but a single goal -- to take the heads of the most worthy and mightiest of the heroes of the defending Blood Angels. The resultant slaughter weakened the barrier between the Immaterium and the material realm to such an extent that the Blood Angels were forced to call for aid from the Daemon-hunting Grey Knights Chapter. |
Wrathful Dead - Warband Colours: The Wrathful Dead warband wears crimson battle-plate trimmed in silver and brass, which denotes their allegiance to the Blood God Khorne. They also bear bone helms to signify the fact their skulls belong to the Blood God. In this way they pledge their deaths to the glory of their wrathful god, robbing their enemies of their victory even should the foe cut them down to the last. |
Wrathful Dead - Warband Badge: The Wrathful Dead warband's icon is reminiscent of their original Legion icon -- a world being devoured by a monstrous black maw, centred on a field of crimson. |
Wrathful Dead - Sources: Black Crusade: Traitor's Hate (7th Edition), pg. 63 |
Wroughtlock Revolvers - Wroughtlock Revolvers: Wroughtlock Revolvers are a type of powerful ballistic weapons employed by the warriors of the Leagues of Votann, particularly by the Bombasts of their Hernkyn Yaegir teams. A Bombast's primary tactical role is to draw attention away from their fellow Yaegir's operations and force the enemy into reckless action.To this end they are usually equipped with twin attention-grabbing Wroughtlock Revolvers that produce particularly loud reports when they are fired. |
Wulfen - Wulfen: The Wulfen are Space Marines of the Space Wolves Chapter who have succumbed to the Curse of the Wulfen and transformed into savage, malformed lupine mutants. Within every Space Wolf's gene-seed is the specific genetic sequence known as the Canis Helix which invests the Space Wolves with the acute predatory senses of the Fenrisian Wolves native to their homeworld of Fenris.When Aspirants undergo the beginning of the physical changes that will transform them into superhuman Astartes during the brutal trial known as The Blooding, not every candidate is able to overcome the feral Curse that the activation of the Canis Helix unleashes within them, and they suffer the horrible fate of transforming into one of these fell creatures.Many Space Wolves warriors do not succumb to the Curse for many Terran centuries. But once he drinks from the Cup of Wulfen the warrior must continuously fight against the beast that rages within him for the remainder of his days. Some Space Wolves eventually surrender, unable to contain the ferocity of the Wolf Within during the heat of battle. |
Wulfen - History: When a Space Wolves Aspirant is deemed worthy to join the Chapter, he partakes in a sacred ceremony where he imbibes the Canis Helix, the Spirit of the Wolf. In actuality, this is a genetic cocktail drawn from the genome of their Primarch Leman Russ and used as a catalyst to activate the genetically-engineered viral machinery of the Aspirant's gene-seed implants, similar to Blood Angels Aspirants who drink the sacred blood of their Primarch Sanguinius from the Red Grail to begin their transformation into Space Marines. This mixture is drunk from an ancient relic of the Space Wolves known as the Cup of Wulfen.Ancient legends speak of the coming of the Emperor of Mankind to the world of Fenris during the Great Crusade, seeking His long-lost genetic progeny. Many of those that were to become the first Space Wolves were all old men by the standards of the Astartes, having been reavers and sword-brothers to Leman, King of the Rus, for many years before the Allfather had come to Fenris. When the truth of Leman's heritage was finally revealed, every warrior in the king's mead-hall had drawn their iron blades and clamoured to fight at his side, as sword-brothers ought.But they were all too old, the Allfather told them; not a man amongst them was younger than twenty Terran years. The trials they would have to endure would very likely kill them, no matter how courageous and strong-willed they were. Yet the men of Leman's mead-hall were mighty warriors, each man a hero in his own right, and they would not be dissuaded by thoughts of suffering or death. Leman, the king, was moved by their devotion, and could not find it in his heart to refuse them.It is said that Leman Russ possessed the Cup of Wulfen, giving this vessel to his original followers, the first men from Fenris to join the ranks of the VI Legion, and told them to drink from the Cup. Amongst the chosen was a jarl named Wulfen. He was a mighty man, fell and strong, proud in his power. He was a man gifted beyond all others in the art of war and he was bested only once in his life, and that was by Russ, who humbled him before all his people but seeing a worthy warrior had spared him, and offered him a place amongst his warriors.Russ spoke to the assembled men of Fenris and told them of his plan. He offered them power and a vast span of years if they followed him to make war amongst the stars. They roared their acceptance, and hailed Russ as their chief. He told them that they must drink a potent brew from the great cup and thus would their transformation begin. Wulfen was the first to step forward and he swigged the glorious mead of Russ from the chalice.But evil lurked still in Wulfen. He was consumed by a secret, gnawing hatred of Leman Russ and he planned to take treacherous revenge upon the man-god. The guardian spirit within the cup saw this the moment Wulfen put it to his lips, and it worked a spell on him, making his outer self match his inner evil. To the horror of those who looked on, the great chieftain changed. He turned into a dreadful thing, half-man, half-wolf and he sprang on Russ with a howl of hatred.But Russ was not dismayed. With one blow, he crushed Wulfen's skull and slew the beast that had been revealed. He looked upon his followers and told them that Wulfen was unworthy, and that this would be the fate of all those who drank from the chalice with evil in their hearts. He told them that those who wished could now depart without drinking. To the Space Wolves' ancestors' credit, no man departed, and all drank and all gained the power that Russ had made their due. And thus began the true Founding of the VI Legion.Those men strode forth to write their names in the history of all the worlds of men, becoming the first Space Wolves to be recruited from Fenris. Out of the hundreds that imbibed from the Cup of Wulfen, almost two score survived, a number that amazed even the Allfather himself. In honour of their courage, Leman -- no longer the Wolf King, but Primarch of the VI Legion -- formed a new company around the survivors. Ever after, the other warriors of the Legion referred to the 13th Company as the "Greybeards." The members of the company, however, called themselves the "Wolf Brothers."In reality, and with all ancient legends put aside, those Aspirants who are likely to fall prey to the Wulfen mutation inherent within the gene-seed of Leman Russ do not do so after immediately imbibing the Canis Helix mixture, but usually over the solar weeks and months of training that follow afterwards. After drinking from the Cup of Wulfen, the Aspirants are taken through the Gate of Morkai, a mystic portal deep within The Aett (The Fang), the Space Wolves' massive fortress-monastery, where every Aspirant's mind is picked and probed by the Chapter's psychic Rune Priests (Librarians) for signs of corruption or mental weakness that will make them easy prey for the blandishments of Chaos.One of the most important aspects of this test is that the Aspirant show himself able to keep this bestial side under control, even while making his way through the Fenrisian wilderness in harsh conditions. Those that fail to do so will transform into Wulfen, and remain in the wild. If the Aspirant returns to The Fang from this Test of Morkai, he is implanted with the remaining components of the Space Wolves' gene-seed, which stabilise the mutational effects of the Helix. Although this procedure is extremely hazardous, the remaining components of the Space Wolves' gene-seed will prove ineffective at initiating the metamorphosis into an Astartes unless the Canis Helix is implanted first to serve as a catalyst for the transformation.The next phase of the Neophytes' transformation into a full-fledged Space Wolf is a trial period of training in which the physical transformations initiated by the genetic catalyst within the Canis Helix begin to manifest themselves. Amongst the most common changes are that the Neophyte's senses will become vastly superior to that of other Space Marines, his teeth will lengthen into fangs capable of tearing through Plasteel, and his skin will toughen to the texture of leather.His body mass grows by up to eighty percent and many of his bones fuse. Many of the Aspirants will continue to grow into their newly-received genetic implants whilst others succumb completely to the Curse of the Wolf at this time and devolve into one of the giant, feral and bloodthirsty mutants known as the Wulfen. To become one of these fell creatures is to fall from grace, and to roam the Fenrisian wilderness forevermore as a creature of the darkest night.The Space Wolves' harsh induction regime generally ensures that these individuals perish at an early stage in the process. However, at the time of the Great Crusade, when the Emperor and his Astartes Legions were conquering vast swathes of the galaxy in the name of Mankind, those brothers touched by the Curse were banded together into the 13th Great Company, where their feral ferocity could be brought to bear en masse, as well as contained for the safety of the whole Legion. But eventually the 13th Company disappeared, their loss the subject of numerous myths.Even once the Canis Helix gene sequence has been stabilised within the body of a Neophyte, it still has the power to affect the warrior throughout his life, particularly when the ferocity of the Space Wolf, barely contained at the best of times, is roused in battle. Then the warrior may finally succumb to the Curse of the Wulfen, and he will be transformed once again into the beast he has fought for so many standard centuries to subdue.It falls to the Wolf Priests, the cult leaders and spiritual guides of the Chapter, to keep the Curse of the Wulfen from overtaking the Space Wolves, and they take full responsibility for the development of their charges, be it martially, spiritually or mentally. Those that are "Wolf Bitten" (suffering from the Curse of the Wulfen) are given over to the care of the Wolf Priests.Currently, there is one group of warriors under the shadow of this Curse more than any other. These are the Astartes of Wolf Lord Bran Redmaw's Great Company. It is renowned for its savagery in battle, and the Inquisition has accounts of terrifying feral creatures shadowing the deployment of the Great Company. These reports have yet to be proved true, and the Space Wolves themselves ignore all demands to account for these allegations.The Wolf Lord Bran Redmaw also does little to dispel these rumours, and the fact that he has recently begun to take to the battlefield alone rather than lead his Battle-Brothers only serves to court the growing attention of the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy. None have yet dared to question their loyalty to the Imperium, and the Great Company's proven record combating Mankind's enemies has forced the Inquisition to so far stay its hand. |
Wulfen - The Wolf Brothers: During the Second Founding in the late 31st Millennium, the Wolf Brothers Chapter was raised from the gene-seed of the Space Wolves Legion. Led by its first Chapter Master, Beor Arjac Grimmaesson, the Wolf Brothers were intended to be as numerous as their genetic forebears, and as powerful.They were gifted a homeworld, Kaeriol, a planet of ice and fire, just as Fenris is. They were given half of the VI Legion's fleet, half their armouries and half their Wolf Priests. They were to have been the first of many Successor Chapters, a whole line of descendant Fenrisian Chapters -- the "Sons of Russ", capable of carving out a star empire the size of Ultramar. That was the vision: to be powerful enough to encircle the Eye of Terror completely, to prevent the Traitor Legions from daring to ever leave it again. It was hoped that the Wolf Brothers and other Space Wolves Successors would fulfill their destiny and find a new purpose in the Age of the Imperium.But something went terribly wrong and the Wolf Brothers were disbanded, scattered to the six points of the compass. They were disbanded for the same reason there could be no further Successors to the Space Wolves -- the existence of the Wolf Within. The genetic code of the Space Wolves Astartes known as the Canis Helix was far too dangerous to be copied. The heritage that made the Space Wolves powerful also made their genomes unstable and prone to rapid mutation. The Wolf Brothers, located far from Fenris, fell quickly into the state of beasts. So it would prove again and again with any attempt to splice new sets of gene-seed from the genetic legacy of Leman Russ.This instability may have been the result of the Curse of the Wulfen that manifests itself at times in the Space Wolves themselves, most obviously amongst the Space Marines of the Space Wolves 13th Company. Some Wolf Brothers, however, chose to go Renegade rather than be liquidated and eventually became Chaos Space Marines in service to the Space Wolves' greatest enemies, the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion, and later to other Heretic Astartes warbands such as the Red Corsairs. Some of these Renegades remain at large in the late 41st Millennium, though the vast majority of the Chapter was liquidated millennia ago. |
Wulfen - Notable Wulfen: Space Wolves 13th Company - Tales of this Great Company are vague and often contradictory, but one fact is known: the men of the 13th Great Company were marked apart from the rest of their Legion, for every one of them bore the Curse of the Wulfen. The origins of the 13th Great Company lie in the dawn of the Age of the Imperium, when the Primarchs were reunited with the Emperor and their Space Marine Legions. Those Space Wolves Astartes touched by the Curse were banded together into the 13th Company, where their feral ferocity could be brought to bear en masse, as well as contained for the safety of the whole Legion. That the 13th Company accompanied Russ on the Great Crusade is known, although the details of the campaigns in which they fought are lost to antiquity. Eventually, the 13th Company vanished into the mists of legend, their disappearance the subject of numerous myths. But in 999.M41, as Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade reached a bloody climax, small warbands of elite warriors were sighted, falling upon the servants of Chaos with a feral savagery matched only by their bestial appearance. Every attempt to contact them has resulted in the threat of further bloodshed. It has been observed that the 13th Company contain Wulfen Packs that are often led into battle by Wolf Priests. Whether the Wulfen Packs are standing formations, or are formed on a temporary basis as men succumb to the Curse of the Wulfen is currently unknown. It is theorised that these Wolf Priests play a vital rote in controlling the excesses of the Wulfens' curse. Wolf Priests of the Space Wolves are the keepers of the genetic lore passed down to them in a direct line from Russ, and appear to be the only men able to control a Space Wolf when the Curse is upon him. The Wolf Priests are obviously acting as guardians, leading Packs of Wulfen in combat, and ministering to their charges between conflicts.Bran Redmaw - Known as the Curs'd Lord, Wulfen-Kin and The Bloodied Hunter, Bran Redmaw serves as the current Wolf Lord of one of the Chapter's Great Companies. He and his Great Company are looked upon with suspicion by the other 11 Wolf Lords, for they are regarded as tainted. More Space Wolves bearing the Curse of the Wulfen serve in Redmaw's company than in any other. The unspoken truth is that Redmaw has risen to become a Wolf Lord despite himself being afflicted with the Curse.Bulveye, Axeman of Russ - Bulveye is the Wolf Lord of the lost Space Wolves 13th Company. Bulveye is 10,000 standard years old and fought at the side of Leman Russ during the Great Crusade. Reemerging from the Eye of Terror in the late 41st Millennium, Bulveye and a warband of the 13th Company aided a young Ragnar Blackmane, who was serving as a member of the Wolfblade, in the recovery of the Spear of Russ from the Thousand Sons Chaos Sorcerer Madox, staging a distraction to allow Ragnar and his companions to reach the stronghold of the Thousand Sons while most of the Traitor forces were engaged with the 13th Company. Bulveye spoke of Russ, as only one who knew him in life could, and together with his warriors spoke of ten thousand years of struggle within the Eye of Terror, fighting the Forces of Chaos and the daemonic beasts within as they searched for Magnus the Red. |
Wulfen - Canon Conflict: Bulveye may not be the actual ranking Wolf Lord of the 13th Great Company, as he only appears in William King's novels, which are not fully accepted as canon (and clash with the current depiction of the Vlka Fenryka in recent Black Library novels).It may be the case, however, that due to their extended great hunt in the Eye of Terror the 13th Great Company became fragmented to the degree that it was forced to promote several of its remaining Wolf Guard to the position of Jarl (Wolf Lord) in order to maintain several independent task forces. In this case, Bulveye may well be a Wolf Lord of the 13th Great Company, but probably not the Wolf Lord. |
Wulfen Dreadnought - Wulfen Dreadnought: A Wulfen Dreadnought is a Space Marine Dreadnought in service only to the Space Wolves Chapter whose pilots have fallen prey to the curse of the Wulfen.Each of the Dreadnoughts housed deep beneath The Fang contains a great Space Wolves hero shorn of his warrior physique. But an even crueller fate awaits some of these entombed warriors. Though their bodies are all but lifeless, they still bear the genetic heritage of their Primarch, the Canis Helix, and in rare cases the sleeping beast within their psyche is awoken.The Curse of the Wulfen afflicts the warrior bound within the Dreadnought; sometimes it will distort his crippled body even as it ravages his mind, forcing the Iron Priests to refit the sarcophagus so his gnarled features glower and snarl from within. The animal fury of the battle-brother provokes the Dreadnought's machine spirit, adding to its simmering rage a mindless hunger for violence and transforming the walking war engine into a Wulfen Dreadnought.Like all Dreadnoughts, a Wulfen Dreadnought is a veritable mountain of iron and adamantium. But where other Dreadnoughts stomp towards their foe with robotic stiffness, the joints and servos of a Wulfen Dreadnought twitch and spasm like the muscles of a crazed animal.Leaning forward as it begins to charge, the Wulfen Dreadnought is consumed with a singular, predatory intent, and seeks only to maul and eviscerate the enemies before it. The rampant devastation is accompanied by baleful howling, and the savagery continues until the metallic beast is eventually stared down by their Wolf Lord.Wulfen Dreadnoughts are bellicose, even by the standards of the Space Wolves, and their weapon loadouts are hence adapted by Iron Priests. Ranged armaments are replaced with massive implements of close quarters slaughter -- namely the Fenrisian Great Axe and Great Wolf Claw. Some Wulfen Dreadnoughts bear a "Blizzard Shield," its powerful force field allowing them to weather even more punishment as they plunge into battle. |
Wulfen Dreadnought - Wargear: Storm BolterFenrisian Great AxeGreat Wolf ClawBlizzard Shield and Storm Bolter (Optional replacements for Fenrisian Great Axe or Storm Bolter and Great Wolf Claw)Heavy Flamer (As replacement for any Storm Bolter) |
Wulfen Dreadnought - Notable Wulfen Dreadnoughts: Murderfang - It was Logan Grimnar's Great Company that found the feral Dreadnought known as "Murderfang." On the hell world of Omnicide the champions of Fenris were locked in a roving campaign against the Alpha Legion, with battles raging throughout the spine of acid-spewing volcanoes that encircled the planet. The Space Wolves fully expected to be ambushed as they followed the duplicitous Chaos Space Marines further into the mountain ravines, but instead of a deadly trap they came across a slaughter. A stampeding mechanical beast was hurtling through the already thin Alpha Legion ranks, its massively brutal claws tearing the remaining Traitors limb from bloody limb. The monstrous construct bore the heraldry of Fenris, though no Battle-Brother recognised the specific markings. The Space Wolves joined in the melee, quickly dispatching the last of the Alpha Legion, but even with their common foe gone the fury of the Dreadnought did not subside. Attempts to communicate with the entombed Battle-Brother were met with metallic snarls, and all efforts to calm the berserk machine only enraged it further. Only by using Helfrost technology were the Space Wolves able to freeze the Dreadnought, placing it in stasis so that it could be taken back to Fenris and studied by the Iron Priests in The Fang. The metal-skinned monster is now believed to be the culmination of the Curseborn Prophecy, its arrival having been foreseen nearly two hundred standard years ago. Though it resembles a Space Wolves Dreadnought, and must once have had a name, the identity of the once noble hero within its sarcophagus is long lost, consumed by the bestial thing that now leers from its facade. Named "Murderfang" by the Space Wolves, it is a force of untamed destruction. In times of great strife, such as when Fenris itself was beset by a daemonic incursion, the machine-beast is released from its glacial prison and set upon the foe. Unleashed, Murderfang claws and stamps until nothing is left but ruin. At battle's end, the Space Wolves freeze it with Helfrost technology once again, hoping that Murderfang's wrath can be stayed for long enough to see it contained in the caverns beneath The Fang. Yet all know that as the Time of Ending approaches, the white heat of its rage will be needed more than ever.Magni Morkaisson - Magni Morkaisson was a Space Wolves Wulfen Dreadnought who served in a strike force that attacked a large Thousand Sons force commanded by the Daemon Primarch Magnus the Red, sometime after the Great Rift's creation. Led by their Chapter Master Logan Grimnar, the Space Wolves had tracked Magnus in order to claim revenge for the Daemon Primarch's invasion of their homeworld of Fenris just before the Great Rift formed. In the fierce battle that followed, Morkaisson was killed by an Exalted Sorcerer, though the Space Wolves emergeed victorious and destroyed the Thousand Sons force. |
Wych Cults - Wych Cults: The Wych Cults or Hekatarii of Commorragh are second in prestige in Drukhari society only to the Kabals that sponsor them. The Drukhari thrive upon expert displays of bloodletting, and in the pursuit of murder the Wyches are talented Aeldari indeed.The nightly battles between the gladiatrixes of the Wych Cults draw baying crowds to every Commorrite arena. Wyches wield a variety of outlandish weapons that can whip out, extend, enmesh, retract, split in two, or snap an opponent's blade with the twist of a supple wrist.Some Wyches -- such as the Lacerai, Hydrae, and Yraqnae -- specialise in such deadly esoterica. Furthermore, all Wyches are skilled knife-fighters who can kill a foe many times their size with the smallest of blades. The Wyches use a variety of combat drugs, galvanising them to ever-greater heights of balletic dexterity.They flip and pirouette around their enemies, slicing open a throat here and piercing a heart there. The Wyches flow through the elegant steps of battle, expressions of disdain twisting into savage smiles as they psychically feed upon each fresh scream of agony and pain. |
Wych Cults - Role: The Wych Cults provide their kin with a feast of agonies that, for a while at least, keeps their blades from one another's throats. Each cult's arena is unique, each performance more violent and outlandish than the last, for these gladiatorial sisterhoods are locked in constant competition to offer up the greatest show for their hungry-eyed audience.Commorragh exists in a delicate but well-established balance. Its citizens would gladly stab each other in the back just for the looks on their victims' faces, for to witness another's anguish is the only way the Drukhari have left to feed their withered souls. Yet for the ruling Archons of Commorragh to allow the natural bloodthirst of their kin to be unchecked would be to invite total societal collapse.Because of their kind's unending need to bathe in murderous sensations, the Drukhari have evolved the Hekatarii, known in common parlance as the Wych Cults. Each Wych Cult is a thousands-strong organisation of gladiators that put on nightly displays of the most incredible violence; not only for the edification of the masses, but also for their literal sustenance.Such is the scale of the carnage staged by these armies of warrior-athletes that their audiences leave the arena with the glow of well-fed predators. In this way the populace is kept from full-scale anarchy -- at least, those portions of Commorragh wealthy enough to attend the Wych Cults' nightly performances. |
Wych Cults - Blood on the Stage: Each Wych Cult has its own arena, which is as much a display of their wealth and status as it is a stage for their spectacles of violence. Comparing architectural masterpieces such as The Crucibael or Moedh Stair to the primitive amphitheatres of other civilisations would be much like comparing a glittering palace to a mud hut.Likewise, the Drukhari athletes that perform within them make the most gifted Human acrobat look like an uncoordinated ape by comparison. Each arena has its own deadly charms and challenges, from staples such as spinning blades and enraged predatory beasts, to gravity-wells, kinetic inversion snares or even more esoteric and inventive hazards. Each Wych Cult is constantly in competition to outdo its rivals with the sheer scope and imagination of its gore-soaked games.Many performances spread into the audience in interesting and deadly ways as the excitement builds to fever pitch. Arterial spurts of blood rain down into the rapt audience as battle takes place over their heads, or even amidst their stalls. The arenas crackle with tension, the viewers leaning forward in their seats with eyes wide and the leers of hungry predators etched upon their faces.Be they aerial ballets of bloodletting, zero-gravity mass murder or carefully selected menageries on the prowl, all Cult performances have one thing in common -- the arena is slick with blood and gore by the end of each night. Most of the Hekatarii are female, for they are more often able to attain the pinnacle of poise and grace their craft demands.Male Wyches ensure that their Wych Cult is never wanting for strong offspring, yet though they are valued they rarely attain high rank. Certainly the Succubi who rule over the Wych Cults are universally female. So it has been since the earliest days of the Dark City, and so shall it always be.All Wyches take great pride in their appearance. They enter combat dressed with as much aesthetic care as if they were to meet a lover. Regardless of the cult they serve, Wyches wear the bladed black armour of the arena over one side of an impeccably elegant and skintight bodysuit known as a Wychsuit. The other side has sections deliberately cut away to expose their pale flesh, as if to tempt Death himself.The Wyches use a variety of combat drugs distilled by the Haemonculi covens to increase their already superhuman dexterity. When outnumbered in combat, Wyches will roll, backflip and pirouette out of the way of the foe, stabbing their blades into any vulnerable points on their enemies' bodies, slitting throats and gouging out eyes as they go.They flow like water around their foes' attempts to land a blow, their expressions of aloof arrogance melting into infuriating smiles of superiority as they drink in each fresh scream of agony.Most Wyches wield a close combat weapon and Splinter Pistol, while others may make use of Shardnets, Impalers, Hydra Gauntlets and the dreaded Drukhari Razorflails. Squads of Wyches in combat also often use Plasma Grenades and Haywire Grenades for crowd control purposes and every Wych is armoured in her Wychsuit.Each squad of Wyches is led by one of their most skilled number, who is known as a Hekatrix and reports to the Wych Cult's ruling Succubus, a position also known in older texts as an "Archite."The Hekatrixes with the most talent for murder may earn a place in the Succubus' own elite clique of murderesses, the Hekatrix Bloodbrides, who are led by an officer known as a Syren. |
Wych Cults - Beyond the Arena: Almost every Wych Cult enjoys the patronage of a powerful Archon, for there is much glory to be had for the founders of the feast. More than this, however, the Wych Cults are powerful allies. After all, each is comprised solely of trained killers who enjoy nothing more than to prove their consummate skills in battle. This mutually agreeable arrangement ensures that the Wych Cults never run short of slaves and exotic combat stimulants.A good patron is always generous lest his stable of warrior athletes decides to bite the hand that feeds them. Meanwhile, the Archon gains the allegiance of a sisterhood of exceptionally trained Hekatarri to lend their blades to his raids upon realspace.The Wych Cults take every chance they can to prove their martial skills superior to those of the "lesser races," both within the arena and without. Though they profess nothing but contempt for the warrior castes of realspace, the Wyches get an undeniable thrill out of matching themselves against any suitably impressive opponent.The trophy halls of a successful Succubus will thus boast the heads of Adeptus Astartes heroes, conquering Ork Warbosses and Tyranid Hive Tyrants alike.There is much more to a Wych Cult than its arena. Below the elegant spires and weaponnodes of each cult stronghold's exterior are academies and training complexes devoted to every aspect of the close quarter kill. Anti-gravity hemispheres and gruelling "living landscapes" ensure each Wych is at the peak of physical fitness.Each cult keeps an extensive menagerie, re-stocked by its Beastmasters with an endless supply of alien captives and dangerous species. Different Wych Cults practise their own specialities, endlessly discussed by the arena's crowd. The Bladed Hand, for instance, hones the art of the unarmed kill (though they are famous for blurring the line), whilst The Stilled Heart specialise in the use of poisons, venoms and paralytic elixirs.A Wych Cult will often stage realspace raids purely at the behest of its Succubus. These raids are not only to gather new fodder for the arenas, but also to provide a chance for the Wyches to match their skills against the finest warriors of the lesser races.A Wych Cult raid is considered high art by many Drukhari, who will pay handsomely to fight alongside the massed gladiators, alien beasts and speeding aerial acrobats that each Succubus unleashes upon her prey.Other raids are quite literally performances in their own right. While the Wych Cult's Raiders and Venoms scream down into the foe's midst and force their desperate victims to fight for their lives, Commorrite pleasure-barges drift high above. Aboard these craft, wealthy spectators swill intoxicating nectars and offer polite applause to the high points of each bloody slaughter, while bets are won or lost on the performance of favoured combatants.Such spectacles are especially popular amongst the smirking ranks of the Drukhari Trueborn, who delight in watching others do the work for them while soaking up the psychic miasma of agonies that rises off the battle below.Yet for all their foppish hangers-on, Wych Cult raids are veritable blizzards of violence. They are direct and unstoppable strikes that -- like the Wyches themselves -- scorn the cumbersome protection of armour in favour of the safety that pure speed provides.Like a perfectly placed knife-thrust to the heart, a raid by a Wych Cult is swift, deadly and precise, capable of felling even the largest and most dangerous foes before they even realise they are under attack.Amid hurtling squadrons of Reavers and Hellions, overswept by the half-glimpsed shadows of Razorwing Jetfighters and Voidraven Bombers, the Wyches leap and plunge into the midst of their enemies with joyous abandon, and leave mountains of corpses in their wake.Only when the foe's numbers become overwhelming, or there are no further victims to face the fury of their knives do the Wyches retreat, disappearing as suddenly as they came and leaving absolute carnage in their wake. |
Wych Cults - Lacerai: The Lacerai are Wyches who wield the vicious, segmented Drukhari Razorflails in combat that lash out like a whip at their opponents. |
Wych Cults - Hydrae: The Hydrae are Wyches who wield the strange weapons known as Drukhari Hydra Gauntlets that can sprout and regrow new, crystalline blades from an unknown extradimensional source. |
Wych Cults - Yraqnae: Yraqnae are Wyches who make use of the electrified Shardnets and twin-bladed Impalers of the Dark City's arenas to more artistically slay their victims without resorting to the use of any ranged weapon at all. |
Wych Cults - Sub-Cults of the Hekatarii: As well as the knife-wielding warrior athletes who make up the bulk of the Wych Cults, the Dark City plays host to numerous sub-cults of gladiatorial combatants. When a cult goes to war against the warriors of realspace, these sub-cults lend their particular skills to the raid in exchange for a bounteous feast of pain from those slain and captured. |
Wych Cults - Hekatrix Bloodbrides: Each squad of Drukhari Wyches is led by a more skilled Wych known as a Hekatrix, who in her turn reports to the Wych Cult's ruling Succubus. It is common for a Succubus to gather the most talented and skilled of her Hekatrix handmaidens into a clique of elite murdereresses, led by the most skilled Hekatrix in the cult, who holds the rank of Syren.These cliques, whose members are known as Hekatrix Bloodbrides, are usually plagued by often intense rivalries for the Succubus' favour. When combat begins, however, Bloodbrides become an unstoppable force, ritually anointing themselves with the blood they spill from the foe as a foul testament to their own dark prowess in the arts of death, pain and terror.Hekatrix Bloodbrides are armoured in Wychsuits, and normally make use of Plasma Grenades, a Splinter Pistol and close combat weapons like Razorflails, Hydra Gauntlets, Shardnets and Impalers.The Bloodbrides' commanding Syren normally uses a Blast Pistol, a close combat weapon like a Venom Blade, Agoniser or another Power Weapon and sometimes keeps a Phantasm Grenade Launcher in reserve to deal with more immediate threats. |
Wych Cults - Notable Wych Cults: There are dozens of Wych Cults operating amidst the labyrinthine corridors of the Dark City of Commorragh. Some of the most prominent are listed below:Cult of the Beckoning Thorn - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh. There is little information listed in official Imperial records.Cult of the Blade Denied - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of the Bladed Hand - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of the Cursed Blade - In Commorragh the term "cursed blade" does not refer to a physical weapon, but instead to an individual or organisation that rebels against its masters. The Cult of the Cursed Blade has earned its name many times over, so much so that even for a well-protected Archon to invite Wyches from this Cult into his palace is tantamount to cutting his own throat. Treachery is held as the greatest of all virtues by the Cursed Blade, for by a process of hyper-accelerated natural selection the warrior women of the Cult ensure that only the strongest and most cunning within their ranks survive. Weapons that deceive and wrong-foot the foe are popular within their warrior cliques. Many a harmless-looking ornament worn by these Wyches clad in turquoise and gold contains a hidden snap-sword, poison barb or pair of flickblades, and it is common to see many Razorflails wielded among their ranks. The stronghold of this devious Cult is known as the Nhexus Arena, and is far more deadly than its elegant architecture would suggest. Every curve and line contains sprung monofilament nets, venomous dart-launchers, toxin-loaded syringe-drills and a myriad of other lethal surprises. Nor is this cornucopia of misfortune confined to the arena floor, for these deadly booby-traps are ever-shifting and as likely to spring up amid the audience as to lacerate or impale the performers. This is merely part of the fun, of course, adding a delicious frisson of very real danger that many Drukhari simply cannot resist.Cult of the Flayed Hand - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh. Their most notable action occurred in 995.M41 when the Flayed Hand aided the Kabal of the Wraithkind in rescuing Craftworld Iyanden from the ravages of WAAAGH! Rekkfist, following the Iyanden's already costly narrow victory over Hive Fleet Kraken. In the aftermath of the battle against the Greenskins, they were asked by Iyanden's Council of Seers as to why they intervened, and the Drukhari replied that they found Iyanden's agnst-ridden forays into the world of necromancy extremely entertaining and had no wish to see them come to an end with the Craftworld's destruction.Cult of Grief - A notable Wych Cult of Commoragh. There is little information listed in official Imperial records.Cult of the Impaled - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of the Jaded Blade - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of the Lethal Blade - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of Murder - A notable Wych Cult of Commoragh.Cult of the Red Grief - All Wych Cults believe that the best defence is simply not to be there when the opponent's blade falls, but the Cult of the Red Grief takes this to extremes. Their raiding forces employ whole flotillas of Raiders that fly in close formation towards the foe, escorted by Reavers, Venoms and Hellions. When the aerial formations close with the enemy, the Wyches will bound and spring from Raider to jetbike to skyboard and back again with athletic precision, dismounting and mounting so swiftly that the transports barely have to slow. Only the Wyches themselves ever deign to touch the ground, and even then only to deliver the killing blow to an enemy who is still trying to adjust to the fact that he is under attack. The Red Grief's main arena, the Pit, is an especially unforgiving structure built into the peak of a towering spire. Its galleries are made from transparent crystal, revealing that the audience are suspended only moments from a sickening plunge to their deaths. The arena proper truly has no floor -– just a yawning gulf prowled by drifting anti-grav platforms. Hellions duel here, their skyboards trailing lines of monofilament wire that unspool in an ever more complex web around the arena's struts and spars. Such bouts are brief, for the slightest error will lead to a messy dismemberment or decapitation.Cult of Strife - The Wych Cult of Strife has become the most influential in Commorragh, largely due to the sublime talents of Her Excellence, Lelith Hesperax. This Cult has risen to the apex of power not through treacherous politicking, but through the creed of speed over strength and the elevation of bloodsport to a high art. Though the Cult of Strife boasts dozens of the best warrior-athletes in the galaxy, Lelith herself is the flawless diamond at the centre of the crown. Her allure draws in hundreds of thousands of spectators every night, each of whom is prepared to pay a high price for the privilege of watching her perform. Most deadly of all her kind, Lelith’s skills in the arts of combat bear all the hallmarks of a true genius. She is grace embodied, her movements hypnotic, sensual and spellbinding. Alone amongst the Wych Cults, Lelith does not use combat drugs to enhance her performance. The Cult of Strife maintain that their mistress needs nothing more than a piece of edged steel to outclass her foes. Sure enough, although she is expert in the use of all the exotic weapons used by her kind, Lelith can most frequently be seen fighting with two simple but perfectly weighted knives. Like their Succubus, the Wyches in this cult refuse to use the standard Drukhari combat drugs to amplify their physical abilities, as they believe that the use of such stimulants lessens the sensations experienced in the heat of battle. Amongst Lelith's many admirers is Asdrubael Vect himself, and the Cult of Strife has long been affiliated with the Kabal of the Black Heart to the mutual benefit of both. Whether this is a bond of reciprocal admiration or the wary respect of natural born killers is immaterial, for the alliance has proven as strong as steel, and strength is hard currency in Commorragh. Thanks to the unparalleled power and generosity of their patron, the Cult of Strife's arena, the Crucibael, is the most lavishly appointed and spectacular in all of Commorragh. From the city-sized laser-grid of its toroid Reaver arena to the black-veined living jade of its mighty galleries, the Crucibael is one of the Dark City’s greatest spectacles. As Vect himself was once heard to say, Lelith Hesperax is the greatest treasure of the Dark City, and one does not display one's finest emerald amid squalor. The alliance between the Kabal of the Black Heart and the Cult of Strife brings constant benefit to both. Even the most impulsive and hot-tempered Succubus must recognise that a challenge to the Cult of Strife is likely to incur the wrath of Asdrubael Vect himself.Cult of the Seventh Woe - In the late 41st Millennium, the Wych Cult of the Seventh Woe rose to power in the arena districts after mounting a series of daring realspace raids and returning with a clutch of chitinous monsters never before seen in Commorragh. The Seventh Woe became the foremost experts on the weapon-beasts that had begun to infest the east of the galaxy, the creatures that Mankind calls Tyranids. The Seventh Woe coaxed a Tyranid Hive Fleet to divert its path towards the Imperial world of Eurydix Secundus. As Imperial forces began to fight back, the Wyches joined the fray, the carnage escalated, and ever larger and more dangerous Tyranid weapon-beasts were deployed. The Cult of the Seventh Woe captured many of the alien monsters with runic hexcages before disappearing into the Webway. In their wake Eurydix Secundus was tyrannoformed and harvested by the Hive Fleet. This Wych Cult is also well known for playing host every seventeen Terran years to an auspacious display of martial skill known as the Dance of the Blinding Blade. The best amongst the Cult of the Seventh Woe compete with a visiting troupe of Harlequins in a series of bloody, blisteringly fast bouts. Duels are fought in which the first to inflict thirteen shallow cuts upon their foe with a shard-knife is declared the victor. The culmination of each Dance of the Blinding Blade sees one of the triumvirate of Succubi who rule the Seventh Woe face off against the leering form of the Harlequins' Troupe Master in a duel to the death.Cult of the Twisted Knife - The Twisted Knife are currently the only Wych Cult that operates in the Spinward Front of the Calixis Sector. The Cult's warriors have been seen fighting at the side of no less than three different Kabals, as well as the Grotesques fielded by the Haemonculi Coven of Eyeless Watchers. Such assaults are typically spearheaded by the monstrous beasts and mutant-slaves favoured by the Cult. The reason for the Cult's ubiquity in the Spinward Front is simple; the Twisted Knifes have spent centuries studying strains of mutation through the Periphery Sub-sector and the worlds now claimed by Duke Severus XIII of the separatist human realm called the Severan Dominate, and regularly draws some of their most favoured chattel from these worlds. This intimate familiarity with the local worlds makes them sought-after partners for raids in the region, and they eagerly accept twisted and degenerate specimens in payment that their patrons would not be able to sell elsewhere.Cult of Vengeance - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of Violation - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of the Withered Blade - Standing in the shadow of the the Kabal of the Splintered Talon is the Cult of the Withered Blade and its Succubus, Anyalra. This Wych Cult forms the backbone of the slave trade in the Nexus of Shadows, and has seen its rise and increased prosperity since being brought into alliance with the Archons of the Nexus. Though less numerous and influential than the Kabal of the Splintered Talon that controls the region, the Cult is no less vital to the running of the city, and it is the games of the Shadowspine Pits, along with the beasts and slaves that they keep, that draw much of the trade that keeps the Nexus alive and keep the wicked urges of the Drukhari residents of the Nexus sated.Cult of Woe - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of Wrath - A notable Wych Cult of Commorragh.Cult of the Wrath Unbound - The Cult of the Wrath Unbound is most notable for taking part in a realspace raid alongside the Kabal of the Baleful Gaze in 626.M41 upon the Imperial industrial world of Durondas II. They crippled the infrastructure of the planet through the use of sustained haywire bombing. The cult then landed great packs of hunting beasts, Khymerae and Clawed Fiends, the beasts loping through the darkened streets and tearing the planet's defenders to shreds. Buried in darkness, weapons fried and transportation crippled by the haywire bombs, the terrified Astra Militarum and their civilian charges are forced to fall back time and again. The hunted survivors are finally herded together in the Grand Templum District of Durondas' capital city. Here the Drukhari Beastmasters loose their feral pets en masse, beginning a horrifying massacre that takes several long and bloody days to conclude, and from which no human emerges alive. |
Wych Cults - Notable Wyches: Anyalra - Anyalra is the foremost Succubus of the Cult of the Withered Blade. Anyalra holds her own arena, the Shadowspine Pits, in the Nexus of Shadows. Anyalra's goal is absolute perfection in battle; anything less is considered wasteful. The spectacle of the arena is merely so that others can testify to her beauty and skill. In battle, Anyalra moves calmly and with an unwavering dignity, her pace increasing with every moment as she begins to strike, a split-second flash of silver followed by a scream of agony or a welter of blood the only signs of her attack.Lelith Hesperax - Known as the "Queen of Blades," Lelith Hesperax is the undisputed champion of the gladiatorial arenas, the personal favourite -- and some say occasional courtesan -- of Overlord Asdrubael Vect himself. Most deadly of all her kind, Lelith's skill in the art of combat bears all the hallmarks of a true genius. She is grace embodied, her movements hypnotic, sensual and spellbinding -- watching Lelith Hesperax go about her blood-soaked business is a privilege that only the wealthiest Drukhari can afford. To see such a supremely talented Succubus perform first-hand is a dream come true for most Kabalites, for it energises and reinvigorates even the eldest of their kind. Lelith blesses raiding Kabals with her presence only in order to search out unusual prey -- she loves to match her abilities against the most formidable champions in the galaxy. She has yet to return from a raid without blood upon her blades and a new clutch of grisly trophies for her private museums. In battle, Lelith uses her body as a weapon as well as her blades. Her lustrous mane of hair is sewn through with barbs and hooks, her legs and feet are edged with bladed spurs, and her fingernails have been honed to scalpel sharpness. Lelith can kill a dozen lesser warriors in the space of a few seconds before finishing with flourish and poise.Yctria Ghularis - A Succubus and leader of the Cult of the Red Grief, she was a doyenne of the arenas, known behind her back as the Flayer Queen. Once of the First Blood she became a Succubus of the Red Grief, and Yctria was as ravishing as she was ambitious. She was also possessed of a truly foul temper. Whenever Yctria felt slighted, she would fly into a spectacular rage. She had a hated rivalry with the Succubus known as Kariasche the Marred, who proudly wore her many disfiguring scars with pride. Her appearance was taken as a personal affront to Yctria. In one of the nightly duels that took place in the Red Grief's arenas, Yctria took great pleasure in beating Kariasche in battle, and then carefully skinned her alive before the baying crowd. Yctria then tied her rival's stolen skin around her neck like a silken robe. The elder Haemonculus Croniarch Sekh of the Coven known as the Prophets of Flesh, was a secret admirer of Kariasche, and became extremely bitter and wrathful with the Flayer Queen after his favourite's demise. The Haemonculus called in a few favours, and part of Kariasche’s corpse found its way into the stasis coffins of the Prophets of Flesh. It would not be the last time Sekh would cross paths with the warrior queens of the Red Grief. The Haemonculus conspired against her with Yctria's second-in-command, Idyliane. When the Prophets of Flesh took part in a realspace raid alongside the Red Grief, Sekh enacted his vengeance during the height of the battle. Sekh was instrumental in the mutation of Yctria, who was very vain about her appearance, into a hideous beast that would be forced to fight in Commorragh's gladiatorial arenas. Seven Ilmaean cycles later, the Prophets of Flesh returned to the grand amphitheatre of the Red Grief. Croniarch Sekh and his fellows watched with quiet smiles from under their shadowed balcony. They drank in the sight of the Red Grief's new queen as Kariasche, made whole once more, strode into the arena. Every one of the scars and blemishes that the dusky Succubus had worn so proudly in her former life was perfectly intact. Led by a bone chain in Kariasche's wake came a lumpen beast of impressive size. Its anguish was plain as it moaned and drooled from a dozen wound-like mouths. Clapping hesitantly at first, but rising to a crescendo as the truth of the spectacle sank in, the Drukhari in the arena got to their feet until the entire arena was united in a standing ovation. There was nothing so gratifying for the citizens of Commorragh than witnessing another's pain, after all, and Yctria's new incarnation had enough of that to last a thousand standard years.Elyra Narcistyn - A newly elevated Succubus of the Cult of Strife, Elyra has secured an allegiance with Archon Vraesque Malidrach of the Kabal of the Flayed Skull in the hopes of escaping the shadow of Lady Hesperax. |
Wych Cults - Wargear: Wychsuit - Wyches wear flexible bodysuits called Wychsuits that have been designed to protect one side of the body –- usually the side they habitually turn towards their opponents –- whilst not impeding movement at all.Splinter Pistol - Splinter Weapons like the Splinter Pistol fire shards of splintered crystal covered in incredibly potent toxins using a powerful magno-electric pulse.Drukhari Close Combat Weapon - A Wych can wield any number of favoured Drukhari close combat weapons. See Drukhari Wargear for more information.Plasma Grenades - The Asuryani and Drukhari use Plasma Grenades in place of the more crudely designed Frag Grenades used by the Imperium. Plasma Grenades use a small amount of exploding plasma to blind the enemy and prevent them from properly using their terrain to defend their position against advancing enemy forces. |
Wych Cults - Sources: Codex: Dark Eldar (3rd Edition, 2nd Codex), pg. 9Codex: Dark Eldar (5th Edition), pg. 27Codex: Dark Eldar (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), pp. 15-16, 21, 49-55, 57, 61, 63, 65-70, 85, 93, 98, 115, 148-149, 161-162, 227Only War: Enemies of the Imperium (RPG), pg. 84Rogue Trader: The Soul Reaver (RPG), pp. 11-12, 121Lukas the Trickster (Novel) by Josh Reynolds, Ch. 7 |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Wyrdvane Psyker: A Wyrdvane Psyker is a human Sanctioned Psyker who does not have complete control of his or her powers but has been assigned for service to the regiments of the Astra Militarum. Wyrdvane Psykers transform the howling might of the Warp into a deadly weapon of Imperial supremacy.Wyrdvane Psyker squads are formed from those Scholastica Psykana inductees not able to control their burgeoning powers without guidance and aid. Some have not yet completed the gruelling training to become a Primaris Psyker.Others will never achieve that goal, introverted beyond rescue by the horrors of their own minds. As individuals, such psykers are unpredictable and unsafe. Yet in concert, these deadly mutants can be a valuable asset to an Imperial Guard unit on the battlefield. |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Role: Eerily attuned to one another, Wyrdvane Psykers draw strength from communion, linking their thoughts to better slaughter the foes of Mankind. Corposant lightning crackles around them as they marshal their powers, moans and wails spill from their lips, tangled amid stringy ropes of vomited ectoplasm.Armoured battle tanks buckle inwards as the psykers focus their power, crumpling upon their horrified crews like a ration-pack in an Ogryn's fist. Heretics are incinerated amid billowing clouds of psychic flame, domes of protective telekinetic force enfold quivering allied Guardsmen, while pervasive many-voiced whispers talk warriors into madness or horrified self-destruction.Only once a choir of Wyrdvane Psykers have proven their ability to work as a controlled, cohesive whole will they be permitted to take to the field unsupervised. The psykers are formed into potential squads based on the omens of the Emperor's Tarot, and must endure numerous inhumane tests before they are declared battle-ready. They must demonstrate their ability to guard one another's minds, to stabilise their companions' more volatile powers and enhance those that flounder or fail.Many will not survive the trials to which they are subjected, and even those that do are still destined to be treated with fear, revulsion and mistrust by their fellow Guardsmen. Many commanders will leave a Commissar or two in close proximity to a group of Battle Psykers, just to be safe.Horror stories abound amongst the Astra Militarum of Wyrdvane Psykers bursting spontaneously into flame in the midst of battle, or else becoming possessed by terrible entities and slaughtering friend and foe alike. However, the Scholastica Psykana's screening stamps out many such potential disasters before they can occur, and for every uncontrolled explosion of Warp energy there are a dozen battles where the Wyrdvanes prove their worth.Insular in the extreme, squads of Wyrdvane Psykers are only too aware of their comrades' superstitious disgust. Yet for all this, they are loyal and dedicated soldiers of the Imperium, risking their very souls to fight in defence of the Emperor's realm.Indeed, while most officers would be loathe to admit it, a squad or two of Wyrdvane Psykers is often worth several times their number of "proper" Imperial Guardsmen, and as Humanity's psychic potential squirms ever closer to the surface, Wyrdvane Psykers have become an increasingly common presence in Astra Militarum regiments of the 41st Millennium.Indeed, as the hour darkens and Mankind's cause becomes ever more desperate, some whisper darkly that these dangerous mutants may one day replace good honest soldiers altogether. |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Psychic Abilities: The psykers who accompany the soldiery of the Astra Militarum perform a variety of battlefield roles, but each one is a deadly tool of war. Whether channelling the energies of the Warp to protect and embolden their allies, or to confound and destroy the foe, each commands powers capable of turning the tide of battle. |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Psykana Discipline: Terrifying Visions - The psyker fills his enemies' minds with nightmarish images and visions of torment, seeking to send them fleeing in terror.Gaze of the Emperor - The psyker cages the immense power of the Immaterium within his physical form, and his eyes blaze with the Emperor's vengeful fury, unleashing pure psychic energy to smite the Master of Mankind's foes.Psychic Barrier - The psyker weaves an aegis of pure psychic energy around his allies, against which enemy fire sparks and spatters harmlessly.Nightshroud - Calling upon the power of the Empyrean, the psyker cloaks his allies in a flowing curtain of shadow, concealing them from the enemy.Mental Fortitude - Drawing on boundless reserves of inner strength, the psyker shields his allies' minds from mortal fears and the threat of sorcerous assault, dramatically improving morale.Psychic Maelstrom - The psyker unleashes the full telekinetic might of his mind, summoning a roiling psychic tempest that envelops his enemy, lifting them from the ground and wrenching them about like a rag doll. |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Biomancy Discipline: Biomancers specialise in manipulating biological energy and processes with the power of their minds. They are masters of the flesh, learning to shape and influence the physical forms of themselves, their allies or their enemies, according to their will.Smite - Lethal bolts of bio-lightning leap from the psyker's fingertips, tearing his foes apart.Iron Arm - By transmuting his flesh into living metal, the biomancer can wade through enemy fire unscathed and pulp skulls with his bare fists.Enfeeble - As the psyker channels his powers, tendrils of Warp energy lash over his victims, every caress sapping vitality from their bodies.Endurance - Reaching into the essence of his allies, the biomancer knits together bones, heals flesh and banishes fatigue so that they carry on the fight.Life Leech - With a twist of his gnarled hands, the wrathful psyker rips the life force from his enemy, hoarding the stolen essence and using it to reinvigorate and restore his own injured flesh.Warp Speed - The powers of the Immaterium flow into the psyker, heightening his speed to supernatural levels. A blur is he amongst his enemies, felling the unrighteous with blows too swift to see.Haemorrhage - Focussing his mutant mind, the psyker reaches forth and sets a fire within his victim's flesh. Within moments, the unfortunate foe's blood begins to boil in its own veins, tearing him asunder as it bursts from every pore. |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Divination Discipline: Diviners seek to discern the hidden past of the galaxy and know the course of events yet to come. These abilities allow diviners to look into the twisting strands of the Immaterium in search of the answers they seek, and sometimes even influence the outcome of fate itself.Prescience - The psyker can effortlessly predict the paths of bullets and swords. By focussing his Warp-sight even more closely, he can guide his allies' aim, bringing a swift and merciless death to their foes.Foreboding - Thanks to his Warp-gifted insights, the psyker and his allies are aware that their foes are about to charge, even before the foes themselves have realised it.Misfortune - With a click of his fingers, the diviner twists fate so that his followers' blows punch through the weakest points in their opponents' armour.Perfect Timing - As soon as his consciousness pierces the veil of the Warp, a rush of images floods the diviner's mind, foretelling the actions of his enemies, down to the merest microsecond. Armed with this information, the diviner's allies can predict exactly when their foes will peer out from behind cover and expose themselves to a lethal head shot.Precognition - Having already witnessed the one true path to victory, the diviner strides across the battlefield like an avenging god of war. Whilst the premonitions run true, he is all but undefeatable, proof against bullet and bolt, blade and bombardment. However, should his self-wrought prophecies fade, or turn false, he will surely be doomed to ignominious defeat.Scrier's Gaze - The diviner can see the battlefield clearly in his mind's eye, with the vantage point of a hunting hawk and the precision of a laser. The to and fro of armies and war machines is but the scurrying of ants beneath his omniscient gaze. Thus can the diviner direct exactly when and where they are most needed, leaving no clue behind as to how this trickery was achieved. |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Pyromancy Discipline: A pyromancer is a master of fire and flame, a psyker who is able to create searing infernos out of thin air. Pyromancy is one of the most spectacular and destructive forms of psychic ability, and those who face a pyromancer in combat are oft reduced to nought but a pile of charred bones.Flame Breath - A torrent of psychically-generated flames pour forth from the psyker's eyes and mouth, engulfing the target.Fiery Form - Bullets and shells pass straight through the pyromancer as he transforms into an incandescent being of living Warpfire, striking out at his foes and setting their souls ablaze.Fire Shield - With a sweep of his arms the psyker throws up a towering wall of flame to protect his allies.Spontaneous Combustion - Focussing his anger, the pyromancer can melt or incinerate his foes in a heartbeat. Yet when his rage boils over, the unfortunate victim's body explodes in a blast of ash and roaring flame. Who can say how many will fall victim to his wrath before it is sated?Sunburst - The psyker sings a wild song whose notes were old when the universe was young. As he does so, an incandescent aura appears about him, growing ever brighter and hotter with every refrain. Only when the song is ended does the aura explode, discharging its pent-up fury in a blinding, supernoval flash.Molten Beam - The pyromancer claps his hands together and turns them outward towards the foe. As he does so, a white-hot beam of blazing energy bursts from his palms. It melts armour to slag and vaporises flesh, leaving only ghastly shadows in its wake. |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Telekinesis Discipline: Telekines are able to manipulate the material world with the power of their minds, translating sheer mental power into physical force. These psykers can lash their foes with psychic energy, erect invisible force shields to protect themselves and even rend apart the fabric of reality.Assail - Using nothing but the power of his mind, the psyker tears a boulder or rock from the ground and hurls it at the foe.Crush - By reaching out his arm and clenching his fist, the psyker entraps his foe in a choking and crushing mass of psychic force. Gritting his teeth, the psyker continues the assault until flesh, armour and bone alike are ground to powder.Gate of Infinity - The psyker punches a corridor through the roiling Immaterium, allowing him to cross great distances in the blink of an eye.Objuration Mechanicum - Weapons jam and engines seize up as the telekine uses his powers to wrench and twist the inner workings at the hearts of nearby machines.Shockwave - The psyker slams his palms together and the noise is magnified a hundredfold, releasing a shockwave that snaps bones and knocks foes off their feet.Telekine Dome - Bullets bounce off of thin air and are deflected alarmingly towards friendly forces as the psyker erects a barrier of shimmering psychic energy about himself.Vortex of Doom - The telekine opens a tear between the material realm and the howling destruction of the Warp, unleashing energies that utterly consume his foes. |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Unit Composition: 3-9 Wyrdvane Psykers |
Wyrdvane Psyker - Wargear: Flak ArmourLaspistolWyrdvane StaveChimera or Taurox as dedicated transport |
Wyrms of the Ur-tendril - Wyrms of the Ur-tendril: The Wyrms of the Ur-tendril are a Genestealer Cult that was discovered to the horror of the Adeptus Custodes to be infesting the throneworld of the Imperium, Terra itself. |
Wyrms of the Ur-tendril - History: In the days just before the birth of the Great Rift in the late 41st Millennium, a Genestealer Cult calling themselves the Wyrms of the Ur-tendril were discovered by Ordo Xenos agents, entrenched amongst the Nordafrik under-archives on Terra.Adeptus Custodes Captain-General Trajann Valoris refused a request by the Deathwatch to send Kill-teams against this threat, instead leading the purge in person at the head of a huge Adeptus Custodes Shield Host.The cult put up a brutal fight, their sheer numbers and fanaticism allowing them to drag down one Custodian after another and tear them limb from limb. Yet for every one of the Custodians that fell, hundreds upon hundreds of malformed cultists and Aberrants were slaughtered.At last, Valoris himself beheaded the monstrous Broodlord that ruled over the cult. He ordered the creature's disturbing inner sanctum burned despite the protests from the Ordo Xenos investigators -- Valoris refused to let anyone other than his comrades witness the foul mural that decorated the sanctum's back wall, of a nest of fanged tendrils emerging from the heart of Sol itself to devour Terra whole... |
Wyvern - Wyvern: The Wyvern Suppression Tank, more often known simply as the Wyvern, is a short-range, self-propelled artillery piece of the Astra Militarum.The Wyvern is a variant of the Hydra Flak Tank, exchanging the Hydra's anti-aircraft Hydra Autocannons for a pair of twin-linked Stormshard Mortars.While it lacks the range and raw power of the Basilisk's Earthshaker Cannon, this ordnance tank was designed for the claustrophobic environment of urban warfare, its weapon system capable of raining down curtains of shrapnel upon enemy infantry without ever exposing itself to danger.The Wyvern uses a bastardised version of the Hydra's advanced auto-targeting system that constantly runs proximity sweeps of the area for concentrations of enemy infantry. The Machine Spirits (artificial intelligences) of these vehicles are renowned for their malicious nature, as they actively seek the most tightly-packed or vulnerable grouping of enemy infantry and strain to target them, sometimes even overriding the commands of their crews.When the artillery piece does fire, its Stormshard Mortars emit a distinctive roar as they spew clouds of shells high into the air. The sound of these weapons firing becomes the dread of enemy forces facing batteries of Wyverns in dense urban areas, for it is inevitably followed by the sound of those same shells descending with crackling booms as they detonate, and the harrowing scream of the maimed and dying left in their wake.In a galaxy where many of Mankind's enemies leave the soldiers of the Imperial Guard with a feeling of powerlessness and inadequacy, such a vindictive weapon is extremely popular amongst them.There are few things that can restore a Guardsman's faith like watching arrogant Aeldari or terrifying Daemons reduced to piles of bloody, frantic madness by the shelling of a Wyvern artillery battery.The Wyvern is worth its weight in gold for this spectacle alone, not only being devastating to the enemy's forces but improving morale by reducing them to a powerless, terrified mass as they die.The Wyvern is a very versatile artillery vehicle, as whole batteries of them can rain oblivion upon the foe or they can be attached in small numbers to other formations. A single Wyvern can provide an Imperial infantry platoon with close-range fire support, fending off wave after wave of enemy forces who might otherwise overrun the Guardsmen that it is supporting.When deployed with other formations, a Wyvern can keep enemy infantry from advancing upon vulnerable areas such as flanks and the rear. Even ultra-fast moving targets such as Aeldari Jetbikes can find themselves cut to pieces by experienced Wyvern crews.Each successful kill elicits a growl of satisfaction from the Wyvern's malicious and bloodthirsty Machine Spirit, even as its sensors hunt for its next victim. |
Wyvern - Armament: The Wyvern is armed with a pair of turret-mounted, twin-linked Stormshard Mortars. Specialising in close-range saturation bombing, the Wyvern fills a very different battlefield role from other Imperial artillery vehicles like the long-range Basilisk or the heavy firepower of the Bombard.Although the Wyvern lacks the necessary firepower to effectively engage enemy armoured vehicles, they do excel at generating an all-consuming storm of shrapnel from which there is no escape.A battery of these tanks can fill a street from end to end with whistling, razor-edged death, relentlessly pounding enemy infantry until nothing remains but bloody mulch and drifting smoke. The shells from the Stormshard Mortars explode above their targets, ensuring their victims have nowhere to hide that their airbursting rounds cannot reach.The shrapnel from the Stormshard Mortar can tear undergrowth to shreds, flakboard and barricades are completely perforated, and craters and trenches are turned into deathtraps. The Wyvern can strike directly at concentrations of enemy infantry in order to clear paths for allied troops, or spread their fire out in an "area denial" bombardment that forces even the most tenacious defenders to abandon their posts or die.The Wyvern is also armed with a single, hull-mounted Heavy Bolter or Heavy Flamer for defence. The vehicle can be outfitted with a Searchlight, Smoke Launchers, an enclosed crew compartment, relic plating, a Dozer Blade, a recovery gear, Extra Armour Plating, fire barrels, a Hunter-Killer Missile Launcher, Camouflage Netting, and an Augur array. |
Wyvern - Adeptus Mechanicus Technical Specifications: Wyvern Suppression TankVehicle Name:WyvernMain Armament:Turret-mounted twin-linked Stormshard MortarsForge World of Origin:UnknownSecondary Armament:Hull-mounted Heavy BolterKnown Patterns:UnknownTraverse:360 degreesCrew:UnknownElevation:0 to 79 degreesPowerplant:Vulcanor 16 Twin-Coupled Multi-BurnMain Ammunition:UnknownWeight:38 Tonnes (Approx.)Secondary Ammunition:300 RoundsLength:5.29 metres (Approx.)Armour:Width:3.78 metres (Approx.)Height:5.10 metres (Approx.)Superstructure:100 millimetres (Approx.)Ground Clearance:0.45 metres (Approx.)Hull:150 millimetres (Approx.)Max Speed On-Road:50 kilometres per hour (Approx.)Gun Mantlet:N/AMax Speed Off-Road:35 kilometres per hour (Approx.)Vehicle Designation:UnknownTransport Capacity:N/AFiring Ports:N/AAccess Points:N/ATurret:N/A |
Wyvern - Sources: Codex: Astra Militarum (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), "Wyverns," "Heavy Support-Wyvern Battery"Codex: Astra Militarum (8th Edition), pp. 46, 110Imperial Armour Volume One - Imperial Guard (Second Edition), pp. 9, 175-179, 262-263, 267 (Technical Specifications Same as Hydra) |
Xana II - Xana II: Xana II is a Hell-Forge of the Dark Mechanicum that was once a powerful and isolated Forge World of the ancient Mechanicum, whose capable forges and facilities were unmatched in its region of the galaxy. Xana II is particularly known for supplying the Hell Blade and Hell Talon attack craft to the forces of Chaos.The Primaris-grade Forge World of Xana II was originally located in the Vicidax Thule Sector which lay on the very edge of the western galactic reach of the Segmentum Pacificus.Long the subject of sinister rumour concerning its finding and inclusion in the Imperium of Man during one of the darkest episodes of the Great Crusade's early history, Xana's masters were notoriously independent and politically long-estranged from Mars. Xana II's privilege was bought largely with the vast outpourings of its forges to fuel and arm the ongoing Great Crusade, and expediency was the mother of the pace which brought the Forge World into the Imperium by negotiation with the emissaries of the Emperor, rather than the full auspices of Mars.While the forges of distant Xana issued forth provender and munitions in vast quantities, it was largely left alone.During the First Rangdan Xenocide Imperial forces rallied at Xana before they moved to throw back the assault of the vicious xenos known as the Rangda.As the Horus Heresy suddenly and bloodily unfolded, Xana II's isolation only increased and it was a situation its ruling synod of magi, known as the Vodian Consistory, did little to attempt to outwardly alleviate. They chose initially neither faction to favour, avowing, at least publicly, that the matter was an "internal matter of the Great Crusade's military" in which they had no direct involvement.As the civil war went on with no clear avenue of victory in sight, both sides looked to the increasingly bellicose and active Forge World of Xana II with renewed interest.In their years of isolation following the war's outbreak, the forges of Xana had not been idle and evidence began to amass that a vast and well-guarded stockpile of munitions and war machines had been built up in the system, and readied as if for shipment to a client, but to what end or to whom remained unclear. Eventually, Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists Legion and Praetorian of Terra, made an open proclamation declaring the Forge World of Xana II Traitoris Perdita and under sentence of death.At the same time, covert entreaties were made via intermediaries of Malcador the Sigillite for the remission of this sentence in return for absolute allegiance and the deliverance of stockpiles of war materiel immediately to the Loyalists' defensive build-up in the Segmentum Solar.The Warmaster Horus, however, was to offer a more subtle and honeyed bargain, which would inevitably lead to Xana II's downfall, and ultimately, they would become the first of the so-called Hell-Forges of the Warpsmiths of Chaos. |
Xana II - Great Crusade: The Forge World of Xana was a potent and storied example of its kind, an Ultima II-grade faculty rated as one of the most capable Forge Worlds of the Imperium, and unmatched in its region of the galaxy. It comprised a main planetary sphere, Xana II, with a number of inhabited moons and extensive mobile sub-faculties in the form of void and gas mining installations scattered throughout the debris belts and turbulent atmosphere of the macro-magnitude gas giant, Xana I, around which the Forge World orbited as one of its moons.Its position was on the very far tip of the galactic arm of the western fringe, granting it the title on the star charts of the Carta Imperialis as "Occidentem Thule" -- the last great port on the edge of the intergalactic abyss. To the crews of the Imperial fleet whose long range patrols used Xana as their furthest outpost of reach, it bore another more evocative name, "the Port of Bones" -- a reference of uncertain origin, but perhaps developed form the ossuary-white and grey-black livery of its ruling Mechanicum Magi."Xana" had been a word that conjured images of sinister mystery at the edge of the unknown since the earliest days of the Great Crusade. First recorded in rumours taken from the reports of Rogue Traders and exploratory craft sent out towards the western reaches of the galaxy as early as the ninth century of M30, these early "myths" were confused, contradictory and exaggerated in the telling. These tales told of a machine empire that spanned many worlds on one hand and of a lonely outpost -- a forbidden domain which held within it the wonders and terrors of the Dark Age of Technology on the other.Some versions of the rumours held its rulers to be cyborg lords such as the masters of Mars, while others spoke of a nightmarish cabal of dark overminds, fleshless things that should have long been dead. But despite these discrepancies, certain consistencies remained between the iterations of the story; firstly that this technological power was -- or at least had once been -- human and that its home was a star system on the very edge of the western galactic reach upon a world that was time and again named as "Xana."The pursuit of what truth lay behind the myth of Xana became of great interest to the planners and strategists of the early decades of the Great Crusade, not least of all, it is believed, to the Fabricator-General of Mars and the Emperor Himself. To the former, the mysterious data indicated the presence of a powerful and independent Forge World, though one founded perhaps by a lost Ark Mechanicum as no records remained in the vaults of Mars as to an intentional expedition to this desolate and ill-populated region of space.As to the latter's interest, it can only be speculated upon, but it is known that probe ships were sent out into the region by the Emperor's express order. Perhaps it was merely a part of the Master of Mankind's greater interest to see the far-flung domains of humanity united, or perhaps to isolate a rival to be destroyed. It might have been that He saw Xana as a potential location where one of His lost sons might be found; we shall never now know.Deep-range Empyreal explorers and expedition flotillas searched far in their quest for Xana for solar decades, but either did not return or came back empty-handed, save for a fresh handful of rumours and suppositions, and the myth of Xana remained just that, superseded by more pressing conflicts and tangible discoveries which drew away the Great Crusade's attention.The tides of war and conquest would mean that the truth of Xana would remain uncovered until 843.M30 when a damaged galleass belonging to the Rogue Trader Casilida DeAniasie, having been flung far off-course after engaging in battle with Fra'al Corsairs, intercepted a trio of hulking automata warships at the edge of the intergalactic void. Although they might have taken or destroyed her already damaged voidship with little effort, these vessels instead offered aid and carried with them a message of greeting and an offer of diplomatic exchange between the "Sovereign Forge Domain of Xana" and the Imperium of Man and its Emperor.The Xana vessels made good on their intentions by taking the stricken galleass back under tow to the Xana System itself, where it was repaired and resupplied for its journey home with exemplary speed, and the Rogue Trader herself treated with courtesy and honour in a realm that DeAniasie herself would later go on to describe as a "...beacon on the shore of night" -- a fully-fledged Forge World, as potent as any then in the Imperium save mighty Mars itself, set in orbit around a titanic gas giant, itself beholden to a star cast alone on the edge of the great void, without constellation or neighbour for hundreds of light years. A world, if any could be said to be so, on the precipice of the abyss of the unknown. |
Xana II - An Uneasy Alliance: Negotiations between the Imperium and Xana soon followed upon the Rogue Trader's return, but despite the cordial tone under which they had been instigated, they were quickly beset by suspicions by many within the Imperium's camp. The first among the doubters were the emissaries of Mars. To them Xana was a troubling paradox; a recognisable Mechanicum-dogmatic and Mars-originated Forge World where one should not exist, and of whose creation they had no record. Furthermore, it was no mere hardscrabble outpost of the Machine Cult, such as Kalibbrax had been when rediscovered, nor even a recognisable exemplar of an Ark Mechanicus-created domain which had maintained intermittent links to Mars such as Lucius.Instead, any cursory examination of Xana showed it as a primary Forge World of vast resource and manufacturing facility far outstripping its own needs. A Forge World whose roots were sunk deep, centuries deep perhaps, and indeed whose arts had dragged other minor planetary bodies into its near-orbit for its homeworld's use after its own native mines had played out. Its mature technologies and industries had produced multiple quasi-independent forge-fanes which in turn had created powerful Taghmata for their protection, and for the defence of their world pooled their resources to create a Titan Legion of a size matching the first rank of the Imperium's own classification, and that had also constructed its own void-navy, whose vessels had Warp capability.To the emissaries and assayers of Mars, who the Lords of Xana received with cordial if chill honour, these facts did not make sense. Far-flung Xana was simply too powerful, too well-established, too apparently concordant in Machine Cult doctrine for a world with no history of communion with Mars on record; the facts did not compute, Xana was a paradox.Suspicions were not allayed by the Xanites' vagueness as regarding their world's origins and activities over the years, blaming the tribulations of long distant wars and the privations of past solar storms of blistering power for their missing and incoherent records as to their own history, while their vast military capacity they explained as reaction to prior attacks by alien invaders. The Fabricator-General's ambassador demanded full access to planetary archives and forge-fane data-looms for verification, but was flatly denied; negotiations for admittance to the Imperium were under way and the Lords of Xana rejected any demands to capitulate sovereignty prematurely; they did not desire war, but nor would they submit to "enslavement" without conflict.Hard calculations were being run by this time by the commanders of the Great Crusade; estimations of the degree of force required to take Xana were high. Such a conquest would require the full might of at least one entire Space Marine Legion, preferably more, and that force backed with a full strength of multiple Titan Legions and hundreds of thousands of ancillary troops. This to secure victory over what would be an inevitably shattered prize.The force required to perform such a task was one the Imperium of 846.M30 was ill-equipped to spare, for looming over the stalemating negotiations was the spectre of a far larger war. That war would be the first waves of what would become afterwards known as the Rangdan Xenocides; the greatest existential threat of the Imperium's first century of existence and a conflict whose casualties and losses would be unmatched in scope until the wars of the Horus Heresy itself were fought.Under the baleful influence of this far greater threat, a deal was reached between the ambassadors of Terra and the Lords of Xana, a proposal which came with the undertone of drastic action by the Imperium should its generous offers be rejected. Under this treaty of Imperial Compliance, Xana would maintain its sovereignty as part of the greater Imperium, and notionally while falling under the rule of distant Mars, its affairs and secrets would largely remain its own so long as it obeyed the restrictions on technological development imposed on Mars itself by the Emperor.Xana in return, and its forges and fanes, would now arm the Great Crusade and serve as port for its ships, and the Imperium in turn would feed Xana with raw materials and fresh blood and schematics to enable this. The accord was sealed and ratified by the Lords of Xana and the Emperor's own writ, despite the misgivings of many and the barely concealed displeasure of the Fabricator-General.In spite of the suspicions of many, the accord and the uneasy alliance bore fruit; the Titans of Xana, divided now into two Legions, the Legio Vulturum (known as the "Gore Crows") and the Legio Kydianos (the "Death Cry"), left their world along with the Xanite void warship armada and scores of Cybernetica cohorts, and hurled themselves without relent into the fires of the Rangdan campaign.Their reinforcement of the front line was sorely needed, and the Xanite forces broke their greater strength in countless battles on the edge of the Halo Stars, becoming shattered remnants of their former selves, but earned much honour in doing so for their Forge World. More importantly, weapons and arms poured forth from Xana and were shipped directly to the Segmentum-wide battle lines of the war, providing much needed respite and fresh strength to beleaguered Imperial forces, helping to slowly turn the tide of defeat into first stalemate and eventually victory. It was a victory Xana was in no small part bled dry to achieve.Though now diminished, Xana entered the Great Crusade's later era as still a powerful and sovereign Forge World, its independence from the direct authority of Mars and Terra, maintained not simply by the absolute adherence to the treaty under which it had entered the Imperium, but also its great distance from the Segmentum Solar and easy scrutiny.Rumours still circulated of hidden operations and deep and forbidden secrets hidden on Xana II, of heresies whispered by her Tech-priests on the myriad battlefields on which they served, of a distance and distrust steadily growing between the Mechanicum of Xana and those of other Forge Worlds, even as the Great Crusade progressed. But compared to the oddities and macabre practises openly observed in Tech-priesthoods the likes of the Redjak of Sarum or the Crat'mau'kora of Voss, these were subtleties lost on those outside the Omnissian Cult and its intimates.So it was that when the Warmaster Horus rose to power after the Ullanor Crusade, Xana remained a distant and almost legendary force in an Imperium grown much to encompass a galaxy on whose silent and unpopulated edge it dwelled alone, a Forge World whose Magi kept no counsel but their own, its paradox unsolved. |
Xana II - The Feathered Messenger: The first ambassador sent by Horus to Xana after Rogal Dorn's judgement of it in rebellion was an unexpected one. Assessing perhaps correctly that an overt show of empty force would avail him nothing at this time and that a Priest of Mars would be even less welcome on Xana than one of his warlords, Horus had instead sent one of the lodge priests of Davin. Identified by Loyalist agents as one "Unvacar Noon," an individual bedecked in strange feathered raiment and the bones of the dead, he offered the Lords of Xana more than threats and intimidation; on behalf of his master, he offered power.Much as with Sarum and Cyclothrathe, other "Renegade" Forge Worlds distrustful of Mars that the Warmaster had enticed into his cause with the lure of petty empire-building and freedom of experimentation, he offered a new treaty of alliance whose accords Xana's ruling Vodian Consistory would find more to their liking than the old. By this new pact Xana would serve his "new Imperium" just as it had the old, but where they had been used and bled dry callously in the past by a master who cared nothing for their power or prosperity, under Horus they would flourish and be rewarded.Gone would be the petty restrictions of the Emperor's technological edicts -- blocks put in place to avert the spectre of the terrors of Old Night -- and gone would be the dead hand of Machine Cult dogma -- if they so desired, so long as they offered up their weapons and war machines to the Traitors' cause with abundance. The details would prove more torturous and elaborate to finalise, but in secret an agreement was reached, even while in false faith the Lords of Xana continued to equally secretly deal with Malcador the Sigillite's emissaries to the contrary. So the Archmagi of the Vodian Consistory sought to play one side against the other, right to the bitter end. |
Xana II - Xana Incursion: In 009.M31 a desperate campaign, which came to be known as the Xana Incursion, was conducted by Legiones Astartes Blackshield irregular forces as well as a small force of Dark Angels against the recalcitrant Forge World of Xana II. Intelligence had reached Terra that the Renegade Forge World on the western fringe of the Imperium had reached an accord with the Traitor forces to supply the Warmaster's armies with vast output of arms and material. The bargain was to be sealed with the delivery by Xana of a number of newly-created powerful Ordinatus-class weapons undergoing final field tests.In what was effectively a suicide mission, a handpicked force of Astartes, including many Blackshields -- in this case Space Marines who had chosen to remain loyal despite their parent Legion's treachery -- was despatched under great secrecy to destroy the war machines and drive a wedge between Xana and the Traitors. Two Ordinatii were captured by the Loyalist force and evacuated from the surface of Xana-Tisiphone, to be maintained and utilised by Loyalist Tech-magi in latter campaigns of the Heresy.It is believed the Loyalists would use to the weapons to their own ends during the Titandeath and the Siege of Terra itself, although the true gains of this victory or whether they were worth the great cost it took to achieve them is a judgement none can now make. Of equal enigma was the means by which the victory was gained, and in particular the true nature of the "army of the fallen," which was used to such lethal effect in the seemingly suicidal attack on the Forge World itself.Ultimately, the alliance of Xana II with the Traitors' cause had not been thwarted, only delayed by years, and perhaps that was enough. The Xana which was rapidly rebuilt and re-fortified and finally began to supply the Traitors with a great perfusion of ever stranger and more savage war machines in the Horus Heresy's final years -- a true example of what became known as the Dark Mechanicum -- was hardly recognisable from what had gone before and charged a heavy price for its support.There are some who have gone so far as to opine that in toppling Xana's existing ruling synod, the Vodian Consistory being murderously deposed from within the Forge World's own ranks soon after the Loyalist incursion, caused a far darker and more dangerous order of masters to come forth. And that they took what was left on the battlefield and used it for their own infernal ends, meant it was the Imperium's own deceit and savage weapons that gave rise to the nightmare that was to come. |
Xana II - Post-Heresy: When the Heresy failed during the final epic conclusion at the Siege of Terra, through unknown means, the Xanite Mechanicum somehow were able to flee the wrath of the Loyalists, and move their entire world into the hellish realms of the Eye of Terror.Fully corrupted by the Ruinous Powers, Xana II became one of the first Hell-Forges, wholly given over to Daemon Engines and infernal industries, where mills grind flesh and suffering to make the insane visions of its nightmarish masters real.The oldest reference to the Hell-Forge of Xana II appears in the introit to the final volume of the writings of the cursed Heretic archivist of the Gethsamane Reclusium, purporting to catalogue certain terrors that lurk within the Eye of Terror beyond the ken of mortal savant and beyond the reach of even the keenest of assassin's blades.Countless millions are enslaved to toil endlessly in a world-spanning network of labyrinthine forges, churning out an infinite supply of weapons and armaments for the Traitor Legions' Long War. The masters of Xana II, said to be half-daemon machines themselves, have long since left the shreds of their humanity behind and are beholden to no one, be they mortal or Chaos God.They are willing to sell or barter their unholy inventions and arms to the highest bidder, be they warlord, demagogue, Chaos Sorcerer or Daemon Prince without favour, and their coin of exchange is always the same: raw materials and the flesh of new slaves to feed Xana's endless hunger.Xana II seems to be the source of attack craft frequently utilised within the baleful energies of the Eye of Terror, as craft matching the descriptions of the Hell Blade and the Hell Talon have been sighted in war zones across the galaxy, suggesting that its masters -- themselves known to be singular hybrids of man, machine and Daemon -- have established bonds with Chaos factions across the void and are supplying them with weapons and materiel to their own ends. Xana II is also rumoured to be the source of the Idolator-class Raider.To date, the greatest concentration of Chaos attack craft Imperial forces have faced was at the infamous Siege of Vraks, but recent confessions extracted from captured Hereteks suggest a mustering of unprecedented scale beyond the Cadian Gate in preparation for Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade. |
Xana II - Planetary Information (Pre-Heresy): Before its corruption by Chaos, Xana II was a Terrestrial-type world which despite its long-term inhabitation and exploitation by the Mechanicum [See addendum-record ref/ chronological dating anomaly of founding], had retained a viable, albeit reduced, biosphere and sustained native and transplanted life (including chthonic megafauna), although with high degrees of environmental toxicity.The planet's surface comprised approximately 52% high-salinity ocean, with the remaining land mass broken up into sixteen primary formations and numerous islands and archipelagos. The prevailing topography was varied, with swamp glades near the equatorial regions giving way to areas predominately of tundra and taiga towards the polar regions.The Mechanicum's presence on the world was notably dispersed, with only some 17% of the surface dominated by artificial structures, with the vast majority of the planet's forge-fanes, production, dormitory and storage facilities located under the planet's surface in both subterranean and sub-oceanic vaults. These distinctly located geographical forges, each of which operated under considerable autonomy, were linked by a vast sub-surface network of natural caverns, played-out mineworks and deliberately-created tunnels of unknown extent and complexity.As well as Xana's mass-manufacturing and technological capability, which was unmatched on the western fringe of the Imperium, it is also of note that thanks to its tenacious biosphere, which may evidence specific evolution or artificial adaptation to endure industrial toxicity, an ecology which included extensive subterranean flora, Xana, unlike most Forge Worlds, was fully self-sufficient in agricultural need.This sustaining factor, along with the inherently protected nature of its planetary infrastructure, made Xana II a remarkably independent and highly defensible example of a Forge World of its magnitude, although data harvested by the Carta Imperialis survey of the late 30th Millennium also suggested that most of the planet's resources had been exhausted and consumed, making its manufactoria dependent on off-world supply to sustain full output. |
Xana II - Xana System Planets: Xana I - A macro-magnitude gas giant, which the Forge World of Xana II orbited. The Xanthine Mechanicum possessed extensive mobile sub-faculties in the form of void and gas-mining installations scattered throughout the debris belts and turbulent atmosphere of Xana I. The debris belt of Xana I also possessed potent and deadly macro-conveyers that could unleash fiery death upon any unwanted vessels that entered their proximity.Xana II - A potent and storied example of its kind, the Forge World of Xana II was located on the very far tip of the galactic arm of the western fringe, known as the "Occidentem Thule."Xana-Tisiphone - Another moon of Xana I that served as Xana II's proving grounds and penal colony and which had originally orbited the Xana-Vicidex star as Xana V before being moved to its present position as Xana I's satellite. |
Xana II - Notable Locations: Escorial - One of Xana II's major forge-fanes, as well as a sister forge-fane of Tephra, Escorial suffered significant damage during the Xana Incursion of the Horus Heresy, but not to the extent that Tephra did. The damage was widely diffused, the enemy having spread to its tangled arteries of tunnel-way and gantry, and the last remnants of the invaders, though reduced to a mere handful of ruined bodies, had still managed to cause havoc in the depths.Tephra - One of Xana II's major forge-fanes, during the Xana Incursion, Tephra suffered greatly, with one of its mighty reactors breached and detonated, rending several square kilometres of its heart into radioactive slag at the cost of tens of thousands of lives lost and vast resources of machinery destroyed before the Loyalist invaders were finally overwhelmed through sheer weight of numbers.Setna - One of Xana II's three great forge-fanes. Of these three, during the Xana Incursion, Setna had come through its attack all but intact; the invaders having penetrated as far as the vast, sub-surface galleries before being met by Setna's most bellicose guardians, a contingent of Knights of House Malinax. Though nearly half of the Knights present had perished in countering the onslaught, the invaders had been burned and crushed in their hundreds, the fighting halting only when the last of the revenant Space Marines had been bodily broken beyond whatever bitter thread of life propelled it. |
Xana II - Xana-Tisiphone: Xana-Tisiphone was a moon of Xana I that served as Xana II's proving grounds. The moon had originally been the planet Xana V but was artificially moved from its orbit around the Xana-Vicidex star to become a satellite of Xana I. It served both as a Mechanicum Research Station and a penal colony. Its weapons facilities were capable of constructing Ordinatus Ulator macro-engines, and the Sheaol penitentiary facility was imprisoned Anacharis Scoria and his Battle-Automata before their escape.During the Xana Incursion, matters on Xana-Tisiphone ended in a bloody state, as the prison-forge itself had fallen under the assault of the Loyalist Legiones Astartes under Endryd Haar's command and the firepower of the captured Ordinatus, the population descending to violent anarchy and revolt which further allowed Haar's forces to ransack the weapons-testing facility there before being suddenly and savagely beaten back by a counterattack from below by brazen-armoured Legio Cybernetica cohorts, of strange, hitherto unknown patterns whose almost diabolic appearance were at odds with any recorded Mechanicum pattern.These Battle-Automata drove back the Loyalist Legiones Astartes, killing many and forcing a retreat when all that the Loyalists had gained was soon endangered, the counterattack culminating when one of the prized Ordinatus, the Nepothax, was assaulted and destroyed in an attempt to recapture it. Reluctantly Haar's forces withdrew, taking their surviving prizes with them and departing the planet, their ship, the Tyrannis, herself sustaining heavy damage in her escape, barely outrunning the returning Xanite fleet. |
Xana II - Notable Xanite Personnel: Anacharis Scoria - Known as the Xanophane Tyrant, the true history of Anacharis Scoria has been lost, but there exists fragmentary evidence that place him as a Magos Dominus in the service of Xana some thirty standard years before the outbreak of the wars of the Horus Heresy. It is believed he was gifted the rank and duties of the Vodian Magister -- the chief enforcer of Cult Mechanicus doctrine on his shadowed and secretive world, but some time after that he was cast down and removed from all records until the time of the Loyalist covert operation known as the Xana Incursion. In the aftermath of that disaster, Xana II's existing rulers were destroyed in a bloody coup far more powerful than before to slay those who had once judged Scoria. Evidence exists that Scoria had been held captive upon the prison-forge of Xana-Tisiphone, his dark genius put to use despite being maimed and caged by the very archmagi he once served. His release was an unintended consequence of the Loyalist attack, and it was he who took command and hurled the Loyalist invaders off the planetoid. If this is true, it is a dark irony indeed as it would be under the mastery of Scoria that Xana II would become the first of the so-called Hell-Forges of the Dark Mechanicum that would blight the galaxy in the centuries to come. |
Xana Incursion - Xana Incursion: The Xana Incursion was a desperate covert campaign conducted by a Legiones Astartes Blackshield irregular force as well as a small force of Dark Angels against the recalcitrant Forge World of Xana II in 009.M31, during the galactic civil war known as the Horus Heresy.Intelligence had reached Terra that the Renegade Forge World on the western fringe of the Imperium had reached an accord with the Traitor forces to supply the Warmaster Horus' armies with vast output of arms and materiel. The bargain was to be sealed with the delivery by Xana II of a number of newly created powerful Ordinatus class weapons undergoing final field tests.In what was effectively a suicide mission, a handpicked force of Legiones Astartes, including many Blackshields -- in this case Space Marines who had chosen to remain loyal despite their parent Legion's treachery -- was despatched under great secrecy to destroy the war machines and drive a wedge between Xana II and the Traitors.Two Ordinatus were captured by the Loyalist force and evacuated from the surface of Xana-Tisiphone, to be maintained and utilised by Loyalist tech-magi in later campaigns of the Heresy. |
Xana Incursion - History: Much of what is known to the record about the incident known as the Xana Incursion is a dossier assembled from diverse and incomplete secondary sources. These include the akashic archives of the Amphion recovered from her hulk after the Battle of Triton, the harvested data-looms of the Xanan exile-savant Mordifia Turul and the apocryphal appendix to the Tears of the Gorgon, an allegorical and now-prohibited treatise associated with the (redacted) Chapter of the 3rd Founding.The primary source file of the operation, held within the Seal and Office of the Sigillite and the Divisio Sicarii, was lost during the devastation of the Siege of Terra. It is also certain that during the wars of the Heresy, the operation was itself kept secret by the orders of Malcador the Sigillite even from Imperial High Command.As such, while there is good evidence to suggest that the real Traitor embassy had been somehow compromised, intercepted and replaced by covert Imperial forces that cannot be contested, it is also highly likely that the individual masquerading as Raxhal Koraddon was in fact Endryd Haar, an outcast not of the Sons of Horus but the World Eaters Legion, who remained loyal, but the provenance of at least 1,000 Legiones Astartes accompanying him remains a matter for some conjecture.It is the general consensus that this force, undertaking what was in effect a suicide mission with little hope of recovery or rescue even if success was achieved, was made up of veteran Legiones Astartes who, like Endryd Haar, had remained loyal, even though their parent Legions had turned Traitor.This desperate and damned force had little to lose, it can be argued, and nothing to gain save redemption in death. Just how Endryd Haar survived, and survive he did as his actions during the later Solar Wars are a matter of record, also remains unknown.Of equal enigma is the depth of the Dark Angels' involvement, but perhaps the most unknowable and disquieting mystery regarding the Xana Incursion is the horror which erupted on Xana II after the attack of the Dark Sovereign. |
Xana Incursion - Dark Alliance: By the closing divisions of 009.M31, the bargain between Xana II and the Warmaster Horus' proxies was in its final stages of conclusion. It was, in the ancient manner, to be sealed with an exchange of gifts.Though the transfer of billions of tonnes of arms and armour would be part of Xana's fealty to Horus, these first gifts the Vodian Consistory would present would be unique and incomparable.They would be worthy of one who meant to be master of the galaxy entire; Xana II would gift Horus with the power of the Ordinatus. |
Xana Incursion - Ulator: The Ordinatus classification held the most powerful and arcane mobile weapons platforms in the ancient Mechanicum's arsenal. Much like the Titans whose firepower they often outstripped, the Ordinatus varied in scale and potency: from the truly colossal, unique and unreplicable relics of the Age of Technology, the Ordinatus Primaris, such as the Ordinatus Mars and Ordinatus Endymion whose power was legendary, even compared to the god machines of the great Legio Titanicus, to the lesser but still gargantuan and deadly Ordinatus Minoris sub-classes.The Minoris were, at the height of the Great Crusade, within the reach of only the most potent Forge Worlds to construct, and even then only in the most limited numbers. Such were the gifts that Xana II offered; no less than three such terrifying weapons of the Ordinatus Ulator pattern, fully battle-ready and armed with devastating sonic destructor weapons.These were Titan-killers, slaughterers of armies, each powerful enough to turn the tide of a battle at a stroke, far beyond any super-heavy tank in potency and dwarfing the firepower of even the mighty Diamatine siege-guns that had fallen into the grasp of the Iron Warriors earlier in the Horus Heresy.These Ordinatus Ulator, named Mithrax, Nepothax and Ashurax after ancient Terran deities long-dead of worship, were first to be demonstrated before the Warmaster's chosen emissary at the Forge World's own proving grounds on the moon of Xana-Tisiphone; afterwards, their ceremonial handover would act as a symbolic sealing of Xana's loyalty to Horus.That this trio of mighty weapons would be given over to Horus himself to dispose of as he saw fit was both a potent asset to gift the Warmaster with, and also it might be seen as a coded barb thrust in the side of the Traitor Mechanicum Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal, who though he sat high in Horus' cause, but had never himself made such a direct gift, keeping those few Ordinatus he and his satraps had at their disposal firmly under Mechanicum control.By this act, Xana II's lords sought perhaps to set the groundwork to become Mars' rivals in the Traitors' cause, not simply another subordinate Mechanicum force. |
Xana Incursion - Emissary of the Uncrowned King: The hand of the Warmaster in the final matter of the alliance with Xana II was to be no priest of Davin alone, but one of his own warlords, one of his own blood; Raxhal Koraddon -- a chieftain of the Reavers raised to captaincy for his bloody endeavours during the scouring of the Sons of Horus Legion of its Loyalists on the ash-strewn ruins of Isstvan III.Koraddon had in the standard years of war that followed Isstvan III gained a fierce reputation, first during the Drop Site Massacre and later in leading a score of Dark Compliance actions for his primarch across the northern reaches of the Segmentum Obscurus.Koraddon's ruthless and prideful reputation preceded him, as did knowledge that he was looked upon with favour by Horus, making him an honoured, if threatening choice to serve as the Warmaster's emissary in the matter. The vessel which bore him to the Xana System was no less a display of power; the Geryon-class Grand Cruiser Cicatrice Tyrannis, taken as a prize by the Traitors during the Battle of Port Maw earlier in the war, her once white and golden hull now scorched black and pitted by the fires of untold void battles since her fall from grace.With the Cicatrice came an escorting squadron of eight frigates of various types and four Isos-class fleet tenders. These latter vessels were small, armed, Warp-capable transport ships designed to ferry vital supplies to warships in frontline service, but who bore now a far stranger and more macabre cargo; the Warmaster's gift to the lords of Xana II.Carried within these ships were hundreds of locked and armoured cargo pods, within which travelled the wreckage of Isstvan, of Momed and of Autosarat, and other unknown battlefields where the Sons of Horus had met their brother Legiones Astartes in blood and triumphed. The legacy of the dead was to be the Warmaster's gift to Xana II.Sealed in these containers were the fallen of those Legions the Sons of Horus had fought, and along with them a ruin of broken tanks and sundered war machines, shattered arms and rent armour -- the charnel remains of a dozen Loyalist Space Marine Legions.This was a carrion feast of technology and gene-craft priceless to the lords of Xana; to them it was no mere detritus of battle, but a treasure store of lore and techno-arcana for those with the skill to decipher its secrets and who cared nothing for the writ of Mars, nor what the Emperor had forbidden them to study. |
Xana Incursion - Unwelcome Guests: Even as the Cicatrice Tyrannis and her escorts entered close orbit of the immense gas giant Xana I on final approach to the Forge World itself, the auspex grid of the outer planetary system came alive with emergency signals and alarms. Perilously close to the gravity-shadow of the system's inner sphere, realspace ripped open and the brute and barbed shapes of scores of warships forced their way out of the Warp.The tracking augers and void-cogitators of Xana's sleepless defensive engine-minds swept the intruders, quickly analysed the fleet, and came to the absolute conclusions of hostility, swinging into baleful wakefulness. No fewer than five capital class vessels were identified, Imperial in origin and Loyalist in allegiance, with no effort made to hide who or what they were.At their head was a vessel immediately identified as the Amphion, one of the mighty Gloriana-class Battleships and an example of the type which often provided the flagships of the Legiones Astartes themselves, outfitted as a pure device of void-born firepower, and one of the lynch pins of the Solar fleet itself.With these capital ships came a slew of smaller escort craft and a dozen transport craft whose anomalously over-powered emissions marked them as one thing only to the cold intellect of the Machine Spirits; fire ships, loaded with warheads and volatiles designed to inflict catastrophic damage in suicide attacks against their targets.Machine Spirits conferred with magos, and with blinding speed beyond Human comprehension was data analysed, checked and re-analysed, conclusions drawn and tested, re-submitted and issued as directive.This then was Rogal Dorn's judgement come at last, or at least part of it, the make-up and composition of the powerful fleet indicated a raid-in-force, not an invasion, with its target the waiting fleet of loaded macro-conveyers, protected within Xana I's debris rings.Terra had decided that if they were not to have the bounty of Xana's forges for themselves, then none would, and calculated that the risk of deploying several potent heavy units from Terra's own defence armada was worth the reward this mission of destruction entailed.With faultless precession, the defenders of Xana rose to meet their aggressors; squadrons of frigate-sized machine sapient hunter-killers and scores of autonomous weapons platforms rose from within the vaporous depths of Xana I's atmosphere to protect their master's wealth and spat their payloads with synchronised fury, sending hundreds of void torpedoes hurling towards their target, the plasma drives of the shark-like hunter-killers blazing in their wake.From their own stations on allotted patrol routes across the planetary systems, Xana's own interstellar warships, battle-arks and attack carriers in the main, far larger than the local defensive vessels, awoke and burned at maximum thrust to intercept the Loyalist assault force, the attack of which, despite the bravery and skill of its Navigators who had dropped the force into realspace close enough to be hours rather than days distant from their intended target, could still be contested before it reached its goal, or at the least a lethal trap would close behind the intruders.Calculations were checked and tactical projections run and re-run thousands of times in bare seconds, secondary waves of munitions roared forth from the surface of the Forge World of Xana II itself and its own sentinel void-battle servitors -- mechanical Kraken the size of strike cruisers -- broke from their steel shells like hollow moons and powered towards the fray.As the white blood cells of a Human body swarm and overwhelm an invading virus, so would the war machines of Xana II swarm and overwhelm this unexpected attack, no matter its power. |
Xana Incursion - False War: The news of the attack on the Xana System had inevitably reached the Sons of Horus, whose own vessel had detected the incursion from the Warp of the Imperial forces and bore witness to the apocalyptic response from Xana's defences.Koraddon demanded answers. He was met with profuse apologies for any alarm caused, and assured that the matter would be dealt with promptly and without risk to the Warmaster's delegation, and that there would be no need to alter the planned exchange of gifts and demonstration of the Ordinatus.For Xana II both the demonstration and the impending void battle had become a necessary display of strength before their future allies in ways they had never planned, but no less vital because of this. The Vodian Consistory would not lose face before Horus.So it was that even as the Loyalist and Mechanicum warships and torpedoes hurtled at unimaginable speeds towards each other in the void far beyond, the matter of Xana II's formal alliance with the Traitor cause proceeded with much ceremony and clockwork precision. By prior arrangement the Warmaster's cargo was delivered from orbit, even as Xana II's planetary interceptor batteries fired, cycled and fired again, sending torpedoes speeding into the night on columns of fire.The gift-cargo was landed between the barrage launches, still sealed in consignment to the landing ports of several of Xana II's major forge-fanes: Tephra, Escorial and Setna, no doubt to prevent discord in the Consistory itself by dividing the spoils between the archmagi, to be released by code key transfer as the accord was formally made.Meanwhile, the Sons of Horus warship, Cicatrice Tyrannis, was permitted into close orbit of the moon of Xana-Tisiphone, sheltered from the waves of fire unleashed from the Forge World itself, and Koraddon, with Unvacar Noon at his side, descended with a full company-sized honour guard of Sons of Horus to the surface via wings of fully armed Stormbirds and assault landers; a display of force and perhaps of displeasure that could not be lost on the waiting Mechanicum delegation.Ready to meet Koraddon's party on the edge of the great proving grounds, a vast artificial battlefield outside the half-kilometre high walls of the great prison-forge of Tisiphone-Shaol, was Archmagos-Procurator Gilim Raijan, the prime arbiter of Xana II's ruling Vodian Consistory and his personal covenant of magi, guardian-servitors and lexmechanics.Such records that remain of this meeting are fragmentary and uncorroborated, and suggest a cold and tension-laden encounter between the barely contained arrogance of the Sons of Horus warlord and the chill, precise civility of the archmagos of Xana, with the strange and macabre figure of the Davinite priest acting as intermediary. Of the impending void battle nothing was mentioned, and after the initial diplomacy and greetings were concluded, the nature of the planned demonstration was detailed.What was presented to the Warmaster's emissaries was to be a false war of sorts, but one in which the carnage would be very real. Thousands of armed slaves and Human chattel, some of who abhumans, others forge serfs and Adsecularis, while others were military prisoners taken in raids by the Xanites -- soldiers from the Loyalist cause for the main -- were unleashed onto the kilometres-wide proving grounds.Controlled by remote-detonated suicide-collars and spurred on by auto-injected chemicals where needed, this damned regiment was equipped with a panoply of weapons ranging from small arms up to and including even heavy tanks of Imperial pattern, and they had been given a simple but impossible task -- to survive what was coming.From within the armoured observation cupola of a hulking Mechanicum land crawler, flanked by a pair of Sons of Horus Mastodon carriers forming escort, would the Warmaster's emissaries and the Archmagos Raijan observe the bloody game that was to follow, inviolate behind their void shields but within the thick of the contrived battle.It was to be a thing of sheer destructive spectacle -- a massacre made to order. The vast black vaulted gates of the prison-forge opened and the three Ordinatus Ulator monsters emerged into view, Mithrax, Nepothax and Ashurax, each Ordinatus fully armed and operational, and each with a coterie of Sons of Horus Techmarines on board to observe their operation first hand.With a coded signal which promised instant death if compliance was not given, the first wave of enslaved soldiers attacked, hundreds and then thousands of infantrymen pouring across the broken, shell-pitted ground. In response, the Ordinatus spread out and deployed, advancing, forming an echelon, half-seen clusters of humming automata hovering to guard each huge war engine's flanks should anything close to endanger their mighty charges.Like a vast ground-swarm of insects, the infantry wave surged and began to encircle the rumbling metal beasts, the Ulators' vast and baroque cannon beginning to crackle and glow with building energies of savage force, building until flares of sudden lightning arcs and shimmering surges of distorted air spat from their barrels and coils like angry ghosts.The first of the desperate attackers' weapons fire -- Heavy Stubber rounds and unguided rockets -- had only just began to patter harmlessly from the Ordinatus' all-encompassing protective power fields when at last the Ulators' sonic destructors spoke. There was a brief, blinding flash. A roaring, all-consuming silence that devoured all sound, the surface of the world itself seemed to ripple like a tortured sea, and in that instant a thousand lives were snuffed out.Bodies, torn to red rags by the all-destroying waves of sonic energy, were blasted across the battlefield as if driven by a hurricane, and beneath them three great trenches now gouged the earth to mark the unleashed blasts. Beside these furrows scores of bloodied men staggered on broken limbs, their senses devoured and minds shattered. Those fortunate to be far enough away saw the fate of their comrades and fled if they were able, or simply collapsed in shock.The Ordinatus, implacable, rolled on, the observer column behind them in their wake, towards the ultimate goal of a shattered cityscape some nine kilometres distant; a city that had been built and rebuilt many times in the past, only to be destroyed in the testing of Xana II's guns. The signal went out and the second wave was ordered in, this time a mixed force of armoured infantry and supporting armour.The attack was even more desperate, the storm that erupted across the Ordinatus' shields more violent, but the outcome was the same: an army wiped out as by the hand of an annihilating god.The signal was issued again, and again and the bloody charade of war continued, now armoured forces alone, now jump troops, now battle-servitors, now a column of super-heavy tanks to test the mighty Ulators' defences to the limit. The killing went on for solar hours. |
Xana Incursion - Shadow of the Angel's Wings: While the power of the three gifts was being so emptily and murderously demonstrated on Xana-Tisiphone, in the void the opposing fleets met. Unimaginable forces of destruction were unleashed as beam lances wove traceries of annihilating light across the void, waves of torpedoes slammed into thunderous barrages of counter-fire and atomic explosions rippled like dying stars across the firmament.The Imperium's battleships formed a conical wedge to protect their lethal entourage of fire ships from attack, their escorting frigates and destroyers darting madly around them to intercept any torpedo salvoes or servitor-fighters that broke through the titanic barrages of the Amphion and her sisters, some paying with their lives to carry out their bloody task, interposing their own frail hulls against the fury.Slowly, Xana II's fist of iron closed around the Loyalist fleet, and though scores of Mechanicum hunter-killers perished, torn to spiralling fragments by the macro-cannon and plasma cannonades of the Loyalists, and entire war-arks were sliced in half from stem to stern by the Amphion's prodigious giga-scale primary lances, the attacking fleet began to falter and shrink.One of the Loyalist battleships, the Dequenne's Fury, fell out of formation, a burning hulk, then soon after a second, the venerable Sceptre of Io, spiralled out of control, the beasts of steel gnawing and coiling across her hull like ravenous ghouls, Thallax Covenants and Castellax battle-automata injected like poison into the battleship's veins as the Solar Auxilia armsmen aboard fought desperately for survival to little avail.The Loyalists' defensive shield forced open, its escort screen stripped away, the fire ships themselves began to flare brightly in their death throes. Slowly, and at great cost, the Xanite Mechanicum were winning the battle: the Loyalist fleet would never reach striking distance of the bounty ships hidden in the debris belt.The weapons platforms in the murky stratosphere of Xana II had fallen silent at last, their munitions spent, as had the ground silos on Xana II, discharged in full. In the void distant, the matter was now being decided by the brutality of a close-range void battle in which they would play no part. So it was that the Mortis-XI defensive station at the heart of the debris belt's defence network began to cycle down its systems to a defensive posture, the Tech-priest chorus cyber-bonded to its control gyre reaching out with their djinn-sight to the dozens of weapons platforms they controlled, reporting status and correcting positional anomalies in their deployment caused by their now-reduced mass.Suddenly, their auguries screamed with a new hostile contact, a warship impossibly close, not beyond in the void of space, but beneath them in the thick atmosphere of Xana I. The Mortis-XI station died in an eruption of nothingness, vortex torpedoes ripping it out of reality in a squall of disintegrating wreckage.In its place a sable-black ship sliced out of the mirk, long and wicked as a blade, the near-seamless armour of its surface featureless save for a single crimson icon across its low prow, graven in the image of a winged sword.The sable ship turned almost lazily in an arc towards the dozens of lumbering transports and freighters whose protection within the debris belt of Xana I was worthless now against this wolf among the flock, and she began to kill. Secondary plasma batteries and defensive lasers spat from the spent weapons platforms towards the murderous vessel but they were too little to even give her pause.On Xana II the cold minds which ruled the forge-fanes quickly identified the vessel, for she was a unique killing engine alongside which their own forces had fought many solar decades before during the Rangdan Xenocides. She was no mere Legiones Astartes strike cruiser, but a lone relic of Old Night, a thing recovered from the permafrosts of Ganymede by the Emperor's own hand. Her name was the Dark Sovereign, and she belonged to the Ist Legion, to the Dark Angels. |
Xana Incursion - Wrath of the Betrayed: On the moon of Xana-Tisiphone, news of the blade in the dark was shock enough to call a sudden halt even to the contrived carnage of the Ordinatus' demonstration. The macro-munitions explosions of the dying transports in the debris field of the Xana I gas giant were potent enough to be clearly visible in the skies overhead. The Warmaster's prizes were dying in flames, and Xana II's void ships were simply too far away to prevent it.On the observation deck of the hulking Mechanicum crawler, Archmagos-Procurator Gilim Raijan turned to Unvacar Noon, perhaps to offer explanation or perhaps to entreat the Sons of Horus' own warship to attack the Dark Angels vessel, only to find Noon's features melting like wax before him. The emissary's arm flashed out, too fast even for the augmented reflexes of the archmagos to react against, and a gilded barb sunk into his body, a roaring electroshock surge shorting out his power systems and collapsing his personal defensive shield.Raijan fell back away from his attacker as his own guardian-servitors fell on the blurring, shifting, shadow-quick assassin, but behind himself, he found the armoured bulk of Koraddon looming over him as he staggered. The verdigris-armoured warlord reached down to the fallen archmagos and wordlessly tore off Gilim Raijan's head with his power fist in a shower of sparks and black fluids, and then pulverised his twitching metal body into scrap. |
Xana Incursion - Hour of Execution: The lords of Xana had been deceived, and by that deception the Loyalists' bloody stratagem had borne fruit. Some three solar hours after the initial exchange of fire of the engagement against the Loyalist raiding fleet led by the Amphion, the full forces of the Mechanicum's void defences had been drawn out and committed to the battle, Xana II's long-range munitions had been expended and their warships were now locked in close-quarters fighting with the Terran battlegroup.The Xanite vessels were now simply too far away to defend their home Forge World, or more importantly, protect the huge supply fleet that lay at anchor in the Xana I debris belt, when a new Loyalist attacker, the deadly Dark Sovereign, launched her own devastating surprise assault from within the gas giant of Xana I's atmosphere.Amid this general chaos, the sudden battle on the moon of Xiphon-Tisiphone went all but unnoticed as another lie was revealed, and those who had masqueraded as the Sons of Horus and the emissaries of the Warmaster revealed themselves to be cut from entirely different cloth. Legiones Astartes they were for the main, but they were not Malcador's chosen -- later to be called Knights-Errant -- these were the bitter fall-out of Legions who had turned Traitor while they had remained loyal, a decision many had already paid for in blood and sinew in battle against those who they had once called brother.Their leader was Endryd Haar, a World Eater once, and it was he who had passed for the Sons of Horus warlord Koraddon, who it is likely that he himself had earlier slain. He and those with him had by brutal surprise attack taken over command of all three of the Ordinatus intended as gifts for the Warmaster, and now with malign savagery, turned their dread power on their creators.First, the escorting guardian-automata had been shot down and crushed by the Sons of Horus-liveried Mastadon heavy tanks that had served as Koraddon's honour guard, before the baleful power of the sonic disruptors of the Ordinatus had swept nearby Xanite armour and support vehicles to oblivion.The anarchy was further accelerated when the Loyalist Techmarines compromised the local djinn command skein by interfacing with the shattered remains of the Archmagos Gilim Raijan to operate the remote release on the collars of the thousands of remaining war slaves who were to be used in the bloody demonstration of the Ordinatus' power. These armed slaves, once free, fled where they could, spreading further the disorder and wild violence that had been unleashed.The desperate bid to seize the highly prized Ordinatus was only the beginning of the operation on Xana-Tisiphone. The huge warship which had brought the supposedly Traitor delegation to Xana, the Cicatrice Tyrannis, dropped lower into Xana-Tisiphone's orbit, placing the shadow of the moon between her and Xana II, shielding herself from any retribution that was to follow as her crew ignored all requests to attack the Dark Sovereign or otherwise aid the defence against the Loyalists.The Cicatrice Tyrannis then commenced her own company-scale ground assault on Xana-Tisiphone, Stormbirds and Thunderhawk gunships descending as the power of the Ordinatus was turned upon the cyclopean gates of the great prison-forge of Tisiphone-Shaol, sundering them. |
Xana Incursion - Fury of the Dark Sovereign: In the debris ring that orbited Xana I, a great and violent tempest was being enacted. One after another, the huge freight ships of the supply fleet, heavily laden with munitions and other volatiles, were torn apart by the fury of the Dark Angels warship's attacks or were set burning and left bleeding their disintegrating cargos into space.The macro-transports, some tens of kilometres long -- never intended for war -- had no arms or defences of their own enough to answer such a deadly craft as the Dark Sovereign, while their ungainly bulk would have made escape impossible even if they had not been caught at station by the blade-like predator ship.As the Dark Sovereign reaved her way through the great arc of supply vessels, cannon blazing as she went, she reached the core of the fleet, where the most valuable prize vessels were kept: brazen-hulled Mechanicum barques and stasis-vaulted dromons, now drawn up into a defensive toroid formation.Compared to the dull hulks of the macro freighters, these transports had teeth enough to answer their attacker, and as the Dark Sovereign plunged down amid them like a knife from the dark, the barque's co-ordinated batteries opened fire on their attacker, lancing the void with blazing streams of super-heated plasma and golden beams of coherent energy.The Dark Sovereign's shields flared as the barrage found her, silhouetting the blade-like ship in a corona of light, but she came on undaunted, for this was a vessel of the Ist Legion and a veteran of standard centuries of nightmarish war amid the dark stars. Instead of the close pass to bring her weapons to bear with maximum effect, which naval doctrine dictated and the Mechanicum's logis-cogitators had no doubt also predicted, the Dark Sovereign dived into the heart of the defensive formation, her guns suddenly silent, all available power directed to her shields to weather the storm of counter-fire at point-blank range.She passed her first prey at a scant few hundreds of metres and a talon of Kharybdis Assault Claws stabbed out from the Dark Sovereign's flanks to bury themselves in the Xanite barque's hull. The Dark Angels warship rolled as she sped by and more assault claws speared into a second barque, too close and too swift to be intercepted.A squadron of Caestus Assault Rams broke from the Dark Sovereign and peeled off in the wake of the warship's blazing engines to find prey of their own as the Dark Angels ship found her final target, a long, almost crystalline void dromond, designated now the Mu-571, a singular ship which was perhaps once of xenos origin before the Mechanicum had spidered their own steel-grey workings across its white-quartz hull.The Mu-571's own drives burned white hot as it tried to escape imminent collision, but did so in vain, as the armoured belly of the Dark Sovereign smashed the dromond's spine and flew on, shredding the Mu-571's void shields to nothingness and setting the ship tumbling out of control, as in its heart-chambers reality split open and the black-armoured figures of Dark Angels Terminators manifested in the lightning-crackle aftershock of their teleporter transit. |
Xana Incursion - Logic of Survival: Deep within the protected forge-fanes of Xana II, city-sized conglomerations of manufactoria, vaults and hive-warrens sunk far beneath the planet's surface, the remaining magi of the ruling Vodian Consistory communed with each other in near-frenzied pulses of data, spanning the world's sub-surface networks.With preternatural speed it can be assumed that they gathered all available information about the catastrophe that was unfolding around them; betrayal, assault, mass destruction, a war on multiple fronts in which they had been comprehensively blindsided and led into trap after trap. How they with their vast machine-augmented intelligences had been so outwitted was an impossibility to ponder later, but for now action was required if survival, the primary directive of any Forge World, was to be guaranteed.In the face of such a shocking turn of events, paranoia now came to dominate their reasoning. Now, faced with the undisprovable possibility that even more attacking forces were on their way to besiege their Forge World, the Vodian Consistory despatched override signals of recall to their remaining war craft engaged in void battle to defend Xana II and rid it of the "Sons of Horus" grand cruiser which lurked in orbit of its moon like a waiting assassin.Withdrawal of the fleet from pitched combat was calculated to be a costly manoeuvre, but all costs would be borne in defence of the Forge World, and even the now-half-burning munitions fleet was abandoned by the cold equations of survival.All over Xana II, weapons and scanner arrays were pointed skywards, defensive grids and void shields were realigned to defend against orbital attack, while far below, subterranean mag-lev railguns screamed at speeds past tolerance to re-arm the planet's recently spent missile silos from auxiliary stockpiles held deep beneath the world's seas. All of Xana II had mobilised to repel an attack from the void, but this was not from where the attack came. |
Xana Incursion - Vengeance of the Fallen: At the orbital transfer ports of the greatest of Xana II's forge-fanes: Tephra, Escorial and Setna, the Warmaster Horus' gifts stood waiting; several hundred cargo containers divided between them, sealed and inert, ranging in size from metre-square STC pattern handling modules of a kind found in their billions across the Imperium, to megaton-capacity armoured void transit carriers intended to survive the rigours of interstellar travel intact.They had been thoroughly scanned by auspexes on their arrival and no sign of life or active power sources had been found within. Furthermore, echo scans had revealed mass and resonance readings, indicating the presence of just what had been promised; the broken bodies of the Legiones Astartes and their machineries of war. With this being the case, true to the diplomatic bargain that had been struck, not a single container had yet been breached or opened.What was to happen next remains a matter of contention by those who have looked back on this incident, and must be reassembled only by fragments of ancillary data, scattered pict-and vox-capture data from seized enemy archives and hearsay well after the fact, the truth perhaps dying with so many other truths in the losses incurred during the Siege of Terra where so much else was also lost. But by all available evidence, the dead walked on Xana II.Almost as one the cargo containers were broken and blasted open from within, ceramite-clad fists smashing through to grasp the air as if called forth by some unheard summons. Darkly armoured figures came forth in grim and silent advance, bearing the livery of the fallen Loyalists, of the Raven Guard and Salamanders Legions, even of the Imperial Fists and White Scars, but most bore the scorched and rent livery of the Iron Hands, of clan companies slaughtered wholesale on the black sands of Isstvan V, and more sinisterly also of clan companies that had fallen long before, during the darkest days of the Great Crusade.Of this army of the dead, there was no leader to be discerned, no command signals or command vox transmissions were recorded, only an oscillating electro-spectral field of unknown origin which seemed to pulse relentlessly from tomb-containers from which they came. With them followed scores of Dreadnoughts from the larger cargo units, their shells as damaged and abused as the armour and bodies alongside which they walked, but they were no less functional for it, and behind them rumbled forth half-wrecked tanks and rapier weapons platforms, humming with power and the rattle of loading shells.Those nearby automata and tech-thralls that met this sudden onslaught were overwhelmed in moments and the silent army quickly fanned out, ramshackle and here and there stumbling on broken limbs and reeling as it went, but still with deadly speed and murderous purpose.Soon alarms sounded and the defenders of Xana II, their unceasing vigilance set skyward, turned to make swift counter-attack to the invaders in their midst and found themselves facing a foe of singular, suicidal ferocity.Adsecularis techguard clades and servo-thralls barracked near the starports were the first troops to respond, but quickly proved no match for the grim tide of death pouring from the cargo containers, their bodies broken by unwavering volleys of bolter fire or simply ripped apart in hand-to-hand combat too one-sided to deserve the name. Taghmata Castellax maniples and Tech-priest-commanded heavy weapons detachments soon reached the fray but found themselves dealing with Legiones Astartes who fought and died with cold, unyielding fury which seemed to transcend injury and death even more than the fame of the Legiones Astartes proclaimed.Dark-armoured bodies shorn of limbs or severed in half by mauler cannon still dragged themselves onward to the attack, while tanks which should have been rendered inoperable thrice over by damage hauled themselves on as burning wrecks, their weapons still firing even as their own munition stores began to cook and detonate.The Xanite battle-automata were set upon by crawling phosphex and enervated by rad missiles, weakened prey before the marauding talons of Dreadnoughts which tore them limb from limb or pounded them into ruin.The vengeful fallen pressed on, there was no attempt made to secure the port facilities or to consolidate a line of battle, the army's imperative was simply to destroy, to kill and keep on killing, until they themselves were slain. By the time the ruling magi of the Vodian Consistory, reeling from this fresh assault, realised the true danger of what was happening, it was too late. The breakout was underway and the invaders could not be contained.Slowly but inexorably, the invading Legiones Astartes spread through the upper reaches of the forge-fanes, massacre and mayhem their only strategic goal. Savants and soldiers, servo-thrall and battle-automata, Tech-priest and slave; all were left slaughtered.In their wake fires burned beyond control, crawling phosphex seeped through ventilation shafts and ate hungrily at anything it touched, power transition systems were blasted and sabotaged, fuel lines set to blaze and vox towers toppled. The surface levels of the great forge-fanes of Xana II began to burn. |
Xana Incursion - Breakout: By the fifteenth solar hour after open hostilities had begun, the Xana System was awash in flame and spiralling wreckage. The remaining Xanite war fleet, which had engaged the Amphion's battlegroup, was now hurtling back to Xana II. The Mechanicum fleet was now about a third only of its early strength, having sustained further heavy losses in disengaging from the Loyalist capital ships, which had used their remaining fire ships against them as they tried to withdraw.The surviving Loyalist battlegroup, including the battered but unconquered Amphion, did not pursue, instead taking the opportunity to disengage themselves, their own arsenals having been all but exhausted by the protracted void battle and each one having sustained great damage from the fight.In the debris belt of Xana I, now aglow with burning hulks and torn by storms of exploding munitions, the outcome for the vast arms fleet had been even more disastrous as more than two thirds of the macro-transports had been either destroyed outright or sent burning to plunge into the gravity well of the gas giant or to tumble helplessly into the void.The architects of this disaster, the Dark Sovereign and the Legiones Astartes of the Ist Legion, were also departing for the system's edge, one of the great barques and the dromond Mu-571, now the Dark Angels' prizes, struggling to keep up with the warship's escape velocity.The fires raged also on the surface of Xana II, though now the whole Forge World had risen up against the invaders they had allowed into their midst.Of the three great Xanite forge-fanes, only Setna had come through its attack all but intact; the invaders having penetrated as far as the vast, sub-surface galleries before being met by Setna's most bellicose guardians, a contingent of Knights of House Malinax, long veterans of war far from Xana II's soil. Here the grim Legiones Astartes had been met by a score of Mechanicum-patterned Knights, and though nearly half of the Knights present had perished in countering the onslaught, the invaders had been burned and crushed in their hundreds, the fighting halting only when the last of the Space Marines had been bodily broken beyond whatever bitter thread of life propelled it.The other two great forge-fanes of Xana II had not fared so well and of the two, famed Tephra had suffered greatly, with one of its mighty reactors breached and detonated, rending several square kilometres of its heart into radioactive slag at the cost of tens of thousands of lives lost and vast resources of machinery destroyed before the invaders were finally overwhelmed through sheer weight of numbers.The damage to its sister forge-fane of Escorial was not as great, but widely diffuse, the enemy having spread to its tangled arteries of tunnel-way and gantry, and the last remnants of the invaders, though reduced to a mere handful of ruined bodies, were still causing havoc in the depths.Matters on the moon of Xana-Tisiphone had ended in an even bloodier state, the prison-forge itself having fallen under the assault of the Loyalist Legiones Astartes under Endryd Haar's command and the firepower of the captured Ordinatus Ulator, the population descending to violent anarchy and revolt which further allowed Haar's forces to ransack the weapons testing facility there before being suddenly and savagely beaten back by a counter-attack from below.The forces which assaulted them, brazen-armoured Legio Cybernetica cohorts, had slumbered deep beneath the Sheaol penitentiary and were strange, hitherto unknown patterns whose almost diabolic appearance was at odds with any recorded Mechanicum pattern.Moving with unheard-of speed and predatory instinct, these battle-automata drove back the Loyalist Legiones Astartes, killing many and forcing a retreat when all that the Loyalists had gained was soon endangered, the counterattack culminating when one of the prized Ordinatus, the Nepothax, was assaulted and destroyed in an attempt to recapture it.Reluctantly Haar's forces withdrew, taking their surviving prizes with them and departing the planet, their ship, the Tyrannis, herself sustaining heavy damage in her escape, barely outrunning the returning Xanite fleet.The Xana Incursion was over. |
Xana Incursion - Aftermath: The operation known as the Xana Incursion remained a secret of the Horus Heresy, one more battle fought unremembered and largely unknown, although a battle stranger than most, and ever afterward it has been an engagement shrouded in sinister mystery and rumour.The great provender of Xana II, a bounty that may perhaps have tipped the war for either side, had been delivered into the hands only of death, save for a select portion which it is believed the Loyalists would use to their own ends during the Titandeath and the Siege of Terra itself, although the true gains of this victory or whether they were worth the great cost it took to achieve them is a judgement none can now make.Of equal enigma was the means by which the victory was gained, and in particular the true nature of the "army of the fallen" which was used to such lethal effect in the seemingly suicidal attack on the Forge World itself.Ultimately, the alliance of Xana II with the Traitors' cause had not been thwarted, only delayed by standard years, and perhaps that was enough. The Xana which was rapidly rebuilt and re-fortified and finally began to supply the Traitors with a great perfusion of ever-stranger and more savage war machines in the Horus Heresy's final years -- a true example of what became known as the Dark Mechanicum -- was hardly recognisable from what had gone before and charged a heavy price for its support.There are some who have gone so far as to opine that in toppling Xana II's existing ruling synod of magi, the Vodian Consistory being murderously deposed from within the Forge World's own ranks soon after the incursion, a far darker and more dangerous order of masters was caused to come forth.And that they took what was left on the battlefield and used it for their own infernal ends, meant it was the Imperium's own deceit and savage weapons that gave rise to the nightmare that was to come. |
Xanthite - Xanthite: To the Xanthites, the Warp and its denizens are things to be enslaved rather than denied. To them, Chaos is no less an enemy that must be fought and defeated, but one ultimately that should be tamed, bound to humanity's will and put to use in the Imperium's service. Born from the paradoxical position inherent in the role of the Inquisition, Xanthites believe it is the Inquisitor's sacrosanct freedom to understand and even wield that which is forbidden in order to better combat it.Xanthism remains perhaps the most insidious and most ominous of all doctrines, and the Xanthite movement itself arguably the most ancient, powerful and above all most dangerous of the Inquisition's Radical factions. Indeed, to some the words "Radical" and "Xanthite" are synonymous. When a Puritan Inquisitor ponders the Xanthite, with their dark lore and darker secrets, they see an enemy a thousand times more dangerous than any twisted mutant, debased Heretic, or crazed witch -- and they are not wrong.Xanthites by no means advocate the furthering of Chaos and its dark works, but see it as a tool that is already in use by the Imperium, not yet realised to its full potential. Warp travel, Astropaths, Navigators, Space Marine Librarians, Abhumans in the ranks of the Imperial forces; all these bear the mark of Chaos, but nevertheless further the goals of the God-Emperor, himself one of the most powerful psykers to ever have existed.The Xanthites cite these as example that there is no question as to whether Chaos can serve Humanity, it is just a matter of to what degree. As a result, Inquisitors of this faction often use Daemon Weapons, Chaos-tainted artefacts, psyker-retainers, daemonhosts, and forbidden grimoires in their quest to understand and exploit the boundless power of the Warp. Many have achieved mastery over the psychic discipline they have trained in, and it is unusual to find a Xanthite with no psychic ability whatsoever.Many other Inquisitors, be they Puritan or Radical, consider the Xanthites to be walking along the edge of a precipice, arrogantly tampering with powers no mortal mind can fully comprehend, and with catastrophic implications should they but slip for a moment. But despite the appalling dangers the Xanthites court, they are nevertheless one of the oldest and most heavily entrenched philosophies of the Inquisition, and their number includes not only some of the most learned and politically influential Inquisitors, but also some of the most personally powerful individuals whose true strengths and mastery of the dark arts are seldom guessed at until they are angered or directly challenged.It is indeed a courageous or foolhardy Inquisitor that dares challenge a true Xanthite directly and unaided, let alone a cabal of their number operating together in fell purpose. Instead, those that would challenge the Xanthite creed must do so with caution. More often it is the case that several Inquisitors must make common cause to expose a Xanthite that they believe is guilty of crossing the line into outright heresy. They must bring irrefutable proof before a full Conclave of the Inquisition in order to gain justice, and even then the outcome is never certain. |
Xanthite - The Trial of Zaranchek Xanthus: Xanthism is one of the oldest philosophies of the Inquisition. It is named after Inquisitor-Master Zaranchek Xanthus, brought to trial and eventually executed as a Heretic in the early 32nd Millennium. Xanthus was accused by a cabal of Inquisitors who had united to accuse him of Chaos worship. Although he professed his innocence strongly and with great dignity, he was eventually burnt at the stake, and many of his Acolytes and former apprentices were hunted down by the purge that followed.Throughout his trial, Xanthus maintained that despite the many malefic relics found in his possession and the vast repository of dark lore he had amassed, he had remained pure, both in spirit and purpose. He admitted that he did on occasion utilise the forces of the Warp and the powers of Chaos to achieve his goals in the Imperium's service. By virtue of his rank and record, Xanthus' trial was held by the Great Conclave itself, and regardless of his eventual conviction, his skilled oratory, undoubted eloquence, and unwaveringly firm stance that such power could be harnessed without spiritual corruption found resonance in many who listened.His ideas were to be picked up on by other Inquisitors in the following years, and within a standard century of his death a core of self-professed "Xanthites" had become a vocal and controversial minority within the Inquisition, and one that risked being rendered excommunicate en masse for their views. |
Xanthite - Angelique De Falk and the Calixian Malleus: Perhaps the most famous Xanthite Inquisitor in the history of the early Calixian Conclave was Angelique De Falk, a woman whose great cunning and implacable intelligence marked her out from her days as an Acolyte of the Ordo Xenos as a rising star. De Falk, newly raised to the rosette, was one of a number of Inquisitors assigned to the fledgling Calixis Sector in the middle of the 39th Millennium in the aftermath of the Angevin Crusade.This period, known to Calixian histories as The Great Founding, was far from an untroubled one, as war and anarchy still blighted the area. The subsequent mass colonial expeditions from the overpopulated worlds of the distant Segmentum Solar and from nearer afield in the troubled Mandragora and Gehenna regions created serious problems of their own. The newly born Calixian Conclave soon had its hands full weeding out the corrupt chaff from the good wheat in the new population of the sector and helping manage the difficult transition from High Crusade to stable civil rule.De Falk took to her duties with bravura and won for herself considerable fame within the Conclave, smashing cult after cult, battling human Renegades and mutant uprisings. In particular, De Falk is credited with exterminating one of the last hellish nests of the Warp-worshipping Yu'vath, a xenos race that had bitterly contested the Crusade's latter stages.It is recorded to have caused some acrimony when De Falk crossed the floor to join the Ordo Malleus, leaving her erstwhile comrades in the Ordo Xenos somewhat aggrieved to lose the famed and influential Inquisitor to what was at the time a political rival.She quickly mastered the arts of the daemonhunter and rose swiftly within the ranks of the Calixian Malleus, demonstrating a mastery of occult lore that swiftly had Inquisitors of far longer service seeking her aid and council in matters of the infernal. As time progressed, however, she demonstrated increasingly Radical Xanthite leanings. Rumours began to circulate that she was able to command dark Warp spirits at will, and that she had replaced her left eye, lost in battle with a Chaos Sorcerer, with a baleful orb torn from the skull of a half-daemon thing worshipped as a god amid the steaming jungles of Fedrid.Her successes against malign forces, however, only grew in number and scale, as she and her Acolytes cast down the first and most terrible flowering of the Cult of Baphomael on Scintilla. By her own hand, De Falk destroyed the black beating heart of the Nightmare-Hulk Spectre of Winter, which had terrorised Imperial shipping since it was first sighted during the voyages of Solomon Haarlock.After two centuries of service within the Calixian Conclave and a track record that arguably has never been equalled by her successors, Angelique De Falk was the leading power of the Ordo Malleus in the sector. She always refused to have the fact officially acknowledged, and she declined the appellation of "Inquisitor Lord" which her peers repeatedly offered her despite her growing sinister reputation.During this long tenure she acted as mentor to more than a dozen Acolytes raised to the Inquisitor's rank in their own right, only ensuring a strong strain of Xanthism in the Calixian Conclave to this day. De Falk's successors, in turn, produced other legends.These include Requis Corina, the first to battle the Pilgrims of Hayte and halt the Bloody Solstice on Malfi; the infamous witch-master Inquisitor Soldevan, who slew the psi-abomination of the Bloodmind on war-torn Malice; and the malignant Kul Harkness, perhaps the most suspected and feared of the current Calixian Xanthites. But her gravest test and the act that was to grant both glory and infamy within the Inquisition was yet to come. |
Xanthite - The Three Daughters of Atropos: In 799.M39 the hive city of Atropos on Solomon, a citadel with a population of more than 100 million, went mad in a single night. The culmination of a nightmarish plot long in the making, this terrible night of insanity and wanton murder was the work of the Master Sorcerer Alrac the Broken. Long a foe of the Calixis Sector, born beyond the Emperor's Light, founder of a dozen cults, and author of the thrice-cursed grimoire the Liber Noctis Eternem, Alrac had come to Solomon to kill this vital Imperial world in order to pay off a dark pact struck standard centuries before with the hellish forces beyond.As the death toll rose steadily into the tens of thousands and Atropos tore itself to shreds, violent chem-storms engulfed Solomon, and madness began to leap from ship to ship in orbit. With every drop of blood shed, Solomon tipped toward the Chaotic destruction of a full-blown Warp incursion on a planetary scale. At the centre of this whirlpool of violence, Alrac took the High Prelate's throne in the gore-spattered Cathedral of Saint Morgana at the pinnacle of the Hive Spire and began his ascension to daemonhood as the gates holding back the Warp began to shatter.Plunging through the storm like a bolt from the heavens came Angelique De Falk's gun-cutter. It had been pure chance she had been in the outer Solomon System taking on supplies in preparation for a long journey to a distant Inquisition fortress. Ill-prepared for a major confrontation, she was accompanied only by a number of junior Acolytes in training and her personal staff. Although long past the prime of her life, De Falk's mind was sharp and her power greater than ever.So it was that in order to save Solomon and countless Imperial lives, three of De Falk's Acolytes gave themselves up to damnation aboard her ship in hurried rituals of terrible power. The gun-cutter smashed its way into the twisted cathedral to confront Alrac at the moment of his dark apotheosis, and De Falk and three bound daemonhosts of dreadful potency confronted the ascending arch-sorcerer. The details of what occurred in the battle have never been revealed, but it is known that Alrac was torn asunder at the moment of his triumph and Atropos scoured clean. De Falk's shattered body was borne away by her last surviving sorrowful "daughter," and she was never seen again. Whether she lived or died remains a mystery. |
Xanthite - The Golden Throne: It was revealed in the time after the end of the 13th Black Crusade on 986.999.M41 that many mechanisms of the Golden Throne have developed technological failures beyond the current ability of the Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to repair. Because of this, it seems possible that the Emperor's body will die at some time in the near future.Depending on the many myths and fevered predictions that have come to dominate the Imperium's "Time of Ending," this unwelcome event will either destroy or actually save the Imperium of Man, and the galaxy as a whole, from the inevitable destruction brought by Chaos.With the discovery of the Golden Throne's deteriorating state, a dozen contingency expeditions have been launched by the Cult Mechanicus, including a Xanthite war procession of the Inquisition sent through the Exhubris Portal into the Webway. The Xanthites fought through Harlequin troupes and daemon hordes alike before reaching their intended destination. In the grave-cold oubliettes of the Haemonculi beneath the Drukhari city of Commorragh, a sinister bargain was struck. |
Xanthite - Xanthism and the Ordo Malleus: Given its focus on the direct opposition of the daemon and the Warp-worshiper as an organisation, not to mention its access to occult lore and artefacts, it is perhaps unsurprising that many (but by no means all) of the Xanthite faction can be found within the ranks of the Ordo Malleus. These Malleus Xanthites form a powerful minority within the Ordo, and while most are as dedicated to the Ordo's mission as any other daemonhunter, their methods and concerns mark them out from their peers.In extreme cases, this has lead to covert warfare and strife between particular Xanthites and their brethren. These differences are put aside in most cases by the Ordo Malleus, as this notoriously insular division of the Inquisition is apt to close ranks and keep any discord or intellectual disagreement behind closed doors as far as the wider Inquisition is concerned.This seeming tolerance for the Heretic in their ranks is the result of a number of factors, not least being that every Malleus Inquisitor has a close knowledge of the infernal and a schooling in the dark arts to some extent. As such, almost every member of the Malleus fundamentally understands -- even if they do not agree with -- the Xanthite position. There is, however, a point at which such tolerance ends, and that is the point of moral corruption.When a Xanthite (or any other Inquisitor for that matter) strays from the quest to understand and dominate the Warp and willingly or not becomes the pawn of the Ruinous Powers -- or worse yet, succumbs to the temptation to bend the knee to the Dark Gods in return for power and the promise of immortality -- then the Ordo Malleus will turn on them with all its wrath. The Xanthite faction itself will be at the forefront of carrying out this retribution and is merciless in its pursuit.Despite Xanthism at its roots being simply a matter of outlook on the daemonhunter's part, rather than a specific association, an important difference remains between Inquisitors who profess Xanthite beliefs and what some choose to call "True Xanthites" -- men and women who have dedicated their lives and their wills to the absolute mastery of Warpcraft in the God-Emperor's service. Xanthites of this rank and power, usually long-serving veterans of the Inquisition's war, often become sorcerers and daemon binders equal to any Chaos Arch-Magus or Warp prophet.The names of these rare and appallingly dangerous individuals have echoed with equal parts reverence and infamy in the secret histories of the Inquisition and invest the word "Xanthite" with such import and dread. Men and women such as Mokartus, Quixos, Angelique De Falk, and Zaranchek Xanthus himself, according to the Xanthites, embraced the darkness and were willing to risk the ultimate sacrifice in order to safeguard the Imperium -- but by the judgement of others, they became monsters in their fall from grace. |
Xanthite - The Horusians: Xanthism, as old a creed as it is, is far from uniform and exists with many divisions both in personal approach and in schismatic doctrine. Within the Xanthites there are those whose beliefs range much further afield from their fellows, from the suicidal fury of the Oblationists to the more recent tech-heresies of the Phaenonites. Perhaps the most extreme and outlandish Xanthite faction is known as the Horusians. This handful of infamous Radicals looks to the great catastrophe of the Horus Heresy and to the Primarch Horus, who they view as a mighty being invested with immense Chaos power, and sees an opportunity wasted rather than a monster that nearly doomed all of humanity.They believe that if a new Horus could be created and invested with great energy from the Warp and could control that power, he would effectively be a "Second Emperor," a super-being able to unite and lead the Imperium for its betterment and greater glory, rather than enslaving it to Chaos. Despite the pogroms of the 35th Millennium, Horusian ideals have waxed and waned in popularity ever since the founding of the Inquisition.Considered Radicals except by themselves, the Horusians are few in number but fanatical in their cause. They tend to be older Inquisitors, frustrated by the lack of answers provided by other Resurrectionist theories, and therein lies the danger. Chaos and its power can never be viewed as a quick route to success, for in that direction lies damnation.Quite apart from the normal anti-Resurrectionist arguments, many Inquisitors view Horusians with suspicion, out of fear that their dabbling with daemonic possession and Warp intrusions endangers those around them and the Imperium in general. However, the most experienced Horusians are well versed in the perils of the Warp and Chaos and so are numbered amongst the most proficient and dedicated daemonhunters in the entire Inquisition.Puritanical Inquisitors, especially those of the Thorian persuasion, have a particular loathing for Horusians, who they see as the direst of Heretics and their very theories enough to guarantee their place on the pyre. Even among other Radical factions, the Horusians garner little shrift and much suspicion, particularly from those who have had actual access to the proscribed histories of the Traitor Legions.Like all such philosophies, the Horusians must tread a path along a precipice of dedicated service to the Imperium and the fulfillment of their researches. It is a path that most have trodden wisely, but not all Horusians have remained faithful and, perhaps like Moriana ten thousand standard years ago, succumbed to the lure of the Dark Powers. |
Xanthite - Darkness Against Darkness: Xanthites believe that Chaos cannot be defeated in an absolute sense, for it is a reflection of humanity's inherent nature itself and therefore must endure as long as humanity does. However, those energies and powers created by its existence can and should be harnessed and even enslaved for the benefit of humanity, rather than left as an untamed hazard that preys at will upon the Imperium's lives and the souls of its people.So rather than surrender to Chaos or hide away in fear, Xanthism holds Chaos must be marshalled and controlled, much in the same way the mute energies of the Warp already are harnessed by the Imperium to allow for interstellar travel, navigation, astrotelephathy, and in the manner that psykers are sanctioned and serve in order to benefit the human race. Some even go as far as to controversially hypothesise that this was perhaps the Emperor's plan all along.The Xanthite path is defined by three concerns when it comes to all aspects of the Warp, its manipulation, and the power of Chaos: investigation, understanding, and application. Individual Xanthites can differ immensely in how they put this into practice, and the lengths to which they go in service of their ultimate goal of harnessing the power of Chaos and the seething energies of the Warp for mankind.The first step of the Xanthite ethos, investigation, is a natural consequence of the Inquisitor's role and is given licence by the power and authority of the Inquisitorial Rosette. This power and the fundamental strength of character are factors without which Xanthism would not be possible.The investigation of the malefic is also perhaps the most obvious reason that Xanthites are drawn to involvement with the Ordo Malleus -- even if it was not their first or lasting affiliation -- as the combatting of daemonic incursions and the rooting out of Chaos Cults offers the Xanthite firsthand interaction with the forces of the Warp.It is in the second step, understanding, where many subtle dangers lie. When a Xanthite Inquisitor or his Acolytes encounter malign forces, they prefer not simply to purge its presence, but also to learn and capture what they can from it. Chaos Cults and Warp-incursions, their nature, powers, and weapons are studied with a view to investing this knowledge into the Xanthites themselves where possible, destroying knowledge and artefacts only when completely necessary.Once these dark materials and lore are gathered and often paid for in blood, they must be then studied and measured, a project that can be as treacherous and lethal as the fight to acquire them in the first place. To aid them in this task, many Xanthites value building a strong and tightly knit organisation of trusted Acolytes and agents who share their vision and possess skills of use both on the battlefield and in the librarium.Some Xanthite Inquisitors go much further than this, skirting the edge of true heresy by creating sects of their own or manipulating existing Chaos Cults to aid them in the unravelling of ancient mysteries and the deciphering of arcane lore. |
Xanthite - Current Conspiracies: The Xanthites are a diverse group and one whose individual members are continuously subject to the pull of their own obsessive drive to master the Warp, enslave the dark powers that threaten mankind, and turn them back on themselves. These obsessions may manifest in a myriad of ways, from the never-ending quest to expand their own knowledge and power, to the hunting down and destruction of Chaos Cults and the appropriation of their dark secrets for the Xanthite's own use.Some Xanthites, particularly those who chose to conceal their Radical tendencies, conduct the business of the Inquisition with diligence and zeal, but always with an eye toward their own hidden agendas; they do not shirk from using covert murder to achieve their ends. Other Xanthites care little if they are known as such, confident enough in the rightness of their position to follow it heedless of the opprobrium of their peers, while others have attained such levels of infamy that the fear of their name precedes them even in the Conclave.Regardless of their methods and goals, conspiracy and secrecy are ever the Xanthite's watchwords where needed, and lies are always a favoured weapon -- just as with the daemons they seek to bind. |
Xanthite - Hayte, Suspicion, and the Rising Tide: The number of daemonic encounters and the spread of Chaos Cults within the Calixis Sector has increased at fearful rate over the last standard century, a fact that has not been lost on the Ordo Malleus or its Xanthite constituents. Given this rise in baleful activity, many of the most senior members and their trusted allies have come together in secret council on Maccabeus Quintus to discuss and debate this phenomenon and its possible causes and potential eventual outcomes.The conclusions of this council, which is believed to have met several times over the last three standard years, have not been made available to the wider Ordos, or even to the Conclave Calixis, and despite their vehement protests, the Tyrantine Cabal has been shut out as well. Some see this development, which has caused considerable acrimony, as an indication that the Ordo Malleus suspects some part of the Calixian Inquisition itself in the matter. No public charges have been made to this effect, and the Calixian Malleus refuses to be drawn into debate.Since then, it has been observed that several prominent Puritan members of the Ordo Malleus have become decidedly more distant to their colleagues. At the same time, known Xanthites and other Inquisitors with long-standing ties to the Malleus, along with their independent Acolytes and Throne Agents, have become vastly more active to those trying to track their movements -- far from an easy task at the best of times.These roving groups of Radical Xanthites have been observed travelling to hotspots of daemonic activity as they flare up, often re-visiting the sites of older atrocities searching for wisdom in their ashes, appearing and disappearing suddenly, without recourse to wider Imperial authority, and occasionally riding roughshod over the activities of other Inquisitors. This has only worsened relations between the Xanthites and the rest of the Conclave.One example includes an incident on Carver's Gate, when the warband of the militant daemonhunter Justinius Vorr clashed with the forces of the Witch Hunter Compt Pryce while pursing a secret cult of the Pilgrims of Hayte in the deep flood vaults of Bane City. Incidents such as these have done little to ingratiate the Xanthites with their Calixian brethren.Matters have worsened recently following the notorious Xanthite Inquisitors Harkness and Golgol's activities on Landunder, which disrupted a covert operation of the Tyrantine Cabal. Their actions resulted in the death of Inquisitor Slake, a former pupil of the senior Spectarian Lady Olianthe Rathbone. Only the direct and unexpected intervention of the Puritan Inquisitor Lord-Malleus Ionfel, avowing that the two Xanthites were on the Ordo's work, prevented Rathbone and her allies from declaring Harkness and Golgol Excommunicate Traitoris and sparking open conflict.Deep resentment still simmers over the matter, and Rathbone is known to have privately sworn her vengeance. Given Harkness' past, this merely adds one more name to a long list of personal enemies, a list that up until now was believed to have included Ionfel himself.Even now, many of the Xanthites of the Calixian Conclave seem to be moving in an unprecedentedly concerted, overt manner, and many other Inquisitorial factions harbour deep suspicion and fear about what this unknown pattern portends. |
Xanthite - The Seven Devils of Dread Calyx: Of all the dark lore that rests in the secure vaults of the Calixian Malleus, some of the most contentious and strange deals with the myth of the so-called Seven Devils of Dread Calyx, an ancient legend that still forms the obsession of many Xanthites to the present time.The region was first named in the writings of the legendary Rogue Trader Solomon Haarlock, whose thirteen voyages out past the edge of Imperial space in the late 36th Millennium would define the Calyx Expanse as a realm rich in "Souls, Plunder, Wealth and Things Best Left Undisturbed." Three Terran millennia later, the Angevin Crusade would forge this region into the Imperium's Calixis Sector.Haarlock's writings spoke of the Seven Devils as beings of dark power, fiends who haunted this area of space, some as savage predatory beasts, some walking amid the cold stars and others worshipped as fickle gods by those mortals who fell inside their domains. These seven, Haarlock claimed, were connected together by a dark and terrible web of fate, and if all were brought forth at once, a key would be turned that would extinguish the stars themselves.Haarlock's writings, filled with allegory and symbolism, have continued to strike a cord with the Ordo Malleus, particularly those of the Xanthite persuasion, and still echo through the sector's histories. Those who have sought out the truth behind the legends are known to have discovered much of value in them, as well as great peril.Today, the greatest authority on the myth of the Seven Devils and the malefic lore that surrounds them is Inquisitor Emeritus Andros Bray, Keeper-General of the Ember Archive at the fortress-asteroid of the Bastion Orpheus in the Maccabeus System. The aged Bray, a fiery proponent of the Xanthite ethos in his younger days and reputedly the longest-living servant of the Calixian Conclave, has long since retired from the field.However, he will happily expound on the subject to anyone with the clearance to plumb the Ember Archives' depths. He also makes it a point to show any would-be seekers a shrine he keeps to those Inquisitors and their Acolytes lost or vanished on the quest to uncover the Seven's secrets. Among the memorials and reliquaries is the empty tomb of Morell Orpheus, the famed daemonhunter and onetime master of the Calixian Ordo Malleus, after which the bastion is named. |
Xanthite - The Bray Lexicon: Andros Bray, in his long consideration of the legend of the Seven Devils, has formed his own list that he believes offer the strongest clues as to the nature of the entities involved.Compiled from concordances and evidence ranging from recovered Chaos Cult relics, local folklore and divinatory prophecy, to the records of entities encountered at various times by the Inquisition. They are as follows:The Voice of the Flame: The daemon Balphomael, Lord of the Dark Fire, Scintilla / various.The Dweller in the Depths: The Sightless Gaze, autochthonic entity, nature unknown, Spectoris.The False Prince: Tychak Crowfather, spiteful, pre-Angevin Crusade indigenous deity of the Ashleen, incarnate form slain by Saint Drusus, Iocanthos.The Treader in the Dust: The Radiant King, legendary avatar of madness, Malfi / various.The Eater of the Dead: Mord'dagan, supernatural beast of legend, godhead of the Saynay cannibal cult, Dusk.The Empty Hunger: Astral entity/aetheric residue of extinct xenoform, attributed cause of lethal psychic phenomena, Drusus Shrine World / Sacris.The Night Traveller: Nature unknown, also known as the kin-slayer, one that returns from where none has before and whose predicted coming will herald the End of Days. |
Xanthite - Acolytes of the Xanthites: Xanthite Inquisitors favour building interlocking circles and cells of trusted Acolytes and Throne Agents who can be relied upon for their loyalty, dedication, and strength of will in the face of the onrushing and insidious threat of Chaos.As their activities often take them in the forefront of direct battle against very powerful and implacable enemies -- including Chaos Cultists, daemonkind and those corrupted by Warp taint -- the Acolytes of the Xanthite are expected to be self-reliant and martially-inclined, and even the most bookish savant will be required to know how to defend himself and stand on the firing line when needed.The most singular characteristic of the Xanthite Acolyte and Throne Agent is their likelihood of possessing a deep knowledge of the arcane and usually forbidden daemon lore. These Acolytes use occult artefacts and even daemonically-infused weapons far more than their peers in the Inquisition. This knowledge is hoarded by the Xanthite Inquisitor, who chooses to teach his more trusted Acolytes in order to empower them to defend themselves. A chosen few within each Xanthite's retinue may even be practising Sorcerers, just as their master may be in turn.To many Inquisitors, this would be the most deviant of heresies and grounds for immediate destruction. This is not true in the Xanthite's service, but to imagine that these occult Acolytes are given free rein is also incorrect. The trust a Xanthite Inquisitor grants his servants comes at a price beyond the danger of destruction by those of another Inquisitorial faction. Xanthites are often better placed than most to know when one of their own has fallen to corruption, and react accordingly with crushing finality. |
Xanthite - Xanthites and the other Inquisitorial Factions: The Xanthites are an old, powerful, and heavily entrenched faction of the Inquisition, shielded both by their own tightly-knit organisations and the wider secrecy and fear that attends their reputation. The influence that many Xanthites wield within the Inquisition's structure -- and particular within the Ordo Malleus -- makes them by far the most politically potent of the Radical factions.Despite the sinister suspicions many Puritans have of their membership's activities, Xanthites are the most tolerated Radical faction, if only grudgingly so, by the majority of their peers. Exceptions exist, of course, on both side of this divide, and many Puritans, particularly of the Ordo Hereticus, will never find common cause with a self-professed or even suspected Xanthite without the direst need. Conversely, some Xanthites take perverse pleasure in outraging their more rigid-minded colleagues at Conclave.In terms of their relations with the other Radical factions, the Xanthites often maintain a measure of distance and disdain, ranging into outright antagonism toward such excommunicate splinter groups as the Phaenonites. The Xanthites' own obsessions seldom leave room to give more than passing attention to the political infighting and squabbles of the other Radical factions -- except where it directly affects their interests or seeks to challenge them.But if a particular morsel of occult lore is tangled up in the machinations of others, their fellow Inquisitors can find a Xanthite's presence to be an unexpected and usually unwelcome factor in their proceedings. This general indifference is returned as antipathy on the parts of many other Radical factions. To the likes of inveterate intriguers such as the Recongregators and Istvaanians, the Xanthites represent a powerful and dangerous element of extreme unpredictability capable of upsetting their plans almost at will, while to the Libricar and other Puritan extremist groups, the Xanthite is the enemy within. |
Xanthite - Xanthite Domains: The areas controlled by the Xanthites are less apparent than those of many of the other factions. By their nature, Xanthite Inquisitors have learnt to tread lightly among the ranks of the Calixian Conclave and seldom mix with others of Ordo or Cabal. More a loose confederation of individuals, the faction structures itself around the master-student model, with Xanthites usually only operating in pairs or alone.On the fringe and where the gaze of Imperial authorities grows dim, members of the faction are most commonly found, seeking out those that hide from the Emperor's light in such shadows. Of course, it is believed that many Xanthites also operate quietly deep within the heart of the sector, in the depths of hives, and in the grand edifices of the Adeptus Ministorum where corruption is wont to fester. |
Xanthite - Xanthite Operations: Xanthites are primarily concerned with the garnering of forbidden lore and schooling themselves in its use. They are also, despite the views of most Inquisitors, some of the most zealous opponents of the Ruinous Powers. Of particular interest to the Xanthites are fallen Inquisitors and corrupted Acolytes, who they seek out not for retribution and punishment but to better learn how to tread the path of Chaos untouched. However, by its very essence, Chaos is an unpredictable and dangerous power to harness, and many who seek out such fallen agents of the Throne end up joining their ranks.This, of course, does not stop the Xanthites from their pursuit of proscribed texts and forbidden lore, which they consider paramount to their cause. In recent times, the Xanthites have been gathering lore on the nature of the Tyrant Star and how its terrible power might be harnessed for the Imperium.Whenever Xanthites meet, they exchange small pieces of such information, slowly building up an extensive amount of data on the so-called "threat" rivalled only by the Amalathians in its breadth and accuracy. In fact, it is probably only a matter of time before they learn of the Amalathians' secret, and when they do, they will doubtless be far less conservative with such knowledge. |
Xanthite - Xanthite Inquisitors: Records of Xanthite Inquisitors are sketchy at best, many being surrounded in myth and rumour as much as actual fact. Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Felroth Gelt is a good example of this. A bold Monodominant and a Puritan, it is said that he was once ranked high in the Conclave and was the favoured of Lord Inquisitor Caidin.However, sometime during his third century of life, after years of struggle and bloody conflict with the Emperor's foes, he became disillusioned. The strict tenets of his faction and the hollow victories over his enemies began to lose all of their meaning.During his time suppressing the Rebellion of the False on Kasha he first met Inquisitor Draven and witnessed the true power of Chaos turned upon the Emperor's foes. Over the next few decades Gelt and Draven travelled together, until Felroth's eyes were finally opened to the teaching of the Xanthites. Now Gelt travels the sector and beyond, seeking out the tools with which to fight the Imperium's foes, his aging frame invigorated by the power of the Warp.Of course, whether or not Felroth Gelt truly exists is unclear, and only the oldest and highest ranking members of the Conclave would know for sure. His story could equally be a cautionary tale about the perils of Chaos or a message to potential Xanthites about the true path to man's salvation. In either case, from time to time rumours surface of Gelt's activities, causing a stir among both the Xanthites and their enemies. |
Xanthite - Xanthite Secrets: The Xanthites have many secrets. Each member of the faction is a repository of lore unto himself, and they are known to venture further into the dark nature of Chaos than any other arm of the Inquisition. Within the Calixis Sector, this delving translates into an unparalleled knowledge of Warp cults, witches, and daemonic incursions. More than once has a member of the faction flawlessly infiltrated a cult, draining its knowledge and power before smashing it beneath the hammer of the Inquisition.Perhaps most interesting of the faction's secrets, however, is the Aleph-hosts. It is rumoured among the Xanthites that some of their number have found a way to bind several powerful daemonic intelligences into multiple hosts, each of equal power and bound so that all must be killed for the Aleph-host to be destroyed.This hellish act requires a long and complex ritual, the formulae of which has been the object of many quests by Xanthite Inquisitors. Dark rumours hint that the ritual can also be configured so that a greater being of both Materium and Immaterium may be created in a single physical host. True or not, it is a rumour that persists and which many Xanthites are eager to pursue, if for no other reason than to keep the knowledge from the hands of their foes or those within the Imperium who would destroy it. |
Xanthite - Notable Xanthites: Ahmazzi - Ahmazzi is the Spectarians' sole Ordo Malleus Inquisitor. He is a grizzled and ancient veteran, close on three hundred standard years old, whose career has taken him from Titan to the very edges of the Imperium, hunting down daemons and the corrupt humans who summon them. Now all but decrepit, he has come to the Calixis Sector to, as he puts it, "bask in the radiance of the Tyrant Star and learn its secrets." A long career has left Ahmazzi intensely cynical and pessimistic. He has come to believe that the Emperor is dead, Chaos cannot be stopped and the human race is doomed. The Imperium, Ahmazzi believes, is a grotesque symptom of the fact that the human race is currently living through its inevitable and drawn-out extinction. He has dabbled with Radicalism in his career, even being declared Excommunicate by Puritan colleagues for seeking out daemonic knowledge but no one in the Cabal other than Zerbe knows this. Ahmazzi has no friends and does not particularly care what people think of him, angrily refusing to tell any stories of his astonishing daemonhunting career, although an Acolyte who displays great courage in the face of a Daemonic foe might win Ahmazzi's grudging respect. Ahmazzi was a martially-minded Inquisitor in his prime and secretly would love nothing better than to mount up on his mobile war pulpit, don his armour and take up his Daemonhammer to ride into battle once more against a horde of daemonic foes. He believes that the Tyrant Star may be the harbinger of man's inevitable doom and he wants to be at ground zero to witness the great day when it happens.De Marche - In the middle of the ninth century of the 41st Millennium, Inquisitor De Marche deployed alongside the Fire Claws Space Marine Chapter in the investigation of the Space Hulk codified Captor of Sin, that had recently entered the Stygies System in the Segmentum Obscurus. The Hulk was controlled by a Chaos Space Marines warband, led by a Chaos Champion of Tzeentch, known as the Excoriator. Realising they were doomed, the Renegades made their stand in the cavern-sized engine room where furious battle was joined and Librarian Decario and De Marche fought the Excoriator. At the height of the battle, De Marche was grievously wounded. Decario managed to strike back with his Power Fist, ripping away the Chaos Champion's sword arm from its socket in a welter of blood. Struck to the ground, in his desperation, Decario reached for the nearest weapon and struck at the Champion. The Excoriator's head was chopped from his shoulders and Decario realised he had picked up the Daemon Sword, killing the Champion with his own Chaotic weapon. Decario was filled with a sense of utter purpose as he wielded the Chaos sword and instinctively felt that this was a weapon that could be turned against the Forces of Chaos. The wounded De Marche cautioned the Librarian to put the weapon down, that only he was trained in the use of such artefacts. The Librarian handed the Inquisitor the weapon and the Space Marines returned to their ship, leaving behind Adeptus Mechanicus survey teams to search the Hulk for any archaeotech. De Marche explained that he also believed that such weapons could be used to fight Chaos and should not be destroyed out of hand as was standard Imperial policy. With the aid of Decario, he was able to convince the Fire Claws' Chapter Master of this and, under De Marche's guidance, the Fire Claws embarked on a Crusade to explore the worlds around the Eye of Terror and uncover more such Chaotic relics. Over the decades that followed, many such artefacts were discovered and the Fire Claws Chapter became known instead as the Relictors. However, it was only a matter of time before others discovered the Relictors' practice of using Chaotic weapons in battle. A cell of Puritan Inquisitors backed up by the fleets of no less than four Chapters of Space Marines and an Emperor-class Battleship descended upon the Relictors' fortress-monastery orbiting their homeworld of Neutra and demanded they hand over De Marche and all recovered Chaos weaponry or be destroyed. Faced with destruction, the Chapter had no option but to obey. As penance for dealing with heretical weaponry, the Chapter was despatched on a century-long Penitent Crusade against all the foes of the Emperor to atone for their impurity. De Marche was taken by the Inquisition and executed by the Ordo Hereticus as a Heretic.Gregor Eisenhorn - Eisenhorn was once one of the most zealous and hardline Puritan Inquisitors, but his numerous exploits, including his despatching of the "Renegade" Quixos several centuries ago, have changed him into a more pragmatic man. He has a long-standing pact with the daemonic entity known as Cherubael, and in recent times has been known to associate with all manner of mercenaries, bounty hunters, gunslingers and ne'er-do-wells. Now several centuries old, his early work still keeps him in good stead with following generations of Puritan Inquisitors, and his experience and authority gain him much respect. However, there is a growing opinion amongst the more Puritan factions that he himself has now become as much of a threat as Quixos once was.Felroth Gelt - Felroth Gelt is a Renegade Inquisitor who has been branded a Radical and a Heretic by the Tricon Palace of Scintilla. A former Monodominant Puritan, Gelt hounded the enemies of the Imperium across the Calixis Sector for more than three centuries. Gelt was a bold and courageous man, and quickly earned the favour of Lord Inquisitor Caidin, under whose mentorship Gelt flourished. He explored Death Worlds, sailed on warships of the Imperial Navy, commanded a personal regiment of Stormtroopers in the field, and kept a series of captive psykers for his personal use. He became well known for having encountered a wide variety of foes, from mutants to beasts, to stranger things like the daemon of Kinog and the Kantressian Foulmind. Each victory, however, came at a price: the lives of his Acolytes and a gradual wearing down of his once-firm adherence to the Monodominant Creed. Each success seemed empty, devoid of true importance. Gelt bent his attention to transcribing his journals into a tome that would guide younger Inquisitors and Acolytes, imparting some of his own hard-won lessons of survival. All that changed upon the cursed world of Kasha. Gelt had travelled there to assist with the suppression of the Rebellion of the False, an uprising triggered by a macabre heretical cult. It was during this turmoil that he first met Inquisitor Draven, a dark and driven man who reminded Gelt of his younger self. But where Gelt had been steadfast to the Puritan path, Draven chose to seek out any advantage he could find. Gelt then bore witness to the fruit of Draven's labours: the power of Chaos turned against the Emperor's foes. Enthralled, Gelt accompanied Draven on further expeditions throughout Imperial space and beyond. Having been enlightened by the teachings of the Xanthites, Gelt's aged frame is now revitalized by the power of the Warp. Since coming to the Xanthite doctrine, Gelt abandoned his journals, his Acolytes, and every other aspect of his former life. He chose instead to dedicate himself to seeking out more tools to turn against the enemies of Mankind, and subsequently vanished from known space. Gelt has not been heard from since, and his absence has led some members of the Inquisition to conclude that, in fact, he never existed at all; the journals and notes left behind must be fabrications designed as a distraction or a trap for the unwary. Those same rumours declare that only Lord Inquisitor Zerbe of the Calixis Sector knows the truth.Soldevan - Soldevan was a handsome man with skin the colour of ebony and a taste in imposing military dress uniforms that only enhance his air of strength and authority. Soldevan was originally an Interrogator in the employ of Witch Finder Rykehuss but never believed in his master's extreme methods, and quickly broke with Rykehuss after attaining the Inquisitorial Seal. Soldevan believes that knowledge, not wanton destruction, is the key to protecting humanity from the threats it faces. Soldevan's beliefs run deeper than he would ever admit. He believes that the Warp is an immense source of power and that an Inquisitor is a man of sufficient intelligence and willpower to harness it. Soldevan wants to open up a pathway to the Warp and seek out the consciousnesses that dwell there hoping to bargain with them for the power he needs to combat the enemies of mankind. Soldevan has got quite close to his goal and has several forbidden tomes in his possession that, with the right sacrifices and rituals, will summon forth powerful daemons for him to negotiate with. He is always seeking more knowledge or artefacts of the Warp, either captured during the Cabal's operations or purchased at extortionate prices from unscrupulous dealers in forbidden relics. Somewhere during this process Soldevan has lost his sanity and replaced it with absolute conviction that the Warp holds the secrets of humanity's survival. He believes that the Tyrant Star represents a vital conduit to secrets of the Warp.Lichtenstein - Inquisitor Lichtenstein is a dangerous Radical thought by almost all of his colleagues to be utterly insane. He has been declared Excommunicate Traitoris, and is actively being pursued by one of the galaxy's most noted Witch Hunters, Tyrus. It was Lichtenstein's single-minded obsession with the artefact codified as the Librarium Heresius that freed the Daemon Prince Phara'gueottla from its prison on Karis Cephalon. Since then, his fate has been inextricably linked with that of the daemon, Tyrus and another Inquisitor; an ex-daemonhost called Kessel. These three clashed on Karis over a manifestation of the Daemon Prince on the barren world of Paganus Reach, and again at Cephalon Spaceport where Lichtenstein managed to break Kessel free from Tyrus' custody. In return, Kessel arranged for Lichtenstein's safe passage to Equinox, a world where, under the false name of Thravian Flast, the dangerously obsessed Inquisitor searches tirelessly for the true location of the Librarium Heresius. Lichtenstein is an old, old man, but the sheer strength of will behind his steely features shocks all who meet his gaze. There is a touch of madness in his grey, staring eyes; Lichtenstein is on a quest to save Mankind from enslavement at the hands of an ancient mechanical race who worship death-- the Necrons. Since no one believed him, he had vowed to do it by himself. He knows that within the Librarium Heresius is a powerful weapon, proof against these ancient killing machines. Lichtenstein will do anything, including the harnessing and utilisation of Chaos –- the nemesis of the ancient xenos threat –- to locate and command this ancient artefact.Natius Osrinn - Osrinn is a devious man, but also a man of action. He despises the waiting game, preferring to move as soon as he judges the moment precipitous. Osrinn depends heavily on his retinue of trusted Acolytes and rarely takes the field alone, though he often teleports directly into the heart of the action. A former student of Inquisitor Van Nuygens, the man now known as Natius Osrinn began as a trusted and diligent Acolyte. Osrinn was chosen for his quick wits and aggressive nature from among the lower-hive scum of Solomon, and over time proved his worth to Inquisitor Van Nuygens many times during a career that spanned five standard decades of service. Eventually, Osrinn was promoted to the rank of Interrogator and thence to a full Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos. However, not long after his ascension, Osrinn's interests shifted, focusing more and more upon sorcery and the arcane. In time, his allegiance shifted away from his mentor and his Ordo, and eventually, he disappeared, claiming "special circumstances." The Tricorn Palace on Scintilla received several reports indicating glimpses of the enigmatic Inquisitor Osrinn, including several that claimed he had been seen assisting Space Marines of the Relictors Chapter. Other reports indicate that Osrinn wandered far into the reaches of the Segmentum Obscurus, all the way out to Belial IV and back before he re-appeared in the Calixis Sector in 803.M41. Osrinn's return caused a stir in the Tricorn, for he bore with him ancient Terminator Armour of unknown origin and a sword that was unmistakably a Daemon Weapon. Refusing to account for his actions, Osrinn avoided a summons from the Tricorn and struck out alone into the Halo Stars. Some say he has gathered around him a group of unusual Acolytes: mutants, aliens, rogue psyker-witches, and even a daemonhost of incredible power. What he intends to do with such an assorted retinue is still a matter for conjecture.Helynna Valeria- Inquisitor Helynna Valeria has always believed that the work of the Ordo Xenos, and the wider Inquisition, should be guided by the spirit and intent of the lore: to use the weapons of the enemy against the enemy. This she considers true no matter the source, and can require using Warp-tainted weapons against daemons, or xenos archeotech against hostile alien races. For Valeria there are no lines that cannot be crossed, no edict that cannot be transgressed. The Emperor bade the Inquisition defend Mankind from both its own destiny and a hostile galaxy -- a task so important that Valeria demands that no methodology, however extreme, should be considered forbidden. In pursuit of this goal, Valeria became a collector of the archaic and arcane, of bibelots and fragments of technological lore, of ancient and alien technologies to be pressed into fresh use. She has spent many decades exploring the ruins of far-flung worlds, poring over age-crumbled documents on alien races in the Psamathean Libraries, treating with Aeldari, Ulumeathi, Draxians, Hrud and a hundred more in order to expand Humanity's store of knowledge. |
Subsets and Splits