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.

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.

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 mandala 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

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 reasonably common.

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.

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.