Editing The Enshrouded (section)

==The Final Eclipse==
Fascinated by the mysterious shadow dimension of the Mandrakes, the coven of the Final Eclipse seeks in their study the accomplishment of their artistic views. Their goal is to produce the ultimate work of art, a peremptory and sublime revelation, an end to all aesthetic research, that shall obscure every wonder of Commorragh by its absolute evocative power, the Final Eclipse of art. Believing that such an apocalyptic event can only be brought forth through a union of sorcery and psycho-sensitive technology, but unwilling to lower themselves to the wretched level of psykers as The Enlightened have so pitifully chosen to do, they chose instead to study the enigmatic, shadowy creatures called Mandrakes.

These creatures with their inexplicable capacity to perform strange and unnatural feats as teleportation and the baleblast without attracting daemons, and the alien nature of the energies they manipulate soon became objects of obsession for the coven, who sought to harness these bizarre forces for themselves, so that one day they can use it to unleash their ultimate production onto the webway.

With time and patience there came alliances with Mandrake cults who were, surprisingly, quite eager to assist the Haemonculi in their pursuits. With the mandrakes sharing their secret traditions with the deranged scientists, the two groups were able to slowly and clumsily work to each others’ mutual benefit. From the workshops of the covens there emerged distorted, shadowy fiends that stalk their prey silently from the darkness, their vast bulk no longer a hindrance as they slip in and out of reality at whim, the only sign of their presence often being the sharp intake of deep breath before they bellow a roiling tongue of balefire from their massive, deformed gullets. 

Stalking alongside these abominations are the other servants of the Haemonculi, similarly twisted and adapted to blend into shadow and out of sight and mind. The mandrakes too have become a part of the coven’s workforce, though they do not lower themselves to base servility such as the pitiful wracks who toil away for their masters. Having their natural abilities twisted and enhanced, these mandrakes form an elite cadre of deadly soldiers, their strengths pushed far beyond the limits of their ‘ordinary’ kin. They stand in the coven as allies to the haemonculi, declaring themselves equal in their overall station. Whether the haemonculi believe this or not is unknown, for they seem to vaguely recognise the mandrakes enough to entertain them, ensuring their continued allegiance to the Final Eclipse.

Why exactly the mandrakes pursue the fulfillment of these strange and esoteric rituals they teach to the Haemonculi remains a mystery. Surely this perverse blending of the realms between that of the material and the half-real dimension of they hail from would be a powerful event, enough to shake the foundations of the entire webway were it to ultimately come to pass, but whether the mandrakes and the haemonculi truly understand the intentions of the other remain a mystery.  

Perhaps the mandrakes hope to affect some world changing calamity through the assistance of their allies and the great ‘Final Eclipse’ of their ultimate art, unleashing the fearsome work of raw shadows and malice to change the webway into an environment more fitting for themselves and their kin . Perhaps the haemounculi are simply toying with the fiends, exploiting them for what secrets they have to offer, and enslaving them for their own purpose. 

What is definite however is that early forays into this ritual science, and the disastrous effect it has had on the realm of the Dark City, have earned the coven the murderous ire of various factions of their kin, both kabal and coven alike. One enemy in particular, the great and terrible Kheradruakh himself, seems to have some kind of insight into the ultimate pursuits of these interlopers, and has made it a personal mission to hunt them down and slaughter them all, eldar and mandrake alike. Perhaps the coven seeks a goal that runs rival to his own cryptic machinations. All that can be guessed is that if any of these factions fulfill their ambitions, it will be the dawn of a new age in Commorragh.

Forced to flee from their enemies, The coven of the Final eclipse was driven by a curious twist of fate into an alliance with another rogue coven, known as the Gatekeepers. Working together with these weavers of time and space, the Final Eclipse turned their knowledge of the shadow world of the mandrakes towards assisting in the construction of a secret realm, hidden in the deepest bowels of the webway.

Able to exist both in and out of reality at once in a way that kept it hidden from all manner of eyes up to and including the teeming hordes of chaos itself, and only connected to the dark city via a series of secret web portals that periodically shifted and moved location in response to the manoeuvres of the realm itself, the two covens created the Ark. Able to find refuge in this clandestine citadel, and having taken more rogue covens into their midst to increase their mutual strength and protection, the collective entity known only through whispers as The Enshrouded was born.

Relatively safe in the midst of this inter-factional armistice, the Final Eclipse is now free to indulge themselves further into their elaborately arcane science and witchcraft. As a result, the insane Haemonculi overseers of the Final Eclipse have come perilously close to bringing their ‘ultimate art’ into reality, and as such every side in the loosely knit coven sits on the edge of their seat, waiting for the time of reckoning they each individually prophesize to arrive.