Nobledark Imperium Forces of Chaos

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This page is part of the Nobledark Imperium, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the Nobledark Imperium Introduction and Main Page for more information on the alternate universe

Notable Daemons and Followers of the Dark Gods

Be'lakor

EDITOR'S NOTE: Needs expansion

The last of the Old Ones. The result of early Old One experimentation into the apotheosis of physical beings in the Warp, he is incensed that he "merely" reached daemon princedom, making him subservient to the Chaos Gods, who he sees as experimental artificial constructs akin to A.I. that have gone far beyond their station. Be'lakor serves the Chaos Gods, but he is not loyal to them, and has his own goals in mind. Be'lakor is old, one of the oldest beings in the galaxy, older than even the Chaos Gods. He remembers when Earth was inhabited by beings like him, and the forefathers of mankind were little more than rats that scurried beneath their toes. He remembers the Eldar before they were uplifted, and their pitched battles against the original Mon-Keigh. A great many mysteries of the galaxy could be solved if Be'lakor shared his wisdom. However, he does not, because he is cruel and capricious, and because his knowledge of things everyone else has forgotten is his greatest asset. Indeed, the fact that Be'lakor even exists was only discovered by the Imperium after much blood, sweat, and tears. Be’lakor’s followers almost universally worship Chaos Undivided or come from the Chaos Wastes. Although his followers tend to be fewer in number, they tend to make up for it by being more stable.

Erebus

The Dark Apostle:

Out of all the mortal followers of the Dark Gods, Erebus is one of the most mysterious, as well as the most disturbing. Just about the only thing that is known about him for sure is that “Erebus” isn’t his real name. Despite being well known during the Great Crusade as a chaplain of the Word Bearers, there is no record of anyone matching Erebus’ description ever joining the legion, though people aren’t sure if this is because a “recruit Erebus” never really existed or if he simply did a good job at covering his tracks.

Erebus was born in the Yndonesian Bloc, much like the primarch Lorgar. When he was born, the priests tasked with interpreting the omens of his birth said that Erebus was born to a great destiny, that he was destined to bring the faith to all corners of the galaxy and his name would be remembered throughout history. It was this sense of destiny and a zeal for righteousness that led Erebus to join the Word Bearers, which he saw as the natural path for his destiny to be fulfilled. Throughout his life Erebus became known for his virtue and morality, with some people going so far as to say he was a veritable living saint. However, Erebus did not share these feelings. He always did what he thought was right, but he never achieved that sense of religious ecstasy that he felt he should be feeling if he was as great as people said and in general felt like a fraud. Erebus had a crisis of faith, and begged for God to give him a sign, to show him that his doubts were unfounded and that he was truly meant to be a prophet as the prophecies had foretold.

His prayers were answered, but not by the deities he expected.

When Erebus' corruption was discovered by Lorgar during the War of the Beast he was given two chances to repent. The first following the discovery of his actions and subsequent fall from grace, the other opportunity a deathbed confession and repentance. Should Erebus still be in good health then poor health and deathbed could be arranged. Lorgar thought Erebus was just a misguided young man and could be redeemed. Erebus spat in Lorgar's face and was put in the critical care ward after being rushed by the other Word Bearers. Lorgar was well loved in his Legion. Spitting in Lorgar's face whilst the Chaplain-Primarch was holding out the hand of friendship in front of his fellow Word Bearers would have been nigh suicidal.

After escaping from the critical care ward, Erebus pulled every string and cashed in every favor he had during the War of the Beast. This most famously manifested itself in the betrayal of Luther and the majority of the Dark Angels legion, but Erebus was able to convert small chunks of every legion to fall to the Ruinous Powers. However, things were not smooth sailing for Erebus. Multiple times during the War of the Beast people caught on to Erebus and the Dark Prophet was lucky enough to escape with his life. He was almost killed several times, but managed to survive like the roach he is.

Today Erebus is the Dark Apostle of Chaos. While Lady Malys may be the favored servant of the Chaos Gods, Erebus is more often the one who acts as their prophet and transmits their will to their various followers. Indeed, he's usually the one that travels around to let others know that Lady Malys has called for another Black Crusade, and is often the one who tries to keep Lady Malys, Luther, and Be'lakor focused on a common goal rather than fighting each other. He mostly travels between the different Chaos warbands in his flagship. He calls it The Chariot of the Gods. The Imperium knows it as the Planet Killer. It’s a retrofitted Blackstone Fortress.

Compared to the other major mortal followers of Chaos, Erebus is a relatively simple man. He is not a human supremacist like Luther, he does not have the appetite for anarchy and destruction of Lady Malys, and he has no desire for power like Be’lakor. His only desire seems to be the spread of Chaos for Chaos’ sake. As a result, he is one of the few beings that can act as messenger between the major followers of the Dark Gods, as he is the only one who is acceptable to all of them. He is human enough for Luther’s taste, is fanatical enough in his devotion to the Chaos Gods to please Lady Malys, and grovels enough to be tolerated by Be’lakor.

Drach'nyen

The War of the Beast was truly a terrible affair. Daemons of every stripe were called forth by the Ruinous Powers to assault the Imperium from every conceivable corner at the same time, in numbers that had not been seen before or since. In the Segmentum Pacificus, the Interex, the interstellar power that had joined the Imperium as a semi-autonomous member state, came under attack by the daemon Drach’nyen. Although capable of warfare, the Interex preferred to focus on the virtues of the human condition. To them, Drach’nyen, a being born of the darkest aspects of human nature, was like their greatest nightmare come to life. However, at the same time, because Drach’nyen was born of the basest urges present in all of humanity, there was little the Interex could do to truly stop him. As a result, the defeat of Drach’nyen came from a rather unexpected source: the Kinebrach.

As a Chaos-fearing race, the Kinebrach did not make Chaos-corrupted swords for no reason. As a race of weapon forgers and metalsmiths, the Kinebrach naturally saw making swords as a way to bind and deal with daemons. If a daemon is bound to a physical object, then it is tied to a single place and is not free to corrupt and torment mortals as it wishes. Once the daemon is forged into a sword, all one has to do is lock the sword away where no one can hear its temptations and make sure no one ever uses it.

Being a daemon of fundamentally human origin, there was little that even the most powerful human inhabitants of the Imperium could do against Drach’nyen. The Kinebrach, however, were not human, and suffered from no such limitations. The leader of the Kinebrach and the greatest of their warsmiths, Ra-Ham-Be, challenged Drach’nyen to single combat on Mount Afonso, a forge built into the side of a volcano that the Kinebrach had considered their finest workshop. The daemon was truly a ferocious opponent, but eventually, Ra-Ham-Be beat Drach’nyen and forged him into the shape of a sword, at the cost of his own life.

Unfortunately, in the chaos of the War of the Beast, the sword was lost and eventually ended up in the Warp, where it fell into the hands of Chaos. Despite being sealed in the form of a sword, Drach’nyen still has a mind of its own. If Drach’nyen believes the one wielding him to be worthy, he grants his power to his wielder to turn them into an unparalleled engine of close-combat destruction. However, if Drach’nyen believes his wielder to be weak or that someone else would prove to be a better master, he turns on his wielder, either stabbing them in the heat of combat or outright ripping the soul from their body. Many followers of the dark gods and even several daemons have learned this the hard way.

Drach’nyen has acquired sort of a legendary reputation among the followers of Chaos, as it is said that the sword’s chosen wielder will be the one who finally brings the Imperium to its knees. After going through many wielders, in late M37 the sword fell into the hands of Lady Malys, the Daemon Queen. The fact that Lady Malys has come into ownership of the sword, and has remained in possession of it for several millenia, has convinced many of Malys’ claims that she is the true chosen one of the Ruinous Powers.

Arrotyr, Marshall of the Scions of the Old Helm

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High Conservator of The Attendants of Isha

The Evangelist of Nurgle:

Matron Macha was not the first eldar to become the primary mortal focus of the cult of Isha, though she is certainly the fairer that remains in the galaxy's memory. Nimina Demthring, the High Conservator of the Attendants of Isha, is the other, and she is far from beloved by the mother goddess. She was born in the sprawling pleasure shrines of Shaa-Dome, into the worship of Khaine the bloody handed, and worship of an Isha that was witch-mother to her monstrous fairy kin. In the loathsome latter years of the Old Empire Demthring was initiated in the palatial shrine of the all-mother, and in the manic orgies of the fall she and that bleak coven were among those few that remained aloof from the purple cabal's entertainment. That is not to say that foul sisterhood refrained from the debauchery, and in that time Nimina bore innumerable strange children in the name of her goddess, and gleefully partook alongside her depraved superiors in that long corrupted convent. It can be said only that the wicked traditions and sacred fixations of Isha's followers preserved her worship as distinct from that of the gestating Prince of Pleasure, but in the end little but her cult and their prolific brood remained her faithful. As the empyrean hell welled up from the final debaucheries in the heart of the city that lay behind the doors in the hills, and the ships of the Old Empire returned to reign as fire upon the surface of the Shaa-Dome, this last strand of true and faithful worship dragged Isha on through the assaults of newborn Slaanesh. Burning Arrotyr, already damned, melted a shaft through the superstructure of the shellworld and came to strike down the witch-cult and atomize the temples. This he did, and after he slew and burned Isha's faithful in the middling layers the Marshal left again for his firestorm on the surface, driven back in equal measure by his contempt for the resurgent Slaaneshi and the ferocity of the newly realized daemons and cenobites followed.

Though the near obliteration of Isha's remaining cult did next to nothing to impede Slaanesh's arrival in the universe, it left few but Demthring alive in her service. Arrotyr's hot iron sank deep into Shaa-Dome, and though it was meant to wipe Isha from existence it came just as she would have been made sport of by Slaanesh. As the Marshal and Taskmaster fought their first gory, maniacal war together Slaanesh had eyes for none but Khorne, and when the smoldering ruins of Isha's shrines were again made a boudoir for occult debauchees the mother goddess's witches were nowhere to be found.

Nimina says it was in this time that Isha manifested before her, wearing the modified and sculpted body of the dying high priestess, and that she nursed the wounded, dying goddess as she hid in that form. They were attended to by Nimina's brood, and dwelt in the ruins of the shrine even as it was brought low by the war of the fall and turned to a charnel pit of discarded flesh and rubbish in the years of Slaanesh's endless victory celebration. Demthring and the high priestess remained in this state of foul hospice until the latter woman expired of her wounds, and of her company. Likewise, there in Slaanesh's midden mother Isha remained until father Nurgle extracted her, or so the High Conservator tells it. She says Nurgle's visits were frequent, doting upon them, adorning the embodied goddess and her with his gifts upon flesh and unclosing wound, until at last he drew up his courage and ferried them away to his estate. Demthring in that time had gathered what little was left of the coven, and by the providence of her loving care for the all-mother her brood came to dominate that near-dead order. Her foul children were the first conservators beneath her in this new cult, and no survivor of Arrontyr's purge had the will or means to contest her. They went with Isha into the realm of Nurgle, and took with them every relic, corpse, and scrap of holy writ.

None were so bold to challenge Nurgle himself when the interlopers dared enter his vast mansion. Few were said to have glimpsed him, down the hazy length of an infinite hall, but those unlucky few were not among the raid's survivors. When a Warmaster, armor long ruined and body wreathed in a mandorla of golden flame, came seeking Isha she quailed and cowered in the chambers her host had quartered her in. The Steward of the Golden Throne, after searching the infinity of that foul house, came upon her in a chamber of fetid paradise. Isha dwelled in a jungle of long abandoned refuse cobbled into a parody of life, and pressing on through trees draped with rotting silk and boughs heavy with slops of fruit the Steward found her, surrounded by all manner of unlife and undeath, not least of which were the Attendants. When first he saw her, Isha was still bedecked in the finery of Nurgle's wife, the body of the high priestess he had so adorned for her. She was bloated and emaciated, gaunt, pallid, gangrenous, and swollen, eyes bloodshot and full of cataracts, flesh pimpled, blistered, and ulcerated, and the carcass she was given was splayed upon a hill of stones alike to coins of dirty ice. She coughed and shook, half buried in the mound, and around her shuddering form the Steward saw the figures of the Conservators.

Nimina knew this interloper not to be hated Arrontyr, but had really no desire to reveal this to her goddess. She hailed Oscar as if she were the matron of Isha's cult of old, and entreated his congress with her own 'divinity', that he might be among the flock of the All-mother through herself. That the Steward came forewarned by Eldrad as to the situation of captivity in which Isha was held was good, but wholly unnecessary. Demthring was yet a vision of the Matron's beauty, as she understood it, and made great and excited offer of the eternity of wriggling, slick comfort in which Oscar would henceforth abide beside her.

They vied against each other, briefly, and their exchange ended with the rotten body of the High Conservator strewn across the hill of embittered soulstones. The Warmaster took waifish, crone Isha in his arms and fled, and as she left the mansion of Nurgle the goddess seemed to die again. The long deceased form of the high priestess was shed on the threshold of the gate from which they emerged and for a moment, just as long as the rift persisted, Isha stood in glory in the materium before the seers of Eldrad and the assembled warriors. The door shut, the Matron Goddess collapsed into the body of the seer Macha, and the deed was complete.

The High Conservator was not long dead, and easily reassembled. Nimina hates Oscar, more even than she hates Arrotyr or the Taskmaster. Maybe as much as she hates the Indigo Crow. She wants her sick waifu back so she can go back to nursing her precious baby. She absolutely hates leaving the Mansion of Nurgle, which she views as a perfect paradise, but she is also a weird sort of Isha evangelist. She essentially tries to rally the vat/murder-orgy born rabble to fight her infinite crusades to 'rescue' Isha, and preaches Nurglite doctrine in the name of Isha and calls it chaos undivided. Nimina isn't especially perceptive, adventurous, or deadly relative to the other three or Malys, or Vect, but she's single minded and really persistent, and had been constantly ready for action since the raid. Malys might need to convince or coerce the other faction leaders to fight in a black crusade, Nimina she needs to keep from pouring resources into non-productive sinkholes.

Malaria, the Living Hive

The Abomination:

When the combined forces of man and eldar had invaded Nurgle’s mansion and wrested Isha from Nurgle’s captivity, none among the forces of Chaos were as shocked by this development as Nurgle himself. Khorne was angry, as he always was, ranting and raving about how the theft of Isha was an insult to all the Chaos Gods. Slaanesh was displeased, for they had still craved Isha for themselves and now the chances of having the last elder goddess at their mercy seemed as remote as ever. Tzeentch was annoyed, for he had used the presence of Isha as a tool to sow discontent among the Chaos Gods and now that tool was gone. But Nurgle. Nurgle was destitute. Nurgle had long been aware that existence was futile in a cosmic sense, having watched his every effort to preserve the beauty of the universe wither and be in vain, but this was the first time he had known despair on a personal level.

For the Conservators of Isha, this was unacceptable. After venting his initial bout of fury upon realspace, Nurgle became despondent. The theft of Isha had forced the Lord of Stagnancy to change his lifestyle against his will, and he didn’t like it. Nurgle withdrew from the rest of the world, and the Conservators of Isha no longer received visits from their beloved Plaguefather. Something had to be done. And so it was that one brave high-priestess went before the Lord of Decay, and offered herself up as Nurgle’s guinea pig in Isha’s stead.

The few remaining records of the Old Eldar Empire list her name as Maleriel, though across the galaxy she came to be known as Malaria for reasons that will soon become evident. Nurgle took Malaria up on her offer, and for a while it was good, or at least, as close to good as things could get in the Realm of Chaos. However, Nurgle’s mood soon began to sour. Malaria had been brave, but she was not Isha. Whereas Isha’s flesh would have always rejuvenated itself eventually no matter how noxious Nurgle’s creation, Malaria’s flesh warped and mutated. As much as it pained the Lord of Decay to admit it, it just wasn’t the same, and Malaria could never replace Isha in Nurgle’s heart. Nurgle ceased experimenting on Malaria and moved on to other things. The Conservators of Isha breathed a collective sigh of relief, they loved their Plaguefather, but they knew that few could survive such personal, painful attention from the Lord of Decay. However, perhaps the greatest abomination was yet to come: Malaria was still alive.

Today, Malaria is a living biohazard, a one-woman weapon of mass destruction. Nurgle had ceased his experimentation on Malaria, but not before he had merged her body with what was at the time his latest creation, the Destroyer Hive. After that, there was no more Maleriel. There was only Malaria, the Living Hive. Malaria is a disgusting creature. Half of her body is covered in hive-like outgrowths, resembling the honeycomb of a paper wasp or the inside of a termite mound, home to growing maggots, rot wasps, daemon flies, and plague gnats. However, the parts of her body that are not covered in these outgrowths, including much of her face save the area around her left eye, are covered by pale white skin, looking as pristine and flawless as they did the day of the Fall.

However, this is only a veneer of normality, literally skin deep. Malaria has almost no original tissue left, and when she has been damaged in the past, breaking in half where most mortals would merely bleed, it is clear that her entire body is nothing more than honeycombs for the insects inside her with a thin layer of skin on top. She shouldn’t even be able to move, having no brain, muscle, or bone, being as much a creature of the warp as flesh and blood now, animated by the arcane powers of the warp and the soul of what was once an eldar.

As for Malaria herself, she does not care as to her appearance. She has the mind of a child, despite producing swarms of plague-bearing insects so vast that they can blot out the sun. Malaria exists in a constant state of pleasure, happiness, and religious ecstasy so common to the followers of Nurgle as insects pupate inside her body, giggling like an innocent child in spite of the horror she leaves in her wake.

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. 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.

The Crumbling Wall

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.

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 considerable powers to turn every assault 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.

The Night Lords of Vol Opt

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.

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.

The Crone World Eldar

“Although most races in the galaxy have failed to reach the level of spiritual purity of Orks, some of the closest are the Crone World Eldar. And the reason for this is simple: purpose. Much of life is driven by a search for purpose, to find meaning in why we exist. For the Crone Eldar, this question is already answered. They exist to spread the will of their dark gods, whether by word or by sword, and all other needs are secondary. An individual Croneworlder may have their own wants and dreams, their own loves and losses, but ultimately it is this purpose that drive them forward even in their darkest times. Although I find myself abhoring their beliefs and goals, I admire them in their simplicity and purity of purpose.”
-- Uthan the Perverse, controversial Eldar philosopher

The birth of Slaanesh was essentially a galaxy-wide extinction-level event. All across the Milky Way, species were wiped out, societies collapsed, and worst of all many races were twisted into something their forerunners would find unrecognizable by the corrupting influence of Chaos. Perhaps no race was more strongly affected than the Eldar, whose highly populated Crone Worlds were located right in the middle of the massive hole in the fabric of reality torn by the birth of the new Chaos God. In an instant, nearly 90% of the Eldar population was wiped out.

But not all Eldar were wiped out in this event. Though some Eldar manage to survive on far-flung Exodite worlds, artificial planetoids of wraithbone or extradimensional redoubts of the Webway, the vast majority of Eldar survivors were located on the Crone Worlds themselves. These were Eldar that, whether by sheer chance or some quirk of fate, were passed over by the hunger pangs of the newborn Prince of Pleasure. These individuals became known as the Crone World Eldar.

Being veterans of the debauched society that created Slaanesh in the first place, the Crone Eldar took to worshipping Chaos like a fish takes to water. Whereas the Fallen primarily follow the Ruinous Powers because they think it will bring them power and further their goals, the Crone Eldar follow Chaos for the sense of religious ecstasy it brings them. The majority of Crone Eldar, for one reason or another, see Chaos as the apotheosis of the Old Eldar Empire, one they are obliged to spread to the heathens of the galaxy whether the rest of the galaxy wants it or not. Make no mistake, despite their imposing physique, at the heart of a Crone Eldar is the mind of a Chaos cultist. This extends to the Croneworlders’ view of daemons. Whereas most other groups fear daemonic possession, Crone Eldar will climb over each other for the chance to be daemonically possessed, as possession will bring them one step closer to their gods. This also allows the Crone Eldar to do something that would be impossible for any other Eldar: survive in the Warp unmolested. Daemons know the souls of the Crone World Eldar will flow to them eventually, and so they prefer to follow them like pilot fish following a shark, feeding on the carnage in their wake, rather than devouring them outright. Although the Crone Eldar are not truly protected from the warp (though really, who is), entering the Warp unprotected is not a death sentence for them like it is for virtually everybody else.

Across the Imperium, the Crone World Eldar are variously referred to as "Croneworlders", "Crones", or "Cronedar", as well as many other less polite terms. The term "Croneworlder" didn't always have the connotations it currently does among the Eldar and the greater Imperium. Due to Eldar physiology and culture (namely, the relative lack of aging among Eldar and their worship of the goddess Morai-Heg as a goddess of wisdom), the word [insert Eldar word for crone here] while literally translating to "crone", has additional connotations of being "well-developed" or "experienced", as opposed to "ugly", "withered", and "hag-like" as it does for humans. This is one reason why the Eldar called the Crone Worlds just that: these were the worlds in which civilization was well-developed and well-established. Humans, on the other hand, were just happy to have a shorthand term to refer to their enemy, one that had the added benefit of being insulting in human terms as well. Of course, once the Eldar learned the human connotations of the word "crone", they were only too happy to use the term "Crone Eldar" or "Cronedar" as a derogatory insult against their debased kin. This was just one of the many fun and innovative ways to insult people the two species taught to one another in the early days of the great alliance.

Crone Eldar Demographics

The largest chunk of Crone Eldar are Slaaneshi worshippers. The Old Eldar Empire was the society that produced Slaanesh, after all, and many Crones have changed little from the pleasure cults of the old empire. Even today, Crone Eldar worship of other gods is often decidedly Slaaneshi-flavored. Slaaneshi Eldar often hold a stifling amount of influence over the Crone Eldar as a whole, especially given that the centerpiece of the Crone empire, Shaa-Dome, is completely Slaaneshi-controlled.

The next largest faction of Crone Eldar, nearly as numerous as the Slaaneshi Eldar (~35%) are the Eldar of Chaos Undivided. Those who worship Chaos as a pantheon. The majority of Undivided Eldar just try to keep their heads down, and aren’t too different from their Slaaneshi kin. Then you have the hardcore Undivided Eldar, the ones who actively try to court the blessing of all four Chaos Gods. The path they walk is a narrow one, for any degree of failure results in nothing more than an abnormally large Chaos Spawn, but the ones who succeed are truly dangerous. Such an Eldar may not be able to outstrip a more specialized worshipper in their field of choice, but they are more flexible, a true master of none. Worse yet, compared to other Crone Eldar, these Eldar possess a frightening amount of vision, and are often sane enough to direct the attention of the Crones on realspace. And they resurrect. Not always, it's not a guarantee, but compared to Eldar of other gods they do come back more often. A result is that they are increasing in number. There were an estimate few dozen at most in the day so the Great Crusade. Now there are a few hundred.

There are about equal numbers of Khornate and Tzeentchian Eldar (about 15% for each). Several bands of Khornate Croneworlders have been exhorting the Blood God to take up Khaine’s old weapons and armor. It’s possible they do so because they see Khorne and Khaine as the same being. It’s possible they see Khaine is truly dead and believe that you keep what you kill. It’s possible they see themselves as having merely switched to the “winning” side. It’s possible that after all this time war is the only thing left they get off to, worshipping a Chaos God is merely pure coincidence. It’s possible that they’re all mad and potentially even daemonically possessed, making speculations on motivation pointless. It’s possible, even probable, that all of these views are held by at least one warrior band.

Tzeentchian Cronedar are more respected in the halls of Shaa-Dome than Eldar of Nurgle or Khorne, but they usually prefer to stick to their own colleges in the Warp and the Webway, where they can practice their own brand of nonsense made deceit made madness undisturbed.

Nurglite Eldar are surprisingly rare (~5%), given the kidnapping of Isha. Indeed, most Croneworlders that join Nurgle do so in the hopes of getting closer to Isha, and the most prominent members of Nurgle’s followers are derived from the corrupted remnants of Isha’s followers pre-Fall. On Isha's part, their company was just slightly preferable to Nurgle's own, and they mistook this preference, and her mixed pity, disgust, and sorrow for genuine love for them, and they believe they will be welcome in her presence, eventually. Their actual loyalty to Nurgle is somewhat questionable, but since the Raid they have become psychotically dedicated to dragging Isha back into Nurgle’s garden. Most Nurglite Eldar hope the version of the Starchild Prophecy with the Emperor and Lady Malys comes true because they think it means they will get to “rescue” Isha and the Plaguefather will get Isha back.

Then there are the actual Nurglite Eldar, which are rarer. They see the Fall of the Eldar as it truly is, with none of the romanticism or self-justification of the other factions; only as evidence of the universal trend towards entropy and decay. The only possible means of enlightment is despair. The clockwork of the universe counting down towards the end of all things. Inexorably. Irredeemably. Inevitably. It doesn't upset them much. They are past despair and into the enlightenment of acceptance they believe that by sharing Nurgle's gifts with all living things the inhabitants of this dying universe will be happier in the long run. Or dead. More probably dead. But if you're dead you aren't unhappy.

In the immediate aftermath of the Fall and throughout much of the Age of Strife, Crone World Eldar outnumbered their Exodite, Craftworld, and Commorragh-dwelling kin (that is, Exodite, Craftworld, and Dark Eldar combined) by a whopping 9 to 1. By M41 this number was more like 4 to 1 (or to be more specific, 80% to 20%, Dark Eldar making up a larger percentage of the latter number). This change is primarily due to population growth of non-Chaos Eldar, whether through natural birth or through mass-cloning (as in the case of the Dark Eldar). Eldar naturally have very low birth rates, but even a slightly positive population growth rate over 10,000 years adds up. Crone Eldar populations have remained relatively stable due to attrition rates essentially cancelling out birth rates, despite the efforts of the Crone Eldar to increase their population through demented methods such as the Daemonculaba.

Crone Eldar infantry squad organization

The smallest grouping of the warriors boils downs to 5 warriors in 1 raiding party. These parties are commonly a squad of ten that were split into two during small scale raids. The most basic warriors that make up the bulk of the Crone Eldar warbands are known as Unlanded Warriors, due to the fact Crone worlds lack the space for private property many simply rent living space. These Unlanded Warriors often join the military to gain land and power. The rank of Subjugator is equivalent to a Sargent who ruthlessly keeps the squad in line. The rank of Second Hand is for who serves to help the Subjugator in all matters and also act as a courier while being second in command. The Witch-doctor is included in a squad to heal permanent damage and provide counter minor psyker support on the battlefield, although these weak psykers could but won’t heal minor wounds as these wounds serve to provide pain and pleasure. The Witch-doctor is always accompanied by an Unlanded Warrior who would protect and help the Witch-doctor but also be always around to put down the psyker if driven too insane or rebelled. The Whippers are the only pair of warriors who have less lethal weapons and are melee specialist. Whippers are also infamous for whipping comrades when ordered to by their Subjugator. The pair works to bring in targets alive and fend off melee warriors. The last 4 others in the squad are the Submissives who can be armed with melee weapons or ranged weapons like the Saw Rifles, and act as flexible general infantry.

Typical equipment

The Subjugator normally fights with a blessed sword and a Saw Pistol. Second Hands can have the same weapons as the Subjugators or have a Splinter Rifle instead. The Witch-doctor is often seen with a phallic staff which can smash skulls and the pointed bottom is made to slice through cloth flake armor. The Unlanded Warriors including the Witch-doctor guard are often armed with melee weapons like swords, hammers, and mauls with Repeating Saw Pistols. Alternatively the Unlanded Warriors are often also armed with a Saw Rifle and Saw Pistol. Whippers normally carry around a melee weapon, whip, and several Nervous Pistols

All Saw weapons fire mon-molecule dices like Eldar shuriken weapons but are shaped like a buzz saws. The difference between the ammo is to prevent the rounds from sticking on a target but instead to simply slice through organs and arteries. Saw Pistols are semi-auto pistols that fire bursts of rounds. Repeating Saw Pistols hold more ammo, have a stock, are heavier, and can also fire automatically. Saw Rifles unlike the Splinter rifle doesn’t fire using pellet or slug rounds, these rifles shoot with steady stream of rounds being sent like an Eldar shuriken weapon. The blessed swords are just regular melee weapons but are given special effects by Warp sorcery or by one of the Dark Gods. The phallic staff is a weapon that becomes larger at the top with its head usually being round while the bottom of the staff is sharpened to pierce cloth, leather, chainmail, scale, and thin plate armor. Witch-doctors are known to disable human Guardsmen by simply shoving their staff through the flake cloth even most feudal worlds with metal armor can’t stop the piercing. Nervous Pistols can only fire once before reloading. Shooting out all 9 chemically laced bolts at once are all connected to the weapon via extremely thin wires. If these bolts touch flesh after firing, they would send a shocking electrical current aided by chemicals on the skin to overwhelm the nervous system and stop any motor functions of the humanoid size target.

Crone Eldar Notable Groups

Scions of the Old Helm

Khorne's elite military cult of pre-fall Eldar warriors and guardians turned to him in its wake. They earned their place in his favor when in the fall he watched them turn their ships inward to the great debauchery and slaughter their kin as the writhed together in the filth of Slaanesh, cut down mad sorcerous seers as they exalted the ever changing glory of the expanding eye, and harried and hounded the clinging sycophants all about Isha as Nurgle dragged her down into the garden. They warred through the Shah-dome's upper surfaces, brought continent shattering climax to the mounting hells on the empire's worlds as the washed in immaterial miasma, and shredded the webway within the Eye, spilling pocket universal redoubs into the eye's cloying nebula. He granted them his mark and blessing, and in time since they have proven their worthiness of his esteem as terrors among even the worst heavies of Chaos. The forces of this ancient military cult have made particular efforts to drag the remains of Khaine into Khorne's domain, but their legacy of horrific, bloody war has been felt in every corner of the Galaxy. The Scions of the Old Helm are led by Arrotyr, once a hero of the Old Eldar Empire turned into a madman and a lunatic by the chaos of the Fall and his veneration of the Blood God.

The Bleeding Star

The story of the Bleeding Star begins with Archon Darumache Zharr, and his Kabal of the Venomed Breath. After a plot to destroy a more powerful rival backfired on him, Archon Zharr and his Kabal chose to flee into the Webway rather than stick around for the inevitable overwhelming retaliation. After wandering the Webway for decades, raiding Imperial worlds and rival raiders for supplies, they found something incredible- a proto-craftworld in orbit around a warp rift, crew slaughtered in the Fall but otherwise untouched. Archon Zharr instantly declared this their new base, and named it 'Port Razor'.

The millennium that followed was good for the Venomed Breath. Port Razor gradually attracted other outcast Kabals and lone Dark Eldar, mercenary bands, Ork Freebootas, xenos pirates and Chaos marauders, until it had become a city in its own right. Commorragh in miniature. Constantly on the move and equipped with the finest cloaking fields, it provided all the scum of the galaxy with an inviolate base to strike at civilization from. Until the Imperium finally tracked Port Razor down, and assembled a Crusade to destroy it.

Unwilling to abandon his domain twice, Lord Zharr committed to a vicious defence. However, deprived of their usual advantage of mobility with the need to defend a mostly-static position, his fleets were slowly destroyed or simply deserted. Port Razor itself was forced deeper and deeper into the warp storm, fleeing into the depths where Gellar fields failed, beyond the reach of the Imperium. It was assumed to be destroyed, and centuries passed without further sign of Port Razor and the Venomed Breath.

Then the Bleeding Star emerged. Outer hull encrusted with the hulks of thousands of ships, the outline of what was once Port Razor was still visible, having been transformed into a Space Hulk in the terrible depths of the warp storm. The old inhabitants had been likewise transformed. Archon Zharr and the Venomed Breath had sold their souls to Chaos in exchange for survival- and power. The Bleeding Star ripped its way through an entire sector before it was finally damaged enough to drive it away. Before, Port Razor had been a base, a port; now the Venomed Breath operated it as a warship, a super-dreadnought of horrendous power. They had fallen primarily to Khorne and Nurgle (and Slaanesh not at all- they take particular pleasure in killing Croneworlders who follow She Who Thirsts), and their behavior reflected that; much more willing to assault the enemy head on, much more willing to stand and fight- and much more capable of doing both. Now capable of true warp travel thanks to the thousands of daemons bound into its hull, the Bleeding Star blazes bloody paths through the Imperium, only stopping when grievous injury forces it to withdraw and recover. It licks its wounds for decades, or centuries, loitering beyond the reach of any foe in the Warp- then it comes in again, without mercy, without warning.

Over the millennia of its operation, Port Razor and the Bleeding Star are estimated to have killed trillions of Imperial citizens. Its every appearance is met with furious force- but each time, it manages to slip away, leaving burning ships and worlds in its wake.

Crone Eldar Elite Infantry Units

Gorgons

Gorgons pursue the Slaaneshi ideal of sensation being a weapon in and of itself. They eschew conventional weaponry in favor of bizarre arrays of demonic hologram emitters, noise-makers, and more exotic sense-effecting devices. They use these to attack the minds and souls of their targets directly. At its simplest, a Gorgon's attack is simply a spray of epilepsy-inducing noise and sound, paralyzing and confusing entire companies with sheer neural overload. A more focused attack can burn out a mind entirely, causing brain-death without a single trace of physical damage. Given time in which to work, increasingly exotic effects are possible, from mass hallucinations to causing basically arbitrary mental illnesses to 'programming' a mind to respond to certain subliminal cues. A Gorgon's approach to combat varies widely by individual, ranging from full-frontal epileptic assaults to slowly programming entire regiments with subliminal cues to explode into fratricidal violence at the right moment.

Fortunately for the Imperium, the sort of absolute understanding of psychology needed to make a good Gorgon is rare; the sort of skill that allows entire regiments to be attacked at once rarer still. In addition, Gorgons are not often liked by their fellow Croneworlders. They approach sensation with a highly technical mindset, speaking of baud and bit-rate and qualia where most Croneworlders speak of overwhelming religious ecstasy. This limits how well coordinated they are on the battlefield, with the Gorgons mostly being left to go do their own thing, irrespective of where they would be most useful on the battlefield. Still, a skilled Gorgon at the wrong place at the wrong time can- and has- turned successful campaigns into catastrophes.

Meatweavers

Meatweavers are thankfully a rare sight on the battlefields of the Imperium. They depart dramatically from the normal humanoid form, constantly remaking themselves into new forms. While they are capable of acting as combat medics, they do so rarely; their true calling is the creation of abominations. They stalk the battlefields of the Black Crusades, collecting the dead and dying of friend and foe alike and remaking them. Skeletons re-articulated, muscles resectioned, flesh ripped apart and put back together into monsters. The exact nature of these things varies, from stripped-down snake-like infiltrator forms to tank-killing amalgamations of hundreds of corpses. Even when they deign to heal, they never leave their 'patient' entirely unchanged.

In direct combat, meatweavers are a relatively modest threat; dangerous in melee but lacking ranged weapons, and generally preferring to avoid direct engagement. What makes them lethal on the battlefield is their ability to recycle the dead into various combat organisms, fast enough to be tactically useful; given more time, and more bodies, a meatweaver can create an army. Clearing a hive which has had a meatweaver cabal squatting in it for several months is a bloody exercise in frustration. Fortunately- and a small comfort it is- they often disregard practicality in their creations. On the rare occasion a meatweaver has been interrogated, they indicate their work is a sort of religious sacrament, an act of creation/rape that brings them closer to their god. As such, strict military usefulness is a secondary consideration; for every murderbeast there's a stationary sculpture, incapable of anything but moaning.

There are indications that meatweavers are themselves creations; that on occasion, a meatweaver will select a particularly 'suitable' individual and remake them into a new meatweaver.

Meltheads (name tentative)

Meltheads appear to be in a state of constant disintegration, sloughing off tracts of skin and slowly bleeding from every pore. This is because they are, in fact, constantly disintegrating, at a rate matched by their incredible powers of regeneration. They form the cornerstone of the Croneworlder's biological/chemical attack capabilities; their flesh, as it dissolves, gives off toxic/hallucinogenic fumes of wildly varying effect and potency. In light concentrations, this can be warded off with standard NBC gear and void suits; in heavy concentration it ignores any and all conventional precautions, as it is psy-active and warp-based, and these qualities come to the fore as it accumulates. In addition, these clouds can exhibit mobility and sentience, actively pursuing enemies and hindering the movement of people caught in them. In addition, by ripping out their own (regenerating) organs and performing various rites with them, Meltheads can create still more elaborate and dangerous effects. The most common of these is the 'smoke pot', which simply vents long-lasting fumes in vast quantity until destroyed; enough smoke pots are certainly capable of rendering a world forever uninhabitable. Other known effects include 'rust clouds', which destroy machinery with hideous effectiveness, and 'purple fog', which can evidently phase in and out of existence and exert limited mind-control abilities over people caught in its range of influence.

For all their terrible power, Meltheads do have weaknesses. For one, they are often listless and unmotivated, having to be goaded into battle by their handlers; without provocation, they are often content to wander listlessly and stare blankly into the middle distance. Second, the smog generated by a Melthead is evidently in some sense still part of their 'body'; this means they can exert control over its movement and effects, but also that the smog dissipates quickly upon the Meltheads' death. Third, enough fire does indeed burn off the smog, making massed artillery and airstrikes a viable option for dealing with the more exotic or permanent effects. Finally, to the relief of the Imperium, for all their power, Meltheads are quite rare.

While Meltheads are generally seen among Croneworlder forces, Nurglite examples have been known, and are generally even more hideous. There are indications that Meltheads are actually the castoffs and rejects of some experimental regime or procedure; what the finished, complete product would look like is almost too hideous to contemplate. Finding more information on this potential threat is a top priority of the Inquisition.

Phalanxes (name tentative)

Phalanxes form the heavy-armor assault infantry of the Croneworlders. They are sealed into suit of possesed armor, which quickly (and extremely painfully) integrate themselves into the biology of its host. Once put on, the suit cannot be removed. The armor is not actually that heavy, and Phalanxes retain most of their agility; what makes them durable is the armor's ability to shift in response to incoming threats. Lasers? The armor becomes a near-perfect mirror, reflecting the incoming fire back at the attackers. Bolters? It becomes a bizarre labyrinth of sharp angles that deflects the shells away from vital organs. Plasma? Electrically charged sea-urchin spines that disrupt the magnetic sheath of the bolt and cause it to detonate harmlessly in midair. Melee attacks? The armor can go so far as to sprout bladed limbs of its own to parry with. Almost any kind of attack in existence has some kind of counter, and the Phalanx can use them all. The armor also incorporates strength-boosting mechanisms, allowing the use of heavier-than-usual weapons, the most iconic of which is the Zweihander; a ten-foot-long power blade made for cleaving through entire ranks of men at once.

Thankfully, forging such suits of armor is time-consuming and difficult, limiting the number of Phalanxes in service. The only reliable way to overcome a Phalanxes' armor either with overwhelming force (heavy artillery, tank cannon) or by targeting them with multiple types of weapon simultaneously and hoping the armor gets 'confused' and is unable to effectively ward off them all. Among other Croneworlders, Phalanxes are both respected and pitied; the nature of the armor means that anyone who dons it effectively gives up all other sensation in favor of the heat of battle; an admirable choice in some ways, but not one most Slaaneshi would make.

Slaughtermen

The result of a Chaos Eldar being infected with the Obliterator techno-virus. Slaughtermen are capable of forming nearly any man-portable weapon out of their evil-nanomachine-infused flesh, for a wide definition of 'man-portable'. Even more dangerous, Slaughtermen are capable of extreme precision with their weapons; as their ammunition is as much a part of their body as their weapons, they can perform such feats as seeing through and steering their rounds mid-flight. This allows incredible feats of BVR accuracy, as well as makes them excellent scouts. On top of that, they are also capable of creating 'drone' weapons such as autoturrets and spider-mines in order to harass the enemy long after the Slaughterman itself has vacated the area. Fortunately, the formation of such tools is apparently extremely taxing and rarely done.

Slaughtermen do have their weaknesses. They do not have unlimited ammo; they evidently have an internal 'reservoir' of ammo-mass that slowly refills over time, and can be expended. This contributes to their emphasis on precision over mass of fire; compare Traitor Astartes infected with the Obliterator, who have either genuinely unlimited ammunition or simply a vastly larger 'reservoir' and thus lay about with abandon using heavy weapons. For another thing, they use projectile weapons almost exclusively; their ammo-scrying and ammo-steering abilities do not operate, or operate with reduced effectiveness, with energy bolts. Finally, even though their ability set would be greatly complemented by stealth and camouflage, they are often anything but stealthy. Flamboyant markers of rank and kill-count (synonymous among Slaughtermen fraternities) are the norm, which allows them to be picked out easily on the battlefield. Of course, exceptions exist. They are also found with some frequency among Khornate Eldar, for obvious reasons.

Other Units

The Marionettes

Marionettes are slaves- human, other Imperial, and badly disgraced Croneworlder, in descending order of commonality- who have been sealed inside suits of sensory-deprivation armor. As protection, the armor is... better than nothing. The true purpose of the ghastbone suits are to filter the wearer's perceptions of the outside world, rendering the wearer entirely dependent on the commands of their Master to function.

At the highest level, a Marionette's armor induces total sensory deprivation, even suppressing internal senses like proprioception and balance, with the commands of the Master- delivered direct to the nervous system- the only sensory input. This level is rare, as it requires the Master to manage each individual twitch of a muscle on top of whatever else they're doing. This highest grade of Marionette is therefore found mostly in the retinues of the highest and most perfect nobility, who can manage such complexity, moving in perfect concert with their master.

The average soldier-Marionette, of necessity, operates at a lower level of filtering, the outside world heavily abstracted to a level where they can do simple tasks like walking and aiming independently, but anything more complex is virtually impossible without outside direction for simple lack of information. Thousands of such soldiers can be found marching in the battles of the Black Crusades under the command of a single Master, moving in perfect formation through even the heaviest defensive fire- which they may not even perceive, seeing nothing but the ground under their feet and abstract targets to be shot, everything else reduced to featureless void.

Aesthetically, Marionettes (naturally) vary; the most common is blank, featureless white plating, reflecting the total suppression of independent will and inner life, but excessive riots of color and ornamentation are also popular. As with everything, infinite variety.

The primary users of Marionettes are, naturally, Slaaneshi warbands. Tzeentchian forces are the second-most-common users, and have developed their own variations on the technique. Some of the more together Khornate warbands use Marionette armor to control their berserkers, herding them in consistent directions and preventing them from turning on each other by limiting their perception to the desired objective. Nurglite forces, hardly at all.

Dragon's Teeth

Dragon's Teeth are one of the many ways the Chaos Eldar have of making the Imperium's life miserable. Created by the forces of Nurgle from carefully-tended knots of filth, they resemble metallic seeds in their inert form- and in a sense, that is what they are. They are scattered about as a raiding force withdraws, dormant- until the conditions for their awakening are met. What those conditions are varies; it could be time elapsed, large numbers of people nearby, a snatch of birdsong, almost anything. Then it awakes, and starts to grow, sending tendrils through the ground. Then, once it has fully grown, it emerges.

They are wireframe horrors, masses of rusty, filth-encrusted razor-wire in the vague outline of a living thing. They attack by entangling their prey, slicing them apart with a thousand cuts. They are very stealthy; having no skeleton of any kind, they can squeeze themselves through gaps an inch wide and flatten themselves against the ground to avoid detection, and they make excellent use of this ability. They have a natural grasp of terror tactics; sneaking into a tent of sleeping soldiers and killing every third of them without waking the rest, stringing up soldiers inside themselves without killing them and forcing the rest to shoot their comrade, more. They often prefer to maim rather than outright kill; wounds inflicted by them will invariably become infected, becoming new vectors for Nurgle's gifts. They also seem to take particular pleasure in blending their way through hospitals.

Despite their undeniable lethality, their true purpose is to tie up resources and degrade morale. Hunting down an infestation of Dragon's Teeth is long, tedious, stressful, and manpower-intensive. Tracking one down requires exhaustive search efforts involving thousands of people. The injured must be treated- and guarded. Maintaining quarantines becomes near impossible with their ability to worm through the tightest cracks. A world sown with Dragon's Teeth can continue having problems with them for centuries, as long-dormant seeds awaken. They just generally take a disproportionate amount of resources to deal with- and that is their true power.

Fortunately, they have very little in the way of target discrimination. They (usually) don't attack other Dragon's Teeth, but that's as much as they can manage- on the open battlefield, they pose as much a threat to 'allies' as to enemies, and thus are not usually deployed in combat alongside other forces. It is a small comfort, especially since they make a perfectly adequate minefield.

Qlippoth

The Qlippoth began as something of a science project deep within the bowels of Shaa-Dome. An attempt at creating emotion and sensation unprecedented even to gods, creating zones of altered space equally foreign to both the Materium and Empyrean and minds to inhabit them - minds to be consumed. Born to die.

It worked. Croneworld legend holds that everyone even tangentially involved with the project was immediately elevated to Daemon Princedom for creating sensations previously unknown to even the Prince of Excess, but the actual truth could be anything.

Qlippoth intended for war use are transported within ghastbone containment/support wombs, which are in turn locked within stasis fields. Once on the battlefield, the stasis fields are deactivated and the contained micro-universe and inhabiting Qlippoth(s) begin eating their way out of the containment womb and leaking into the outside universe.

It begins with a psychic howl, an utterly alien psyche pressing down on the mind and soul. Devastating and incapacitating. Permanent damage is likely. Closer to the epicenter, total mind erasure.

Then, physical effects, as the containment womb starts to collapse entirely and the micro-universe within starts to force its way out, resulting in a zone of overlapping physics within both the Materium and Immaterium. The exact effects are never the same twice, each Qlippoth and its substrate being utterly unique, but they are invariably devastating. Not even daemons take well to the laws of physics changing underneath them.

Finally, the utter collapse of the containment womb and the release of the Qlippoth itself. Without the womb maintaining its form and feeding it energy, it will only live for a handful of minutes, but will cause enormous destruction in those few minutes before the laws of nature finally reassert themselves. Even so, the scars on both Materium and Immaterium will linger indefinitely.

Qlippoth vary in yield based on their size. Most Qlippoth "only" have a blast yields comparable to a Deathstrike Missile Launcher. The largest and rarest ones are essentially a Crone Eldar form of Exterminatus.

The Dark Mechanicus

The Heretekal Sects of the Dark Mechanicus

The Church of the Omnissiah-Beyond-The-Horizon/'Visserites'

An offshoot of the merely heterodox Tiplerite sect. The Tiplerites believed that the Omnissiah did not exist- yet, but needed to be built, the final end goal of the quest for knowledge. The Visserites got the brilliant idea to try and accelerate the process by building a machine that would receive messages from the future Omnissiah through the warp, instructing them on how to bring itself into existence. It worked, after a fashion. They started getting messages from... something.

Although they make heavy use of warptech, they seemingly have no affiliation with any of the gods or even Chaos Undivided; whatever they're talking to, it's something more strange and obscure than that, something from out in the Chaos Wastes.

Even by Dark Mechanicus standards, the constructions of the Visserites are strange and disturbing. They tend to incorporate human (specifically human- xenos are utterly unsuitable for the creation of human machines) tissues seamlessly into the electronics and ironmongery. Many components are utterly incomprehensible, their principles of operation entirely alien. The goals of these machines and procedures, likewise, is often obscure; whatever distortions they have on the world around them, they usually seem to be mere side-effects of their actual purpose. Whatever that might be.

(These devices undoubtedly use the powers of the warp, but it should be noted that they are not daemon engines. The Visserites do not deal with daemons; they have other sources of power.)

When the Visserites have held a world long enough, scarred enough of its surface with their machines, it becomes... daemon-ish. Not precisely a daemon-world, since the Visserites don't use daemons. But a similar blending of the real and unreal. Impossible machines fading into existence out of thin air. Bastard offspring of Escher, Giger, and the complete contents of a patent office. Sometimes subtle enough that you need to really pay attention to realize you've gone a level beyond the usual Dark Mechanicus bullshit.

Generally, when you blow up enough of the stuff the effect goes away again. Generally.

The Malevolence Engine

Dedicated to destruction, to a degree unusual for the Dark Mechanicus. Where most heretek sects have goals beyond pure destruction, the Malevolence Engine does not; they exist solely to destroy societies. The Imperium is the most common target, but other forces of Chaos, the Silent Empire, minor xenos... everything is a valid target.

The psychology of the Malevolence Engine is reflected in their most common chant: "The Malevolence Engine sees all weakness!" Interrogations of captured subjects indicates that they feel compelled to exploit any flaw they perceive, whether military, economic, social, psychological, architectural...

To this end, they make far greater use of infiltration than any other Dark Mechanicus sect, or indeed almost any faction. Using a sophisticated array of mind control devices, front corporations, suborned criminal organizations, etc. they insert agents into all levels of Imperial society to gather information and attack from within. They carefully gather intimate knowledge of their target before attacking along every possible avenue, ruthlessly exploiting every weakness.

The actions of suborned merchant houses combine with short-sighted sector fiscal policy to cause a sector-wide economic meltdown. As prices rise and jobs vanish, revolutionary groups arise on a hundred worlds simultaneously, overwhelming law enforcement with surprisingly well-planned attacks. Hamstrung by logistical issues, the sector military struggles to resist; the few counter-offensives they manage to mount are crushed by an enemy with absolute mention of their doctrines. As populations collapse into hysteria as news of defeat after defeat leaks past the censors, charismatic demagogues stoke the flames higher and higher...

They rarely manage anything on that scale. The Inquisition is vigilant, the Farseers far-seeing. But every so often, the chance comes along, the flaw left exposed... and worlds die.

Although generally considered a Chaos force, they follow no god; the Malevolence Engine cannot stand to subordinate itself to something so clearly flawed. It would destroy the gods if it could, but it cannot. So it is Undivided, grudgingly. Because what it wants cannot be achieved without the power of the warp.

Arzach's World

The Dark Mechanicus enclave of Arzach's World rarely clashes with the Imperium. It hosts no pirate fleets, sponsors no raids, wages no wars, devastates no planets. Perhaps a few far-flung explorator fleets have come to grief at its hands, but such is only an insignificant footnote in the bloody history of the galaxy. Still, the destruction of Arzach's World is a high priority for the Imperium despite this.

This is because Arzach's World manufactures and sells gene-seed, to whoever can pay. Mainly the Mk. III MP, of course, easiest to produce and maintain, but also dozens of home-grown varieties. The Magi of Arzach's World have produced many dangerous (to the enemy, even!) mutations of that baseline form. They ask people to use them, offer discounts if they bring reports and mostly-intact corpses back to them. A grand experiment, played out across the flesh of a thousand warbands.

Their primary consumer is, of course, the Fallen. The Eye of Terror is hardly a good environment for the delicate work of nurturing immature geneseed, and the purity of Arzachs' product is comparable to standard Mechanicus facilities. But they will sell to anyone with money. Many lesser warbands try to break into the big leagues by acquiring Astartes. And on occasion, on the very fringes of the Imperium, under-resourced loyalist Chapters may find themselves approaching Arzach's World.

Their location is hidden. Nearly every Fallen warband in the entire galaxy has ties with them; they can afford defensive sorceries of near-absurd depth. Every sort of divination is foiled, all navigation is for nought. They deal with the galaxy through widely scattered deep-space stations.

The ultimate end goal of their experimentation in gene-seed is unknown, but from the slow evolution of their techniques over centuries it is evident that there is one.

The Twiceborn

Unusual for the Dark Mechanicus, this sect has its roots in the Biologis and (very distantly) in the transhuman ideals of Horus Lupercal. Their beliefs and goals are simple; they think that the Materium is doomed to eventually be submerged in the Warp, and that Mankind's only hope of survival is to somehow become warp entities.

To this end, they seek out... lots of things. Daemon princes, and lore regarding them; how they're made, and how they sustain themselves. Powerful psykers. Mutants and Chaos Spawn. The Legion of the Damned. Psychneuein. Mandrakes. Navigators. Anything that might give them insight on how the flesh might be transformed by the warp, and survive. And, of course, any knowledge of the Men of Gold. (They'd kidnap Oscar if they could. But they know they can't.)

Daemon Princedom is inadequate for their goals; they need a method that is not dependant on the favor of the gods, that can be reproduced at will. They haven't managed it. What they have managed are the twiceborn.

The twiceborn (from which the sect takes its name) are liminal existences, half of the materium and half of the warp. They can slip through the boundaries between the two nearly at will, and even- with great difficulty- remain suspended on the border, half in both. They are not daemons. They stay dead when killed. Their existence is one of perpetual flight, constantly switching between realms to avoid all the things that want to kill them in both.

To the Twiceborn Sect, these beings are part saint, part vivisection subject, and part commodity; the focus of their research and primary trade good. They sell these things to other warbands from their labs in the Eye, to support their roving fleets, dark mirrors of the Explorators, perpetually searching for knowledge and more test subjects.

Aesthetics

The war-regalia of the Chaos Eldar are often literally painful to look at, and sometimes also difficult to look away from. Clashing color-patterns, bizarre eye-capturing whorls, jagged and deceptive angles and textures, combining into a whole that strains the human eye and mind beyond their limits. Not enough for damage, not enough to be a weapon in and of itself- that is the domain of the Gorgons and their exotic, specialist equipment. But enough to give them an edge. Difficult to shoot something when it hurts to look directly at it.

Such designs are foremost the domain of the Slaaneshi, of course, the masters of sensation. But the techniques have disseminated; Tzeentchian crones also make a great deal of use of such techniques, and a handful of Khornate of Nurglite forces who want an edge in battle badly enough to overlook the source.

Crone Worlds

Of the Crone worlds, many, including the great domain of the Eldar, the shellworld capital now named Shah-Dome, are the domain of the Slaaneshi cult, and at some unreachable heart of the capital the Brass palace meets reality. The writhing heart of this semi-real kingdom is Slaanesh's access point to its base in the blasted wreck of the eldar empire, an asset unmatched by the older gods, and its loyal cenobites freely wander from eye to true warp. However, throughout the eye and beyond the prince's rivals have ensconced their favored. Mighty orders of killers dedicated to Khorne, undying eldar warriors, tempestuous empowered orks, and blackguard astartes of the imperium among them dominate the wolds in the wilds of the eye, and even carve out their own domains in the warp itself. Tzeench's sorcerers have taken mostly to the winding fortresses and redoubts of the webway, seers that cannot be tricked but by themselves and must read their own mind to know what they're thinking. The schemer's faithful magi and tinkers are indispensable in the courts of Shah-Dome and Commorragh, but their wicked, plotting colleges are distinctly unwelcome. The few followers of Nurgle among the eldar contemplate their grandfathers from the gutters and laboratories of the great cities of darkness, but most remain with him in his garden. Of the few active beyond his noxious hedges, the most prominent are attendants of Isha.

The Rant

"This was our galaxy once. The Old Ones, the predecessors those that made us, left it in our care. It was ours to tend. Reward, for all that we had suffered in our war against the Yngir slaves. Entire generations, entire histories, entire cultures were lost in that dread war, but this, this was our reward. Freedom, and an unblemished canvas to write our fate upon it. We were stewards of life, the victors over death, and we were told not to waste it."

"And we didn't. We flourished, taking barren rock and tainted ground, and making fertile and green pearls of them. We made such works of art, such wonders of technology. We even made gods. For millennia, we worked, honed our art, and at every turn, brought life to this scarred galaxy. We had peace, as strange as that sounds today. It's a distant dream, isn't it? But you know it's there, that it's possible. You feel your spirit rise at the very thought. We had peace."

"But then we had the Fall. And it was all lost."

"Every eldar that is taught our history- even, the warped and half complete history of those led astray by the dark gods- is struck by that. Here, here is our people at their peak! We are surrounded by their works, the very galaxy owes its life to them in their power, but yet, we lose it all in a matter of years, reduced to this shadow of ourselves? How could this happen?"

"Arrogance, my child. Arrogance blinded them so far back. Arrogance of a few, that sought power at the cost of the many. Even, at the cost of their very gods. We were at the very cusp of ascension, when those, the fanatics, the usurpers, the primitives out of fear and envy destroyed the greatest work of those halcyon days."

"They tried to make a miscarriage of the birth of our greatest hope. The distillation of all of our gods in to one, purer being. Our Child Goddess, Slaanesh."

"The birth cries were terrible. What should have been a moment of joy and celebration would prove, with the treachery of the usurpers, traumatic. A great storm of pain tore the warp asunder, as eldar turned against eldar, brother against sister, mother against son, all for what? A handful of dirt balls the exodites call planets so you're free to freeze in mud and gnaw on roots. Flimsy scraps of wraithbone drifting the void called craftworlds, where you can have your fate decided before you are even born by the dead that rule. And that pathetic pantomime of glory in Comorragh, where they pretend at the past that's dead and gone. What glories have those rebels have earned? What proof of righteousness do they have in their miserable lives? They have turned their backs on Slaanesh, only to suffer under the lash and call it freedom."

"Thank the Many-Gods-in-One that they did not succeed in circumventing our child goddess's ascension, or we might all be trapped under their rule. Slaanesh is mighty, but her might is tempered with kindness. She waited patiently on the other side, in the dimension unbounded, waiting for the souls of her wayward children to be reunited with her. She did not snuff them out, though they truly deserved it. She did not hunt them down, though they wished her dead. She kept her arms wide open for them, ever welcoming their arrival."

"And then came the mon'keigh. And their insult."

"How gullible are those that lay outside? Short lived, murderous, stupid, and unworthy creatures come to them, and whisper poison in the ears of those already poisoned. They whisper of raiding like a band of thieves in the immaterium, of stealing and murdering. They speak of defiling the realm of the gods, and these that dirty the name eldar smile and nod, that ancestral sin of greed rising in them again."

"Those misguided heathens outside begged for the collar of the mon'keigh on their necks, in exchange for injuring a goddess that only loved them."

"Isha? Is that so? They speak of Isha, long gone, returned to guide our people unto a golden age? It is a lie. Look upon the histories- all the gods and goddesses save Cegorach agreed to combine, to set aside their individual identities to unite and make something better of themselves. Through those thousands of years since the fall, no one spoke of Isha, except in the past. Through these thousands of years, eldar hands were not up to the task of rescuing her? Preposterous."

"Now, now they claim that Isha, goddess of health, the harvest, and life bearing was kept captive in the hands of Nurgle? This betrays the work of the mon'keigh to misguide and mislead you. The lie is at the root- the mon'keigh would believe our goddess, pure and strong, could be captured and caged like an animal by that brute Nurgle? The story betrays their own intent! Like this false Isha, they would want us caged by them, used by them, made slaves by them. The story of her 'rescue' is a lie to convince the unwary that the eldar are weak, and it is only with the help of mon'keigh they can do anything. It makes me sick to the think children are being raised to believe this, and to think themselves less than mon'keigh. Trying to indoctrinate us into slavery."

"But they did attack a god that day- the mon'keigh and the false eldar. And they did perhaps even see Isha. Isha, as one part of the Many-Gods-in-One of Slaanesh. I was not there that day, but a comrade was, and he wept bitterly at the very memory of the sight. Slaanesh, in her radiance. In her glory. The innocent child god, looking curiously at these strangers that came to her. She smiled. Even among the black hearted and soul sick eldar infidels, some stopped and for a moment the truth came through. They fell to their knees and wept, tried to warn Slaanesh, tried to stop their fellows. They were slain by the mon'keigh, filled with bloodlust and eager to tear the flesh of the innocent."

"We counter attacked of course. Drove them back into the blighted materium, sending the cowards shrieking as soon as they faced something more than an innocent goddess. But the damage was done."

"Once it was, any eldar was guaranteed as soon as their soul left their body or the cruel soul traps devised by the craftworlders would be reunited with Slaanesh automatically. They would return to the child, and we'd be one step closer to divinity, and our heaven in the immaterium, when the eldar could claim the birthright of the old ones, and remake the unreality as we had remade the reality."

"But the evil ones broke that bridge. They severed one more strand of Slaanesh's goodness to your world. And now Slaanesh withers."

"The Child Goddess is no more. Innocence is no more. Denied the very love of her people, she withers and hungers. And she has learned from her mistake of trust. And we, in our sorrow, now must redeem our failing. The Crone Worlds must unite again, the masters of the warp must be awoken, and our goddess's due must be retaken. We can be patient no more as paradise itself is under threat. We can no longer wait for the misguided to realize their mistake, and come once again to the embrace of the Many-in-One. Our goddess hungers. And we shall feed that hunger. Just as we did so long ago against the slaves of the yngir, so must we do for the slaves of the mon'keigh."

"The War for Heaven calls. You shall serve- either in Her warhost, or as Her sacrifice. Either is better than your kind deserve."

-Unknown, Battle of Merr's Reach, speech given to prisoners.

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.

Rise of Khorne

both are masters of all, Tzeentch is realization infinite possibility and Malal is everything that doesn't exist, an endless chalice that runneth over into a bottomless well, an eternal spring that fills an endless thirst.

Nurgle was meant to cultivate, refine, and maintain in the space between them, the all-loving all-laughing groundskeeper of the mind. Up until the beginning of the War in Heaven this was for the realm of souls a paradise of psychic accord, milder and more fecund with wonder than even the primordial millennia of raw, unmitigated sorcery with only the Old Ones like Bel'akor and his ascended order, Tzeentch, and Malal.

The Old Ones then proceeded to get in a fight with the only other Power in the galaxy, the Necrontyr and the Boltzman brain patrons they'd just finished downloading into living femto-mechanical fractals supercomputers they called bodies. This ruined everything, in realspace and the warp, and started the cascading applied psionics/applied physics arms race that created the warp as the galaxy knows it. With Bel'akor quite possibly at the head of the project, a weaponized God-concept was conceived of and synthesized. Part of this process was the uplift and weaponization of powerfully psychic primitives to fuel the new god, as well as fight the Old Ones' wars, first the Eldar, then the Orks. The horrific excesses of the War in Heaven, killings, pillages, and ruinations perpetrated by both sides, were in part engineered by the Old Ones, themselves too now bloody handed in spirit, to birth Khorne. Said to be of the same godly flesh as the two giants that sprung forth upon the opening of the first Orkish mind and to bleed the same molten iron as the specter of murder that had risen among the thoughts of the early Eldar, the red god turned the tide in the Old Ones favor for a time. It has been forwarded that the Maelstrom, like the much younger Eye of Terror, is what remains of the wounds of Khorne's birth.

Khorne was the Old Ones scourge. Legions of brass, horn, and bloody red flesh marched from the Maelstrom across a quarter of the Necrontyr worlds. He was not then always the monolithic, armored thing of visions, Khrone was a manifold horror. All once he was in the fire of Orkish artillery swinging his ax down upon a Cryptek, and a flaming bolt running down voidships even as they fled by inertialess drive, and in the heart of the Necron Empire slaying at a whim, and in hateful battle with The Outsider and Dragon flickering from the hearts of stars to warp and out again as each side shifted to preferable footing. It was in this time the Skull Throne was made, out of Khorne's horrid thoughts and plans and deeds no less than the trophies he took, and even still it grows ever more wretched. In this first glorious campaign Khorne utterly triumphant. Though the reverberations of their war god's birth were so bad as to disrupt even the Old Ones' usual psychic infrastructure, it was not thought such an impediment to the war effort as to interrupt key opperations. Khorne's warpath had exploded from the warp into the galactic north, and the offensive had been supported from a buffer of Brainboy, and ultimately Old One, controlled Ork whagghs advancing after the Blood God, and yet more armadas of Eldar vassals and thralls attacking from the galactic west.

This set the apparent course of the War in Heaven, but the mechanisms of that same cursed birth were taken up by the Nightbringer, and put to dreadful use as the shadow of fatalism fell across the galaxy. The Deceiver was among the Old Ones in secret as often as it danced with the now gleaming aristocracy of the Necrons. The Dragon and its Necron assistants gloried in making each other yet more mighty with every new particle invented, and The Outsider, robot of infinite function, moved stars and wrought stark fortresses vaster still at the other star gods' bidding, and the Necrontyr aristocracy's whim.

The Maelstrom's ill effects were persistent and vastly more potent than expected, and while the Old Ones still easily traversed their empire their vassals and auxiliaries could no longer be counted on. Reports came of Necrons in synthetic Ork flesh were hunting Brainboyz deep behind the front, and more disturbing reports came of bleak megastructures transfixing the bounds of reality to the Necrons prefered physical laws. The Gorkamorka, giants from the minds of the little goblins of a curious fungal world, had blossomed unseen, and were in check only because they had so many kunning, brutal goblins to give bright ideas. The Eldar fiddled obsessively and grew anxious, and asked too many displeasing questions, and the gods of sorcery were no better, growing ever more dark and neurotic in their ways.

The tumult in the warp brought by Khorne's ever wrathful subsidiaries, the wanton realspace destruction of incalculable scale, the putrefaction of the Old Ones' spirits, the proliferation of Gods of Death, all first perturbed, then terrified, then broke Nurgle. The preserver shook off the yoke of the Old Ones, and sook to make them again what they were in its youth, and vowed to cherish all and relinquish nothing to the void. The Changer of Ways and The Final Word had likewise been tainted by the ends the Old Ones had set them to, and yet more woe came of this. Warlock Malal had been turned loose to obliterate idea and concept and soul as an annihilating storm, and sank into a malaise of nihilism and self loathing spite, and Wizard Tzeentch's vast creative faculties had been attuned to the sole work of plotting the Old Ones' campaigns of ambition and intrigue, and settling their grudges with the Star Gods. Around this period Bel'akor vanished from the Old Ones' councils and their campaigns, but his kin were hardly so perceptive as the proud first of their most exalted cabal.

Following Khorne's first youthful bout with the galaxy, the tide of the began to swing the other direction. Though the Blood God's maiden slaughter was a terrible blow to the Necrons and those few frail Necrontyr that remained, and carved a livid path of hell longer and vaster than the Orion Spur deep into the Star Empire, it was not conclusive. Neither the Old Ones' mystic ministrations or the harsh sutures that were early Necron Reality Pins could hope to tend the cosmic wound, and even after the offensive's conclusion the Maelstrom beld freshly wrought Khornate forces into the galaxy. Still, the Star Gods and their Princes of Matter were industrious and swift thinking, and Khorne's slaying of the last of the Frail as the Necrons' bunker worlds and starshades where being studded with their newly devised soul stripping defenses did naught but hasten the Necrons' preparation for true war, and heighten their calculating fury. While his new-made princes and daemon captains dredged up hell and tried ever to spill it across the Materium with flagging success, Khorne's mind turned to the other, clearly lesser gods, and his own glory.

Though Bel'akor had absconded to parts unknown the first ascendant psyker's disciples, princes of power in their own right, still strove to direct the course of the war. While the cultivated standing Whaggghs and their Brainboyz remained a buffer between the Old Ones' Dominion and the Star Empire's forces, it grew clear that what had once been an opposing force to the Necrons was now appearing a poorly devised league of Orkish rabble. The poaching and theft of innumerable Brainboyz reverberated through the massive storm of reality-bending Ork thought, and those that survived Necron cullings were ever more imposing creatures, ever sharper, and ever more formidable psykers. The Gorkamorka grew more ferocious and uncontrollable, and the Whaggh itself was studied, modified, and synthesized in the next generation of Pylons.

Khorne was beseeched and commanded by the Old Ones to collar the Gorkamorka and lead it into battle in the galactic north. The Old Ones promised easy sport, and Khorne set upon them in view of all the gods, the Lords of Sorcery, the Solution to Entropy, the court of petty Eldar Personas, the Creeping thing not fully seen, and all the lesser, natural Daemons, even the shadow of death and the specter of doubt and the beastly question, and their pale waxing ilk. There was no easy sport to be had. Should Khorne bring Gork low and fix him in the chains of arcana the Old Ones gave him, Mork would come from behind and rend him down, and tear his brother free. Turning on Mork, Khorne might hew off a colossal arm or foot, but no sooner would he than Gork take him by the godly throat and wring him of godly breath. The wrestling and raucous butchery of giants rocked the galaxy, and when Khorne could not bind the Gorkamorka apart as the Old Ones had asked, he strove to bind them together in the magical chain. When finally the Blood God turned to the assembled Powers of the Immaterium in triumph, scarred and battered, and bid them see that he was might incarnate the bound Gorkamorka resumed its brotherly fighting, and in the first blows against each other shredded their magical bondage and clashed and thundered away into the deeps of un-reality. Thence forth the Heaven of War the Old Ones made came to unravel. Khorne's wroth became yet darker and more bitter, his pretensions to supremacy over all foes and all things became his sole mission. Brainboyz were hunted openly by Khorne's captains, and he gloried in their skulls as gladly as he did to hold the gleaming head of a Phaeron. The buffer Wagggs mobilized in all directions as their brutally kunning bosses were each in turn enlightened by their giant patrons, and the attack worlds and kinetic kill roks that would drift deep space ever after as the mightiest of space hulks lit their innumerable engines.

Gears turned in Tzeentch's wretched mind, and it moved to shift the way of things yet further. As Nurgle fattened the warp with accumulated creations and Malal ran roughshod over mundane existence the Bird saw a chance to establish a new order, where it's sorcery was unchecked and paramount, and its eternal rival's magic was sequestered, tapped, or dearly sold into the portfolios of other Powers. It took little coaxing to turn Khorne's fearsome wrath upon Malal, but the vision of the subjugation of all three gods of Sorcery for all time was quick to kindle in the Blood God's mind, and burned there eternally. For its own part, Malal seemed glad to give Khorne the Un-throne and the winding pit that lead to the end of all things, glad to be rid of them and knowing they would bring the Blood God only trouble.

Whether Malal fell on his sword of nothingness, or bent and swore in fealty to Khorne, or simply vanished on the spot, or wandered down the abyss into non-existence like so many things he had sent before him, is a matter of scholarly argument. The Not-king of Never-was ceased to be, and Malal the vassal, Sorceror of Annihilation, began to exist. His domain was divided up, Khorne taking Destruction, Nurgle claiming and meddling with Entropy, and Tzeentch had his bounty of Paradox and Dissolution now to compliment his wealth of Solution and Causality. Tzeentch at this time held his wand of wonders and Malal's sword of nothingness, and Sorcery itself was his, an infinite fountain now without the ever deepening well. Malal's sorcery lived borrowed life, or sprung from the bleak pinprick of oblivion it retained, but Tzeentch's power grew undisputed, quickly surpassing the Old Ones' combined might, and only bolstered by the backlogs of creations Nurgle could provide. This duo's attentions fell upon the venerable reptiles even as they continued to conduct the War in Heaven on a backwards footing, and the Old Ones found their magic ever more costly.

For his own part Khorne was also pleased with this new order. The Un-throne was remade into yet more of his vicious domain, and while the war went poorly for his one time masters, the War God's fortunes in the conflict were understandably lush. Necron pylons laid down a path into the Old Ones' domain, Star Gods and rueful Phaerons tore into their palatial monasteries, and where Khorne's daemons were summoned all were slain save the mightiest Necrontyr and Sload. The Old Ones trembled, died by their implacable, morbid foe's dread radiance, by the brassy axe of their greatest weapon of hate and arrogance, and died as they sold themselves with debt to the mad lord of witches or passed into the realm of the preserver, and died begging to deaf ears when Bel'akor was found in desperation secreted away in the formless wastes. The Eldar cowered in the galactic west and tunneled into the foam between real and warp to hide in the protection of their god-constructs, the last great marchers of the Brainboyz died on the warpath across the galactic north and east as daemons, ol' masterz and the ded'hard flash-boyz hunted them from all sides. Strife amongst the Star Gods and the Princes of Matter and Energy was all that stopped the sealing of the warp over all of the Star Empire, and their short, cataclysmic civil war was the last word in the War in Heaven. Whatever Old Ones and C'tan survived the orders the Silent King had given to the Outsider were brought low in chains and executed by Khorne. With The Nightbringer disarmed by the lucky triumph of Khine and entombed by the little quiet king, and the Gorkamorka apparently reduced to aimless brawling in grief for their slain boyz as the Orks seemed to languish without their captains, Khorne deemed himself mightiest, and did not wait for the assent of the gods that remained.

As the Domain of the Old Ones was erased from the milky way and the Necrons went down into their sepulchers, Khorne was crowned by his vizier Malal, and named BLOOD KING and first commander OF THE GALAXY, a title of his own invention.