Editing Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos (section)

= Other servants of the Chaos Gods =

== Chaos Guard ==

[[Nobledark Imperium Chaos Guard|Chaos Guard]] is a generic term for humans at war on the side of Chaos. Their ranks are as diverse as humanity itself, ranging from Guardsmen who simply saw too much to revolutionaries seeking any weapon they can get to nobles and underhive gangs trying to get a leg up over their rivals. Many Chaos Guard were simply born into Chaos, raised on planets within the Eye of Terror or far from the Astronomicon's light. The paths to Chaos are many, but the destination is always the same. 

Most new-minted Chaos Guard forces are quickly incorporated into well-established warbands. Most of these are lead by Chaos Eldar or the Fallen, with the Chaos Guard simply filling out the ranks of cannon fodder. Of course, it is a large galaxy, and even a minority of independent Chaos Guard battlegroups is still a very large number in absolute terms. The quality of any given battlegroup varies wildly, influenced by origin, prior battles, and how much its patrons care. On the one end, you have howling mutant cultist hordes; on the other, discipline and tactics on par with the finest regiments of Imperial guard. Chaos Guard forces often slide up and down this scale over their operational history; a howling horde may be beaten into an elite force by the brutal logic of natural selection over the course of multiple battles, while a proud Imperial Guard force may have their brains rotted and degenerate into near-mindless mutants as they slide deeper into the grip of Chaos.

Likewise, the equipment of Chaos Guard forces varies widely. Those few fortunate enough to establish ties with the Dark Mechanicus are equipped as good as or better than any Imperial Guard regiment, but most find themselves without consistent access to an industrial base and incapable of maintaining advanced equipment. Such battlegroups find themselves forced to raid Imperial space just for basic supplies, and often degenerate back to basic infantry weapons: lasguns, autoguns, and melee weapons. Of course, there is wild variation here, as everywhere else; Chaos Eldar thralls are often partially equipped with Eldar weaponry, while warbands based out in the fringes of the galaxy can have strange xenos weaponry, unknown to even the most wide-ranging Ordo Xenos inquisitor. 

One thing the many factions of Chaos Guard have in common, however else they differ, is that they are dangerous. Imperial Guard, Aspect Warriors, Astartes; all are harsh teachers. Would-be Chaos Guard must learn swiftly or be destroyed. Many, even most, are destroyed; the rest learn. Whether a proud and disciplined soldier or howling berserker, elevated by Chaos' gifts or reduced to a shambling unit barely a step above Chaos Spawn; never count a Chaos Guardsman out until they are dead and buried. Sometimes, not even then.

== Saruthi ==

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A once prosperous society of large coconut crab looking people with a loose coalition of worlds at it's height counting 80 star systems as theirs they did not endure well in the Age of Strife. Their people, though hardy of shell, were not sufficiently warlike and could not understand the great and increased enmity between what once had been good neighbours. Although they had an electrical biological defence they had little in the way of developed weapons and this was a weakness they paid for dearly.

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They also had surprisingly little understanding of the warp and, at the time, no member of their species was psyker. They had abandoned the use of star ships many generations previously and had adopted a strange method of "folding" into the webway. Their primary method of perception was being able to smell/taste dimensions in a manner not encountered before or since in any other species and by this means became the only other species besides the elder to develop the ability to navigate that strange realm.

The eldar allowed them to violate a realm considered exclusively their own for no other reason beyond apathy. Their worlds intersected paths seldom visited and they made poor slaves or playthings when other more entertaining diversions were to be had in abundance.

For the most part the Saruthi had lived apart from the galaxy in splendid isolation, making wonderful works of art made to be "seen" by creatures with no eyes and written works in a form of xeno braille.

But it did not last. When the galaxy went mad they could not have been prepared for the whispers that seeped sideways into their dreams.

It is unclear exactly what they were tempted with, what dreams of things forbidden could be appealing to a race of blind crabs who dreamed of impossible geometries and poetry, but dream they did and tempted. Ultimately it was Slaanesh, the Newborn Queen, who held sway over their minds. She promised them, maybe, grandeur writ large across the stars in dimensions strange and twisted and impossible that they could walk. Maybe she promised them retaliation and sweet sadistic catharsis against those that had brought their works to ruin. Who can say? Further added to this problem, exaggerating and growing the corruption in new and exciting directions were refugees from Doombreed's petty empire, wicked men debased and debauched, who carried with them the Necroteuch and all the sorrows and splendour held therein.

It was in this time that the Saruthi as a people collapsed. On the one side of the great and unpleasant and new divide between them were the Broken who thrashed and tore at the world, twisting space into unpleasant, impossible and obscene shapes and did unspeakable things to their young spawning a race of monsters to serve them as slaves and on the other side were the Sane who needed to exterminate the Broken to the last as a cancer needs to be exorcised from a host.

As the war ended there were maybe only a few worlds, no more than six, were left inhabited of the old Saruthi nation in a patch of the sky to be known to later Imperials as Wilderness Space and not much later than that quarantined by order of the Inquisition.

For the longest time it was assumed that they were another utterly lost cause. One more people lost to the Age of Strife and the depredations of the Great Adversary. What of them was left were not Saruthi as they once were as every generation birthed more mutations each seemingly more abominable and insane than the last.

All until the Aschen War of 307M40 when well ordered ranks of strange beings seemed to fold out the air, hard of carapace and fearless. They took the forces of the orks and the Chaos marauders apart in an inhumanly meticulous and methodical manner even going so far as to carefully dismember the dead and the injured.

A seven group of them detached from the others and approached the Imperials, each standing 3 meters tall and broad they stood there and sniffed the air to taste them and their space form. With no words exchanged and what can only be assumed to have been an entirely one sided exchange of understanding the seven group turned away and returned to the dismembering before they all folded away again.

Saruthi sightings into the Dark Millennium have been sporadic but seem to be increasing in number. It is clear that they must be again multiplying and their peaceful days of innocence are behind them now, now the Sane march to war. No homeworld of them has been found, though the Harlequins sing sometimes of a "Hermit world of Crabs". No dialogue has been achieved between the seemingly resurrected Saruthi and the Imperium.

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== Sarcophages ==

EDITOR'S NOTE: Generally agreed that they need a different name than Sarcophages, pseudo-Latin is more the Imperium's thing.

The Sarcophages are a splinter faction, some would say a religious movement, among the Kroot of the Ultima Segmentum. Whereas most Kroot are allied with the Imperium (though their loyalty is shaky by human standards), the Sarcophages are unusual in seeing all sapient life as prey, Imperial and non-Sarcophage Kroot alike. The founder of was a Kroot by the name of Khamor Wet. According to legend, Khamor Wet was performing the traditional rite of eating the dead after battle with the Orks when he was struck by a vision, or what others would describe as a drug trip. It is believed that Wet’s vision may have come from eating a Chaos Ork who had recently turned and whose body did not show any outside signs of corruption.

From his vision, Khamor Wet was said to have come to have come to a realization. The Kroot were the apex predators of the galaxy. Humans could not eat humans without extensive processing into corpsestarch, and even then they ran the risk of illness and only did so in the direst of circumstances. Eldar also did not eat eldar, though this may be less due to physiology than the cultural stigma of the cannibalistic Mon-Keigh early in their history. The Tau similarly could not eat Tau, and in fact only ate small amounts of animal flesh. The galaxy was not full of allies or clients, but prey. To Khamor Wet, the order of the universe was clear. Animals ate plants, sapient beings ate animals, and Kroot ate everything. Only by hunting the other sapients and the weak among their number could the Kroot evolve into truly perfect beings.

To say that the Shapers were horrified by this idea was an understatement. They ate the flesh of the honoured dead to preserve its essence and prevent it from dissipating into the earth. They ate the untainted flesh of those who would be an enemy to the People (mostly Orks) to remove it from the world. They ate the flesh of many beings, but they ate the flesh of sapients to preserve the link of wisdom between ancestor and descendant and prevent the Kroot from going mad. They did hunt game, but to hunt sapient beings like animals as opposed to fellow warriors was outright heresy. They immediately declared Khamor Wet and his followers to be namotek, or tainted flesh, and demanded that they be killed and their essence scattered to the winds. Unfortunately, Khamor Wet and at least some of his followers evaded their doom at the hands of their fellow Kroot and escaped into the cosmos.

Today, the Sarcophages are a constant, though minor, threat on the Eastern Fringe. They are either seen acting alone, or in association with Chaos warbands, Ork WAAAGH!s, or other groups to which the traditional shapers would find anathema. Many Sarcophages, including the core of the movement, have fallen to Chaos, with most pledging their allegiance to Khorne, though distinguishing Kroot that have fallen to Chaos and those who simply believe Khamor Wet had good ideas is often a difficult task. After all, the Kroot are just as variable in their mindset as any other race.

==Tzaangors==

When the Imperium started their project to uplift the Beastmen, the forces of Chaos scrambled to acquire as many planets of Beastmen as they could easily find. Tzeentch in particular has always showed an unusual amount of interest in the Beastmen compared to the other Chaos Gods, perhaps because the unstable genetic structure and tendency towards mutation in Primeval Beastmen fits well with the ever-changing nature of the Architect of Fate. In addition to individual Beastmen that have fallen to the influence of the Ruinous Powers as is typical of any race, the forces of Chaos also include Tzaangors, which are Beastmen, or possibly humans mutated to look like Beastmen, who have been even further altered by the Lord of Change. Tzaangors typically show the avian features typical of servants of Tzeentch, such as beaks, feathery wings, and talons, but have horns and shaggy fur more typical of Beastmen.

Despite their groveling, servant-like nature, Tzangors are far from weak, often being both physically powerful and intelligent enough to comprehend many of the magic rituals that they come across. However, Tzaangors have been engineered to instinctively be submissive to any greater daemon or high-ranking servant of Tzeentch, in spite of any physical or arcane prowess they might possess. Nevertheless, this has not stopped an abused or ambitious Tzaangor from occasionally offing an overly confident or insufficiently paranoid follower of the Lord of Change. Tzaangors are normally found perched on the Webway colleges of Tzeenchian Cronedar or the non-euclidean spires of Tzeenchian sorcerors, always on the lookout for new victims to harass.

To the Nova Beastmen, who know how far out of the pit they climbed, the idea of being snatched up by Chaos and degenerated even further into animals than their ancestors is an idea that fills them with disgust. The term "Gor" and all its derivatives are considered curse words in Nova Beastmen society.

== Yu'Vath ==

Placeholder, see [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#The_Yu.27Vath|Yu'Vath]] for more details