Editing Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos (section)

= The Fallen =

*Chaos Space Marines collectively referred to as "The Fallen", not just Dark Angels
*Not as common as in canon, due to no entire legions turning traitor like in canon, but make up for it with a shitload of daemons, Heretek technology (e.g., Obliterators), and blessings from the Chaos Gods. Chaos Gods are far more lavish with their blessings to their favorite toys, to the point that every Fallen Captain, perhaps even every Sargent, is approaching Chaos Champion-tier power.
*Largest contingent comes from the Dark Angels, of which 2/3 to 3/4 turned traitor during the War of the Beast. This doesn’t sound so bad, but Dark Angels were by far the largest legion, and so having 2/3 of them turn is like having two entire legions go traitor. The fact that the largest contingent of traitors came from his legion is what made the Lion so fanatical about hunting them down.
*Vlka Fenrika – Said to be second largest. Quite a few of them were Unrefined Canis Helix survivors, which made Russ rather uncomfortable, and were led by Skyrar, who was close enough to Russ that the latter would have called him brother
*Imperial Fists – Basically everyone on Necromunda, estimated to be 1/5 - 1/4 of the entire Legion but with considerably more Imperial Army assets then the DAs.
*Night Lords – Decent number of traitors. The ones who joined to get their jollies off. Some Slaaneshi or Nurglite (of the “pain” and “despair” flavors), but mostly Chaos Undivided. [[Rage|Loyalist Night Lords hate them with a passion]].
*Virtually every legion (and later chapter) had chunks converting either during or after the War of the Beast, either out of lust for power or just making bad bargains with the gods for the sake of survival.

==Huron Blackheart and the Red Corsairs==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#The_Badab_War|The Badab War]]

==The Burning Earth==

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">'''''
Every Legion had its black sheep during the War of the Beast, even the most stalwart and loyal. The Salamanders were no exception. 

The full story of Lieutenant-Commander Maartje and the two thousand Astartes under his command is not known. No records survive, and the people involved are not forthcoming. What is known is this:

Lt. Com. Maartje and his men were defending the world of Ndorea, a beautiful world of some five billion people. Having been unified and untouched by the wider galaxy for thousands of years, it had no defenses, no armies, nothing that could protect it from the storm now sweeping the galaxy. And perhaps because of that very innocence, several raiding fleets, both Ork and Croneworld, targeted the world for destruction. 
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Maartje swore this would not come to pass. As two thousand Astartes were not enough to cover and protect an entire world, he resolved to meet the invaders in space. In a series of brutal boarding actions, every attacker was destroyed, enemy ships turned into crematoria by the Salamanders' justly famed affinity for flame weapons. Multiple enemy fleets were utterly annihilated, the Salamanders returning to Ndorea after each battle for resupply and repair. Over the months, the bonds between the Salamanders and the people they protected deepened, with several Ndoreans even being inducted into the ranks of the Astartes to replace the losses taken in their defense. 

Sadly, the defense did not last forever. While the Salamander fleet was away intercepting an incoming swarm of Ork Roks, a Croneworld battleship slipped into orbit under cloak and burned the surface of the world, using well-placed torpedoes to trigger long-dormant volcanoes and fault lines. The Salamanders had their revenge, but it was far too late; all five billion of Ndorea's citizens had burned to death within a day. 

Maartje, and all the men under him, swore eternal revenge, and tore into the fleets of the Beast with the fury of men possessed. This is where the chain of events gets spotty, as they only intermittently kept in contact with other Imperial forces. Eventually, they stopped responding to orders and hails at all. Then, when the Navy sent a frigate to try and re-establish communications, they boarded and burned it, just as they had the Orks and Chaos forces. Through the rest of the war, they would indiscriminately attack both sides. 

When the Beast died and the Fallen fled into the Eye of Terror, Lieutenant Commander Maartje and his men followed. Today, they are the Burning Earth. Retaining their mastery of flame weapons, they delight in burning pretty much anything that catches their attention alive, posing as much a threat to nominal 'allies' as their foes. Whether it's turning starships into flying ovens or choking the life out of a hive city with a masterfully managed blaze, they delight in the flame and the name of Chaos. 
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==The Crumbling Wall==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">'''''
Every Legion had its black sheep in the War of the Beast. Luther, of course, for the Dark Angels. Sigismund of the Imperial Fists. And for the Iron Warriors, Captain Varkand. 

Captain Vandro was in command of the Astartes of the 144th Unification Fleet on the outbreak of the war. Ambitious, aggressive, and dour, he wasted no time assuming overall command when the Sky Marshal and his second-in-command were both killed when the flagship hit a vortex mine. Likewise, finding himself cut off and behind enemy lines, he wasted no time in ordering a series of raids and counter-attacks, trying to cut enemy supply lines and throw the drive towards Terra into disarray. 

Some historians suggest that he deliberately arranged for the death of his superiors so that he could seize control of the 144th, but there is no evidence of this. By every account, he served with honor, courage, ability, and loyalty through the Great Crusade and the early stages of the War of the Beast. He would have been remembered as one of the heroes of the war, except for what happened next.

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Vandro, an Iron Warrior to the core, grew increasingly dissatisfied with the raids he was making and the damage he was doing. The Crone-Worlders and their various puppets had erected a great fortress out of the hollowed-out ruins of the sector capital hive, Riskail; as long as that fortress still stood, he became convinced, the Croneworlders could never be driven out. He resolved to lay siege to it, crack it open, and kill every last enemy of the Imperium in the place.

The initial assaults did not go well. Vandro had spent a great deal of time in the sector capital, and expected his deep knowledge of Riskail's architecture to deliver a swift victory. However, its destruction and reconstruction at the hands of Chaos had eliminated all the vulnerabilities he had planned to exploit, resulting in a series of embarrassing defeats. Worse, the enemy defense was commanded by a sorcerer of considerable power, who used his talents to turn every defeat into a catastrophe. Stung and furious, having lost hundreds of Astartes and tens of thousands of human soldiers with nothing to show for it, Captain Vandro settled in for a long siege. 

As days turned into weeks into months, supplies grew short and the 144th turned to increasingly dubious methods to maintain the siege. Captured enemy weapons were used, regardless of how deeply Chaos-tainted they were. Roving elements of the fleet started, essentially, extorting and enslaving surviving pockets of civilization within the sector. Worlds already ravaged were stripped to the bone to fuel the demands of the war effort. 'Liberated' slaves were herded right back out to clear minefields and act as decoys for enemy guns. There were sporadic instances of cannibalism as food supplies grew tight. 

Captain Vandro finally breached the outer walls after five months, but this was hardly an improvement. The sorcerer and his cabal had not been idle, and had transformed Riskail's interior into a ghastbone maze carefully wrought to mislead and confuse on the psychic as well as physical plane. Casualties skyrocketed, and the 144th began to crumble under the continued psychic assault. From atop the stump of the DAoT-era space tether Riskail was built around, the sorcerer constantly mocked the attacking forces, and his words were themselves lethal weapons.

Captain Vandro and the 144th Unification Fleet had been sliding into the abyss for a while by that point. Now, they acknowledged the inevitable. Captain Vandro was the first to fall, pledging his soul to Khorne, and the rest of the fleet swiftly followed. 

The murder-maze that had once been Riskail fell swiftly afterwards. The newly-empowered Iron Warriors simply shrugged off every psychic assault directed at them, smashing through the walls of the ghastbone labyrinth with supernatural ease. Captain Vandro himself killed the Croneworld sorcerer with his bare hands. 

The 144th were pushed back into the Eye of Terror along with the rest of the Fallen, where they re-organized as the Crumbling Wall. They retain the Iron Warrior focus on fortification-breaking, and have a hatred of psykers remarkable even among the servants of Khorne. The destruction of fortresses is their sacrament to Khorne, and they have gotten very good at it. At the time of their treason, the Crumbling Wall had about 8,000 Astartes and 5 million mortal soldiers.
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==The Night Lords of Vol Opt==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">'''''
The Night Lords suffered a number of defections through the War of the Beast, by some estimations the second highest after the Dark Angels, but relatively few made it to the Eye of Terror to plague the Imperium in the future. They fell to Chaos in ones and twos and squads, and were viciously annihilated piecemeal by the more-organized loyalists. Mostly. 

One such exception occurred in the campaign for Vol Opt. A hive-world providing vital supplies to the Imperial Army on the border between Segmentum Solar and Segmentum Obscurus, it came under heavy attack from the forces of Chaos and the Orks. The main strength of the enemy was annihilated by Imperial reinforcements, caught between the hammer of the Imperial Army and the anvil of the hive defenses, but the threat did not end there. Numerous cultist demagogues, prophets, and other preachers were able to infiltrate into the underhives, raising the prospect of insurrection. In order to safeguard against the possibility and ensure the continued flow of equipment, a large force was left behind to hunt down the infiltrators as the rest of the fleet moved on to other battles. 

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Unfortunately, this force included both Night Lords, five companies under Commander Sarcobael, and Salamanders, three companies under Captain Quron. Conflict between the two forces began immediately. The Night Lords began their typical terror campaign, much to the horror of the Salamanders and the local PDF. Many innocents were caught up and slaughtered in increasingly vicious cycles of purges, even as the Salamanders and Imperial Guard regiments assisted in the rebuilding. The continuous complaints and censure from the Salamanders and local forces only caused Commander Sarcobael to double down, determined to prove the effectiveness of Night Lord methods. Which only made their allies more horrified...

After only a couple of months, relations had broken down near completely. Local militias, initially formed to fight the threat of Chaos, had begun guerilla resistance against the Night Lords. Imperial Guard and PDF forces were flatly refusing to support them in any operation, while the Salamanders had taken to shadowing and even harassing Night Lord patrols. And while the forces of the Imperium squabbled, the growing Chaos cults took the opportunity to entrench themselves. The situation need not have deteriorated so far, but there was no commander senior enough to enforce cooperation on the rival units, and neither Commander Sarcobael not Captain Quron were diplomatic enough to bring things to a peaceful resolution. 

Things finally came to a head at a meeting between Commander Sarcobael and Captain Quron, ironically aimed at resolving the differences between the two. The exact transcripts of the meeting have long since been lost, but it culminated in Sarcobael declaring Quron to be de facto in league with Chaos for obstructing his efforts to root the cults out, then attacking. Captain Quron was mortally wounded and interred in a Dreadnought, while Commander Sarcobael escaped. Full-scale war broke out within the day, as Night Lord clashed with Salamander and the cults within the underhives rose against them both.

At this point, the Night Lord force had not yet actually fallen to Chaos. This did not restrain them in any way when fighting the Salamanders, and the first days of battle were intensely bloody in favor of the Night Lords. Similarly, the Chaos cults made massive gains in the first few days of battle, coming perilously close to capturing the vital civic infrastructure of the hives. After the initial shock, however, both were pushed back quickly. The entire population of the world had been turned against the Night Lords, and PDF forces in particular counter-attacked with nigh suicidal fury. Similarly, the Chaos cults were unable to consolidate their gains; the efforts of the Salamanders and, ironically, the Night Lords had prevented them from developing to the depth needed to seize control of an entire hive. 

The Night Lords were driven off-world, escaping just one step ahead of the system defense monitors. Commander Sarcobael declared that the Imperium had betrayed them, and swore to never rest until it had been punished for this transgression. He, and his remaining 350 men, swore themselves to Chaos Undivided. Meanwhile, the Chaos cults on Vol Opt were annihilated, having emerged from hiding prematurely, and Vol Opt remained in Imperial hands. 
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==Skyrar's Dark Wolves==

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Skyrar_of_Caledonia|Skyrar of Caledonia]] and [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Battle of Fenris|Battle of Fenris]]

==Elsinore==

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">'''''The World of Madness and Paranoia'''''

Elsinore is the primary base of operations for the Fallen within the Eye of Terror, specifically the Fallen Dark Angels who sided with Luther during the War of the Beast. The original Fallen don’t play well with the Crone Eldar except on rare occasions, and the Chaos Gods understand the need to keep their favorite toys separate and in mint condition. Elsinore was given to Luther by Tzeentch as a boon after he lost The Rock for his epic betrayal of Lion during the War of the Beast and First Black Crusade, which kept the First Legion from fully contributing to the war effort against the rest of Chaos on both occasions. Luther realized there was a deeper meaning to Tzeentch’s actions than simply gratitude, but accepted anyway as his people had nowhere else to go and if he didn’t he would have to throw himself on the mercy of Lady Malys or the Taskmaster. Elsinore was originally a Crone World, like most worlds within the Eye of Terror, but no Crone had the audacity to stand up to Tzeentch when he gave the mostly depopulated world away to the Fallen. Few today remember its original name.

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From space Elsinore resembles a medieval castle writ large, covered in great stone fortifications decorated with towers, crenellations, and parapets. These edifices form a great labyrinth that criss-crosses the surface of Elsinore. The chambers and corridors within the castle are just as chaotic and seem to have no architectural rhyme or reason behind their construction, making them incredibly easy to get lost in. Secret passageways between chambers or behind walls are ubiquitous, to the point that the Fallen remark that every room on the planet likely has at one way of being eavesdropped on. Not even the Fallen know where all of these passages are. Along the edges of the castle complex, Elsinor is dotted with numerous towers that extend so high that the Fallen use them as spaceship docks. They also have a secondary function of giving any watchman or spy an unparalleled view of the actions of those below.

Elsinore’s labyrinthine nature extends beyond the castle walls. The planet is typically shrouded in thick mist, which muffles most sounds and makes it almost impossible to see more than a few dozen meters from where you stand. Walking across the planet, even knowing it is inhabited, gives one the impression of being very vulnerable and alone. In smaller courtyards between sections of the castle-labyrinth are hedge mazes, which always look trimmed and well-groomed despite never being maintained, which are even easier to get lost in than the rest of the planet as any who enter lose not only all sense of direction, but time as well. Further out, in larger province or country–sized gaps between the walls, the planet is covered in moors and gloomy pine forests. The Fallen don’t like to talk about what they find out there. The very planet seems designed to inspire paranoia and terror.

Not all have been happy with the fact that Luther's Fallen occupy Elsinore. Elsinore has been invaded numerous times, ranging from Crone Eldar hating the idea of a mon-keigh being in control of one of their Crone Worlds, daemon princes who want a new playground to call their own, Fallen warbands who think they're hard enough to topple Luther, or [[Nobledark_Imperium_Forces_of_Chaos#Kaimon_Adrande_and_the_Choir_of_Despair|Kaimon Adrande]] [[Derp|thinking it's a good idea to raid the Fallen's human servants for new stock]]. Chaos has a tendency to fight itself as often as others when not presented with a strong external enemy. Even Lady Malys has attempted a drive-by conquest once or twice just to keep Luther pissed off. All have failed. The fact that Luther has survived for ten thousand years without even dying once (something that not even Lady Malys has accomplished, but then again unlike Malys Luther doesn't have a tendency to over-extend himself in a drug-fueled haze) is rather telling. You don't survive for more than ten thousand years as the most prominent Fallen in the Eye of Terror unless you are very, very good at what you do. In the event that active warfare fails, the Fallen adopt a strategy of guerrilla warfare, withdrawing into the infinite maze of secret passages to bleed any invader to death by a thousand cuts. Let the enemy have to deal with what they have had to put up with for millennia. Even though their homeworld is nominally a fortress, it is difficult to try to hold enemies at the walls. The geometry of their home encourages such a strategy; possibly actively, rearranging itself to practically welcome enemies inside, ready to face a slow and patient death.

Another one of Tzeentch's jokes. They call themselves knights, but when challenged they flee until they can stab the challenger in the back.

In addition to the Fallen, Elsinore is home to that a number of baseline human servants that tend to the Fallen's needs. Some have speculated they are slaves, or descendants of the support personnel and squires of the original Fallen. In truth, not even the Fallen know where they come from. They just... appear. It drives all the Fallen mildly nuts, but despite 10,000 years of investigation none of them have a firm answer beyond 'the entire planet was created specifically to gaslight us'. Although many warbands have degenerated into the savage hedonism and casual disregard for the lives of others typical of Chaos, the core group of Luther's Fallen treat their human servants [[Night Lords|at least halfway decently]]. It differentiates them from the xenos they despise and allows them to look down on the younger, lesser warbands that don't. It is their only moral high ground and they maintain it. They do have standards, twisted as they are. When they do have to perform grisly rituals to appease the dark gods, they use prisoners of war or individuals captured in raids than the servants they actually like.

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