The Enshrouded

The Enshrouded
Number	At least four full haemonculus covens
Strength	Unknown
Allegiance	Dark Eldar, Themselves
Colours	Various

Part of /tg/ 40,000, The Enshrouded are a homebrewed Dark Eldar secret organization. The ranks of this shadowy alliance are filled by Haemonculi covens, in particular covens whose experiments and research are dipping into dark enough paths that they have a justified fear of persecution even from fellow Commorites. Pooling their considerable resources, The Enshrouded have established a safe haven outside of Commoragh within a dark cranny of the Webway. From this shrouded facility they continue their work unmolested, emerging only to gather needed materials and influence crucial players.

Due to their preference for secrecy The Enshrouded do not walk openly within Commoragh, preferring to work through a network of fronts and intermediaries in order to preserve their anonymity. Such is their skill at this industrial-level duplicity that a force chosen to fight for them is entirely unaware of the society's role in the matter.

Main Covens

The Red Slivers

A placeholder name for the original coven these ideas sprang from. The Red Slivers are an old and embittered Haemonculus Coven, believed by most of Commoragh to be long swept away by the predations of upstart rivals. They lurk in the fringes of Commorite society, their works unpraised and their mark unknown save to some who have the foresight to have the history of the Dark City obsessively recorded. No Kabals answer to the Red Slivers, at least overtly, but the truth is this society of torture-surgeons has a far more sinister way of spreading its influence.

The Red Slivers have bent their craft to the creation of a flesh-creature, a sinuous and barbed worm which burrows into the base of the victim's spine and rapidly threads its body with invasive fibres through which the victim may be controlled at will. From the moment of symbiosis the victim is as good as dead, for removal of the parasite causes irreparable damage to the host's innards, literally ripping their blood vessels out with it. The only way to tell if someone is a host is a series of pinprick-like scabs on the host's collarbone, from which the Coven gets its name. Through the horrid science of the Haemonculus' art the Slivers may control the newly assimilated victim, and often the first sign of a Sliver attack is when a proportion of the population goes berserk at the worst possible moment.

The parasites themselves feed upon their host, draining the nutrients on its body until the host is emaciated and bony. The worms also continue to grow, and they shift within the body to accomidate themselves. Thus hosts which have survived for a good while will be horrid, utterly dysmorphic things, lurching forward single-mindedly while the rippling form of their massive symbiote is seen pushing against their flesh.

The Red Slivers themselves are not immune to the sapping effects of the parasites themselves, however, as controlling any more than a few at a time takes its toll upon the mind of the controller. This becomes especially true when the worms come of age and develop a terrible sentience of their own. This goes so far as to warp the bodies of those who regularly use a great deal of the parasites at once into freakish, thin beings not unlike the parasites themselves.

The Enlightened

An extremely secretive and select coven. Its highest echelon of authority are The Reborn, a group of six deserters from various other covens who abandoned them to seek the fruits of intellectual pursuits taboo even within the psychopathic reaches of Commorragh. The focus of their research involved unlocking the psychic potential of the eldar race and using the insane science of the haemonculi to push it to the most absurd levels possible, and seek to tamper with their own bodies and souls that they too may tap into this limitless potential. But Commorragh is an unfriendly face to the psyker, and these six intellectuals were well aware that any such move on their part would quickly see them on the operating table of their superiors. So, after many slow centuries of gradually locating each other as kindred spirits, whilst all that time keeping a low profile, they chose to abandon their names, their faces, and all their former prestige.

In a hopeful attempt at replicating the Craftworlders' psychic disciplines and technologies, they founded a new category of Haemonculi, and are now referred to as "Dark Seers". Wicked and insane parodies of the Farseers, they are psychic vampires in constant need of sensations to absorb, whose extreme magical practices require the use of inconvenient and powerful restraints, charms and seals, that barely prevent them from falling at any instant under the influence of the Dark Gods.

Working closely with the coven of the Final Eclipse, they envy the safety of their psychic techniques, but do not share their project, which they consider a loss of time and resources at best, an unsuspected danger at worst.

The Hollows

A coven focused upon turning themselves into emotionless blanks. They tend to attract old and world weary dark eldar sick of the constant back and forth struggle for their own souls, and so join this strange new movement that preaches complete emotional deprivation in order to slake off the hunger of she who thirsts.

They believe that by throwing off the shackles of their emotions they will in doing so change the very nature of their souls, and be forever out of the reach of Slaanesh, and supposedly the head Haemonculi have been whispered to have achieved this, but have transformed into barren, joyless abominations that are the complete opposite of what every trigger-happy kabalite wants to be.

A universal constant of the Dark Eldar is the euphoric invigoration that each Dark Eldar feels when surrounded by pain, as it energises and feeds their orgasmic glee.

The Hollows are the complete opposite of this, they dont believe in pleasure at all. The way they see it is that the Eldar race is flawed, and must instead look inwardly that they might effect some change upon themselves and become something other than what they are, and only that way may they escape She-who-thirsts.

The Gatekeepers

A coven devoted to webway technology, repairing damaged portions of the webway, improving them, and finding new ways of utilising them. They are big on using all things teleporters in battle. In the open they act much like public servants for all of Commoragh, construction workers if you will, being responsible for improving the transport mechanisms throughout the dark city, and perhaps even assisting in the construction of realms.

Secretly however they use their technology to build up a strong powerbase both within and outside Commoragh, their own tower complex containing many hidden portals that lead to enclaves hidden in the farthest reaches of the webway. their ultimate goal is to construct another city, another Commorragh where they can rule in secret, away from the stupid backstabbing politics of the Kabals. They are the main responsible for the creation of the Ark, where they keep in close touch with the other covens that dwell in its bowels, in spite of the defiance their peers inspire them.

Due to a fancy of their schizophrenic Elder Haemonculus, a large proportion of the Gatekeeper's wracks and test subjects are female, that may or may not actually be mass-produced clones. They often feature very advanced systems and devices that the Haemonculi constantly evaluate and modify, being driven by the appeal of scientific progress rather than artistic ambitions.

The Devouring Maw

The Devouring Maw was once a prosperous and prominent coven that commanded respect and envy alike due to their pioneering the study of tyranids. They experienced much progress in their early history, including the successful cloning of lesser tyranid species, disconected from the hivemind of coure, that would then be sold to coliseums to use as fodder for battles or to Kabalites looking for an exotic pet.

However as the centuries wore on they began to delve deeper into the mysterious of tyranid biology that would lead to their fall from power. They saw in the tyranids a way to transcend the limitations of their forms and wretch themselves free of the hunger of Slaanesh. In their eager haste with splicing Dark Eldar and Tyranid together they started to disregard safety protocols in favor an ever more rapid pace of progress. Their sizeable brood of enslaved tyranids and tyranid-hybrid wracks somehow reconnected to the Hivemind, leading to the beasts outbreak into the streets of Commorragh.

Such an event would have been easily ignored had they rogue monstrosities not managed to actually guide a sliver of a Hive Fleet into the webway homing on the Dark Capital. This is one of the few times in the history of Commorragh that it was actually placed in danger, requiring the mobilization of hundreds of Kabals, Covens, and Cults alike to neutralize the threat.

After beating back the hive-fleet, the populace turned their fury to the Devouring Maw Coven and almost came close to erradicating them, reducing them to a meager fraction of their power and forcing them into hiding. Not content to give up their work, the survivors soon came into contact with the Enshrouded where they could continue their work in secrecy.

Like other covens of the Enshrouded, the Devouring Maw operates though countless front organizations and worming their way into positions in mainstream Dark Eldar society. For those that are aware of their existance, it is rumored that they have actually managed to create a hivemind for themselves and that most of the upper echelons of the group are really a blended gestalt entity feigning individuality. Unfotunately there isn't any way to prove that the case which works to great effect for them.

In battle the Devouring Maw fields a bizarre mix of dark eldar technology and biotech derived from tyranids, if not tyranids slaved to their hivemind or grotesque hybrids themselves. The coven has yet to actually field their forces against tyranid forces as they do not believe themselves strong enough to hold up to psychic tug-of-war that would ensue. Fortunately thanks to cooperation from the Hollows, they do have fail-safe devices designed to shield noise in the link.

Crunch

Special Rules + Wargear

LACERATOR WEAPONRY

• Lacerator Pistol: 18" range S4 AP5 Pistol
• Lacerator Rifle: 24" range S4 AP5 Rapid Fire
• Lacerator Canon: 36" range S5 AP4 Heavy 4

All Lacerator Weaponry is Rending

• Mind-Scourge: Template range S8 APd6 Assault 1

Wounding rolls from the Mind-scourge are taken based on the target's Leadership characteristic regardless of Toughness.

• Soulspitter

The Soulspitter may be fired in addition to another weapon.

• Level 1: Range 18", S6, AP2, Heavy 1 Pinning
• Level 2: Range 24", S6, AP2, Heavy 1 Blast Pinning
• Level 3: Range 36", S7, AP2, Heavy 1 Large Blast Pinning

The Soulspitter gains a level for each Independant Character or Monstrous Creature killed by the wielder in Close Combat.

Hollow Haemonculus/Ancient

65pts/95pts

Hollow Haemonculus: WS4 BS4 S4 T5 W2 I4 A2 Ld8 Sv6+ Hollow Ancient: WS5 BS5 S4 T5 W3 I4 A3 Ld9 Sv6+

Wargear: Close Combat Weapon, Lacerator Rifle, Gnarlskin

Options: Replace close combat weapon and/or lacerator pistol with:

Venom blade: 5pts

Power Weapon: 10pts

Haywire Blaster: 10pts

Mindphase Gauntlet: 10pts

Lacerator Cannon: 15pts

Dark Lance: 15pts

Disintegrator: 15pts

Flesh Gauntlet: 20pts

Agonizer: 20pts

Electrocorrosive Whip: 20pts

Huskblade: 35pts

Twin-linked Lacerator Cannon, Dark Lance, Haywire Blaster or Disintegrator (No other option from this section may be taken): +10pts

-Take up to two of the following pieces of Wargear: Wails of the Damned: 10pts Casket of Flensing: 10pts Mind-scourge: 15pts Soul-trap: 10pts Vexator Mask: 10pts Archangel of Pain: 15pts Hexrifle: 15pts Shattershard: 15pts Crucible of Malediction: 20pts Orb of Despair: 20pts Dark Gate: 25pts Soulspitter: 35pts Webway Portal: 35pts

Special Rules: Night Vision, Independant Character, Slow and Purposeful, Stubborn, Soulless, Nightmarish Growth, Psychic Abomination (Ancient Only)

Nightmarish Growth: Hollow Haemonculi are significantly larger than their contemporaries. They may use Rapid Fire and Assault weapons with a close combat weapon for +1A as though for a pistol, and they count as 2 models for the purposes of transport capacity.

Hollow Wrack

15pts/model

Composition: 3-10 Hollow Wracks

Wargear: Poisoned CCW and Lacerator Pistol

Options:

• May exchange their Poisoned CCW and Lacerator Pistol for Lacerator Rifle: Free
• For every 5 models in the squad one Hollow Wrack may take:

Lacerator Cannon: 15pts

Mind-Scourge: 15pts

• One Hollow Wrack may be upgraded to a Hollow Acothyst: 10pts
• The Hollow Acothyst may take one of the following:

Venom Blade: 5pts

Mindphase Gauntlet: 10pts

Hexrifle: 10pts

Flesh Gauntlet: 20pts

Agoniser: 20pts

Electrocorrosive Whip: 20pts

Special Rules: Feel No Pain, Night Vision, Slow and Purposeful, Soulless

Transport: The squad may take a Raider or a Venom as a dedicated transport.

Gallery

• 

  A Haemonculus from the Red Slivers.

• 

  Another Haemonculus, this time from The Enlightened.

• 

  A Haemonculus belonging to The Hollows

• 

  A Red Sliver Haemonculus about to have a victim reduced to mindless servitude.

• 

  A Hollow Wrack

Current thread: http://boards.4chan.org/tg/res/15068132