Editing Nobledark Imperium Xenos (section)

==== Qah ====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''The Lord of Shadows:'''''

Unlike the Eldar and many other species uplifted by the Old Ones, the Hrud are monotheists (possibly because they didn’t have the population or psychic power to create multiple gods), worshipping a shadow deity called Qah. The Hrud respected the Eldar Gods, referring to them as Slah-haii ([[Nobledark_Imperium_Imperial_Society_and_Culture#The_Etymological_Legacy_of_the_Old_Ones|most mighty/ancient, a term they also used to refer to the Old Ones in the past]]), but the Eldar gods were not Hrud, Qah was. In addition to shadows, Qah is also seen as a god of Hrud values, including community, morality, and conscience. Although it might not be immediately obvious why a shadow deity would be seen as a paragon of moral values, it makes perfect sense to the nocturnal or crepuscular Hrud. Shadows are reflections of the self. Everyone has a shadow, and your shadow sees everything that you do. In Hrud religion, your shadow is where your conscience comes from, and all consciences have a connection back to Qah.
 
Grand Empress Isha, for her part, is very interested in the reports of the Hrud still worshipping Qah. She remembers Qah, who fought alongside the Eldar gods just like the mortal hrud fought alongside the Eldar in the War in Heaven. Qah got along okay with the Eldar gods, but being a god of Hrud values and therefore community and Isha being a goddess of nature and friend to all living things, the two of them got along considerably better than Qah did with the other members of the Eldar pantheon. Isha secretly hopes that Qah is still out there somewhere, if only to have someone else around to talk to who remembered the War in Heaven and the days before the Fall, even if it wasn’t an Eldar. Isha would be devastated to know what really happened.

<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

Shortly before the Old Eldar Empire gave birth to Slaanesh, Qah realized what was going on and realized that Slaanesh being born would mean devastation for not only the Hrud, but also for the Eldar and every race in the Milky Way galaxy. Having realized the gravity of the situation, he gathered the Hrud and told them what they needed to do to survive. In those days the Hrud built real cities and were unafraid of going out in the daylight, though at their heart they were always a nocturnal and opportunistic species. Qah told them they had to focus on those natural tendencies. They had to become so hidden, so beneath notice, that no one would ever bother or hurt them. His last command was a single word. He told the Hrud to hide. To survive. To linger. Having given his people the best guidance he could, he steeled himself and joined the battle against an alien god on behalf of the deities he had fought alongside so long ago.
 
Qah didn't make it. He got smashed into a billion pieces during the Fall the same way that Khaine did. Isha never saw this, as she was too busy being dragged away by Nurgle at the time to notice. Most of Qah’s fragments became the Umbra, the living shadows that like to cluster around Warp engines and Webway gates. Being but shreds of the shadow god, they are of limited intelligence, comparable to an animal, and will lash out at anything not-Hrud. Nevertheless, when destroyed they still scream “Linger”, begging any Hrud within earshot to remember the last words their god had told them to keep them safe.
 
It sucks to be Qah. He did everything in his power to save his people from the Age of Strife, but at what cost? He selflessly threw himself into battle on behalf of his old comrades from the days of the War in Heaven, only to be shattered into a million pieces. Even when his last few fragments are destroyed, he uses his last breath to remind the Hrud to remember what he said to keep them safe. One of the only remaining survivors of the War in Heaven is hoping that one day he will return, only for the tragedy being that Qah died a long long time ago and she never found out. He tried and tried to be selfless, only for tragedy to ensue. Being Qah is suffering.
 
Whereas many of Qah’s fragments were scattered across the galaxy, his main body ended back up on the Hrud homeworld. The Hrud refer to their homeworld as Hrud, much as they call themselves Hrud and speak a language called Hrud. There are no ethnic or cultural divisions between Hrud. Despite this, the former Hrud homeworld is typically referred to as Hrudworld for the sake of everyone’s sanity. Today there are no Hrud on Hrudworld. If it weren’t for psychic powers, no one would ever know why. To mundanes Hrudworld looks perfectly normal, although even with the Hrud gone people get the feeling there's something distinctly "wrong" about the place. Like they shouldn't be there. Psykers (including the Hrud) look around Hrudworld and notice there’s a half-decayed corpse straddled over the nearest mountain range.
 
The body appears on the horizon, or at least at a distance. Strewn over a mountain range, lying in a canyon, floating face down in the ocean, half buried in the ice of the north. It's likely not a "real" body as a corpse miles thick would probably distort the ground beneath it considerably to say nothing of what a new mountain might do to local climate. It always too distant to be touched, like a mirage on the horizon. Most classify the phenomenon as really consistent shared hallucination by the People of Qah and the psychically inclined. The corpse looks like a giant Hrud, more or less, albeit one seemingly sculpted of shadow. There are anatomical differences. Two sets of insectile wings not dissimilar to a very large beetle and two pairs of antenna upon its brow, one behind the other. It is thought that these features denote nobility to the Hrud in the same way that bird wings or a lion’s mane sometimes are used as artistic additions in human art. This shared hallucination does not occur on any other world of the Imperium even ones with a large Hrud population. Hrudworld doesn't frighten the Hrud, it saddens them. Their god is dead and his corpse, or something very like it, is always there to remind them. Of the few Hrud elders and lore-masters that would volunteer information on the phenomenon when asked they would give no hard information beyond that it brings them great sorrow.
 
The Hrud will rise again should the Imperium survive The Day of Reckoning. Isha will take the pieces of Qah and plant them in her garden when she takes back her throne. Perhaps Qah will spring from the ground, a fresh flower after a very long winter. Maybe his ghost will finally be laid to rest and his postmortem suffering will be over. Either way the Hrud will be able to move on.

</div>
</div>