Nobledark Imperium Member States

A brief list of national entities that joined the Imperium whilst being interstellar powers in their own right.

Survivor Civilizations

Not all planets were as lucky as Old Earth during the Age of Strife. Although the planet was devastated by the horrors of the Old Night, at least it still retained much of its technology and infrastructure and much of its surface still remained habitable to human life. Other worlds were not so lucky. On many planets, the collapse of the Great and Bountiful Terran Empire caused the inhabitants to regress to medieval or even Stone Age levels of technology. Other planets retained some degree of advanced technology, but the conditions of their world were so harsh that people could just barely survive without assistance from offworld, and welcomed the Imperium with open arms.

When encountering a devolved human society, the Imperium would often unify the planet by the most expedient means possible and then get the appointed representative of the planet to swear loyalty to either the Imperium, the Empty Throne or the Steward depending on prevailing cultural norms of that planet. Worlds with stories of a savior figure that would save them from the Old Night, a common type of story on many worlds, typically had the Steward inserted into that role to ease integration. Worlds that still had some dim memory of the Golden Age typically swore loyalty to the Imperium, which they saw as the great Terran Empire being rebuilt. Worlds that had prophecies of a king that would arise in the distant future to lead them into a Golden Age, another common belief, found it easier to swear allegiance to the Empty Throne instead. For these worlds, it was hard to see anyone born during that age as a potential messianic figure.

These worlds, which are typically under the direct control of the Imperial government and the Administratum, became known as Administrated Worlds, which make up the vast majority of the worlds in the Imperium today. One notable exception were the Forge Worlds, who would only listen or swear loyalty to the lost holy land of Mars, through which the Imperium acquired their cooperation.

However, the Imperium also discovered many worlds that like Old Earth had managed to rebuild from the Age of Strife and become highly advanced societies in their own right, some even managing to carve out their own small interstellar empires. In addition to the Sol-based Voidborn Migrant Fleet and the Mechanicum of Mars, these included the Realm of Ultramar, the Interex, the Hubworld League, Colchis, Inwit, and Necromunda, among many others. For these entities, which became known as Survivor Civilizations, the Imperium offered them a deal: political and industrial autonomy, within certain limits, in exchange for inclusion and a prominent place in the Imperium. The Steward could see that they were as legitimate an inheritor of the Golden Age Empire as Earth was and knew that had he been salvaged by one of them then he would be offering this deal to Old Earth, not to mention that if he was in their position this was the kind of offer he would hope would made to him. The terms of these agreements sometimes varied slightly from world to world, sometimes resembling hammering out trade deals as opposed to treaties of alliance.

Savlar

Savlar: Because Fuck You, That's Why. - Above the Space Port door on a corrosion resistant glass slab.

Savlar is a shit hole that runs on spite. Food grow there is poisonous and can only be consumed in careful combination so that the various toxins cancel each other out. The air is laced with harmful chemicals and the weather patterns are unpredictable across most of the surface making predicting what is on the breeze all but impossible. The water is unsafe to drink for all but the hardiest of constitutions and must first be filtered.

All in all nobody should ever go to Savlar. Life is short, dangerous and unpleasant. Much like the people that call it home. Or at least a Savlar curse word that is equivelent to home. Savlar has a lot of curses, all forms of wishing natural hazards upon the recipient in lewd and profane ways.

The only reason that the planet has any value at all to the Imperium is for the mystical substance known as neutronium. It is not actual "neutronium" but is just something that the lay-person calls neutronium due to it possibly being non-baryonic matter. Importantly it is the key ingredient in the orbital tethers and even more importantly it is produced nowhere else in the galaxy.

Savlar has no native life forms and when man first set foot on it had almost no atmosphere. The atmosphere is has now is a side effect of the old industry. That it turned out breathable, if barely, was just a coincidence. Savlar is now home to an ecosystem made up of extremophile and borderline extremophile life forms of the sort typically found growing next to volcanos on less awful worlds.

The hideous environment is a result of the neutronium manufacture. In the old days of the Golden Age the chemical run off was contained for processing as the world around the facility was slowly terraformed. When the Old Night rolled in the tanks were breached, the processing facilities destroyed and all but one of the factories burned to the ground. This released the chemical cocktail that Savlar is known for.

The natives of Savlar are descended from the people who used to work there and got stranded in ancient days. Genetically they are more or less pure human but like Fenrisians there is very minor deviations. They can handle drugs and toxic substances far better than most people. Biological and cybernetic modifications to help deal with the environment are common on Savlar and in the regiments raised there.

The Neutronium Workshop operates at a mere 5% of it's original estimated output and is tended to by a peculiar and closed order of tech-adepts descended from the maintenance teams and workers that once operated the factory in the Golden Age. The Savlar Order is very much a closed order. They don't let anyone in, nobody leaves, they don't concern themselves with things beyond their gate, and they call no outside authority master. They make neutronium, and cybernetic trinkets, which they exchange for stuff. That's how they like it and that is the extent of how the arrangement would have, could have and should have been. But then the Olympus Mons brotherhood got involved and nearly ruined everything for everyone.

All technological wonders of humanity belong to the Mechanicum. The Savlar Order tended the last neutronium workshop. They were human, the workshop was a human creation and therefore they must submit to the rule of Mars. They sent them a letter, politely worded, to that effect. Savlar sent a letter back telling them in no uncertain terms that they would not submit to outsiders and called into question the parentage of the Mars Council and accused the Fabricator General of sexual deviation.

A second much more strongly worded letter was written, this time demanding, not asking with the declaration that refusal would have them meet the entire Skitarii army should they refuse and was delivered by none other than Ferrus Manus himself in all his brutal glory. The Savlar Order responded with a crudely drawn picture of a magos bent over taking it up the ass from an anthropomorphic Aquila. The substance used to make the offending image was discovered to be fecal matter.

Before this could escalate any further The Steward stepped in. Savlar was elevated to the status of Survivor Civilization, a status it did not deserve by a long way, to be counted alongside The Interex and Ultramar in legal standing. As an allied Survivor Civilization they had all the authority they needed to officially tell the Olympus Mons Brotherhood to go fuck themselves, which they did.

The Mechanicus could have banned all of their trade to Savlar and black listed anyone who did so. They could also have slit their own throats and gurgled the theme song to Aspects of Steel. By this point it was known that the Savlar Order were more than prepared to destroy all that they held dear rather than let it fall into Mars' hands. Mars had gotten into a contest of spite with Savlar and they were fools to do so.

One of the ways that Savlar has spent the better part of 10,000 years infuriating Mars is the baffling tradition of The Great Savlar Scavenger Hunt. Once the stockpile of neutronium is filled a list of items is placed on the outer gate of The Workshop. The list invariably contains a great variety of a great many thing, some of them quite strange. Partly this is almost certainly to prevent the Mars priesthood from deciphering the needed raw materials, some of it's obviously for personal use. The list somewhere will always contain food and fresh water. In exact amounts. Everything is given with exact amounts, in native Savlar measurements. If they ask for a very specific amount of Valhallan Brandy in a specific number of arsenic bronze containers then you bring them that, no more and no less. Deviation from the list is not permitted and the contestant is disqualified. First one back with the entire list ticked off to the Order's satisfaction gets the entire stock heap to divvy up and sell on as they see fit.

It infuriates Mars as it puts them on equal footing to common traders and the like. There is also no pattern to the demands and it is a constant point of discord in the filing system. Creatures of order as they are this infuriates the Mechanicus Scribes and that is almost certainly why the Savlar Order do it. Because fuck you, that's why.

Beyond this very little of the Order is known. Investigations have been requested and refused. The Inquisition could push the issue but it's not worth the risk.

The society outside of the walls of the Workshop is mostly slightly above subsidence farming with very little surplus left over to support many urban structures. Society, civilization is pushing it a little too far, tends to be tribaly based and ruled by the elders or those who have opted to stay sober for a while.

Religion is a plethora of small gods, though Salvlars would claim that they are too small to be gods. Typically they can only be interacted with after taking something mind altering but there is too much consistency in the hallucinations for them to be nothing but things see in the trips. There have been investigations by both the Arbiters and the Inquisition but nothing that can prove or disprove, all that they can say is that there is no notable Chaos corruption.

Indeed not. Chaos offers hope, but they have given up on great hopes. Chaos offers comfort in despair, but they feel not too much despair. They don't feel much anger at things and merely accept the shit. They don't revel in the fumes or seek much excess. If their small gods of the æther are deamons they are doing a terrible job. Most common advice that the small gods give is to slow down on the LSD wine, which is a distinctly un-Chaos thing to suggest.

One more or less consistent belief among the tribes, and it can be inferred to have originated in The Workshop, is the Great Machine. It follows that the Omnissiah is the underlying mechanisms of the universe, the Ultimate Machine, but that it's obvious that the universe is broken. Therefore god is broken and man must increase in wisdom to find a way of fixing it. Once fixed the universe will work right. It is known as the Faith of the Broken God. It is considered HOLY SHIT levels of heresy within the main branch mechnicus but the MArs Priesthood never quite gets as far as declaring the Savlar Order as such because neutronium.

Drugs are about the only thing that make life on Savlar tolerable. They will surely reduce your life time but on Savlar you're probably going to be dead by age 45 snorting Rainbow Dust or not so it's not really the issue it would be on a less fuck awful planet. Besides the neutronium the planets only other notable exports are soldiers and recreational drugs.

The soldiery is a motley band of mostly addicts ( usually recruits) and mostly former addicts (usually veterans).

Hubworld League (Squats)

Hubworld Architecture

The worlds of the Hubworld League are all fortresses. This is in part due to their natural architectural inclinations: any sturdy, underground structure can become a bunker with a minimum effort. Mostly, though, it is a matter of natural selection.

Worlds that were not fortresses did not survive the Long Night. The bulk of the Hubworlds are located near the galactic core- the largest concentration of Orks in the galaxy. During the Dark Age of Technology, endless robotic armies rendered this a non-factor. During the Age of Strife, each already-devastated world thrown back onto its own resources... only the worlds which forted up survived.

Visitors to squat holds often remark on how elaborately decorated they are. Statuary, engravings and murals, fine masonry and intricate fountains; their excellent craftsmanship extends far beyond weapons and armor. Such artwork tends to accumulate over time; the oldest holds are best described as 'cluttered with masterpieces'.

Visitors experienced in military matters see how the complex and winding paths would force an invader to divide their forces and funnel through chokepoints. They would notice how the engravings conceal hidden passages for the swift movement of troops, or the mechanisms of elaborate deathtraps.

Perhaps the collections of fine art is a reaction to the stress of having to live in a giant, trap-filled bunker all the time.

Ultramar

At it's height in the relatively short lived golden age of the Great Crusade the Republic of Ultramar counted approximately 500 worlds within it's borders and whilst many of these were mere provincial outposts and nothing more than seeds of potential they were indicative of a thriving and growing civilization.

At the time the Expeditionary forces of the Imperium first made it to the borders of that real, most august of the survivors of Old Night, it was grand and exceptionally so by the standards of the time though far less than it would become with a little over two hundred worlds to count as it's own and many is states of disrepair. But for all the faded glory they were not without their grandeur and when the diplomats and ambassadors of the Imperium offered them sanctuary within it's aegis they were somewhat hesitant. And why would they not be? They had survived for thousands of years alone at the other end of the galaxy to the long forgotten homeworld surrounded by barbarians and monsters. Their inclusion as a Survivor Civilization was eventually achieved on mutually favourable terms.

In the days of the Great Crusade Ultramar prospered like it had not done since the days it was part of the Great and Bountiful Empire before the Age of Strife. With fresh trade links and the pressure of barbarian invasion removed Ultramar again took it's old colony worlds back and regained the ground it had lost.

But for all that the realm itself prospered in this time the internal structure of it was called into question with many of the new border world powers, grown rich and strong on Imperial trade, questioning the right of Macragge to rule all undisputedly. As time went on this dissatisfaction did not abate and the rift between the Provincial Powers and the old money Throneworld only deepened.

Into this descended Gaufrid Fouché, grandson of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, son of King Gunthar Fouché and about eighth in line for the crown of Franj. Gaufrid was under orders from his grandfather to set up the Ultimate Plan B contingency and set up the groundwork for the Imperium Secundus for the unthinkable eventuality of the Imperium failing. Ultramar was far enough away to probably be unaffected by anything that could kill Old Earth but civilized and prosperous enough to be a viable seed from which to regrow. Although Gaufrid had no actual direct authority within the Realm of Ultramar he did have considerable invested in him by the Imperium with which an ever increasing majority of Ultamars trade went through. Peddling this influence with the provincials and the nobility of Macragge he set forth propositions and proposals that would turn the elective monarchy of Ultramar into a fairer and more representative system of one planet one vote with an overall leader elected for times of dire emergency. Macragge agreed to this to retain some power against the increasing might of Calth, Calth agreed to it as recognition as not Macragge's subordinate was all they ever wanted and the provincial worlds agreed because it gave them a voice and they all agreed to it because refusal to do so would see a great decline in trade and hardening of the borders with the rest of the Imperium. Was this entirely fair? Probably not, but many things are less so.

With the long term threat of eventual civil war averted Gaufrid Fouché married the head of one of the major internal Ultramar trading companies (mostly a purely political decision though he was good friends with her) to further his influence and set about the meticulous and tedious task of reforming the planetary, even nation based, militaries into a more cohesive whole. His task was not entirely limited to maters of military and his hand could be found in almost every aspect of Ultramar's functioning.

Under his influence the realm grew richer and stronger than it had ever done before and many would argue since.

Then The Beast came and all that planning seemed so very insignificant compared to such reckless barbarity.

Ultramar was, by great good fortune, not as targeted as maybe it could have been in the War of the Beast. Guilliman's choice for an Imperium Secundus proving to have been correct in that regard. This is not to say that Ultramar got off easy, just that it got off easier and because of Gaufrid's tireless efforts Ultramar had never been more prepared. But worlds still burned.

The path of rebuilding took a long time. A long, long time as many of the WAAAAAAAGH!!!!! splinters scattered about and stranded corrupt eldar raiders filtered to the eastern fringe when The Beast was cast down. Ultramar endured, the Fortress of the Galactic East. Gaufrid took the name of Guilliman over Fouché to emphasize his authority, a name that his descendant would hold for the rest of Imperial history. Gaufrid Guilliman never saw the completion of the rebuilding of Ultramar, he was a rare example of Rejuvenant Rejection and had adverse reactions to the procedure, he fell to the ravages of time at the tender age of 156.

After the Breaking of the Legions it was deemed that the Ultimate Plan B was never not going to be a possibility and to safe guard it the XIII Legion core Chapter would be gifted to Ultramar and thereafter be renamed Ultramarines.

As of the dying of this Dark Millenium the realm of Ultramar spans nearly 300 developed, sophisticated and cultured worlds, still making it the grandest and strongest if not the numerically biggest of the Survivor Civilizations. As Acting Chapter Master Titus puts forth his reform plans before the Senate and the upheaval in an age of uncertainty all know that either Ultramar will finally die or will be reborn stronger than ever to meet the oncoming storm.

Colchis

The planet of Colchis was a virtual feudal world by the end of the Age of Strife. The population had been nuked back to the Stone Age by the rebellion of the Men of Iron, and it had taken nearly nine millennia to reach even that level of technology again. An effort not helped by the sporadic Chaos uprisings and the brutal semi-arid climate of the planet.

From the stars came the Eldar of the minor Craftworld Bel-Shammon. The people of Bel-Shammon were desperate. The solar sails and propulsion mechanisms of the Craftworld had been damaged beyond repair, and they knew the birth of Slaanesh was soon at hand. Colchis was located only a stone’s throw away from the homeworlds of the old Eldar Empire, and the people of Bel-Shammon knew that without the ability to move their Craftworld away from the psychic eruption they would need to either find shelter or die. As a result, the people of Bel-Shammon were forced to take unconventional action, and ask the people of the nearby world for sanctuary. Tears of desperation turned to tears of joy as Colchians welcomed them to their home. In gratitude, the Eldar repaid the people of Colchis by teaching them how to build a global and peaceful civilization.

By the time the Imperium first reached Colchis during the Great Crusade, Colchis resembled some sort of planetside Eldar Craftworld crossed with a relatively calm and peaceful version of the ancient Holy Roman Empire. The planet was a veritable patchwork of nominally independent nation-states with a politically independent papacy acting as a mediator in international disputes and a representative for the planet as a whole. The Craftworld Bel-Shammon itself had been dismantled, its wraithbone structures turned into housing and architecture and its Infinity Circuit incorporated into the planet itself.

When the Imperial ships first arrived in the Colchian system, they were greeted by elegant system defense ships. The Colchians had no Warp technology, but only because they never felt the need to go anywhere. There was a Webway gate in the center of the papal palace, having been moved planetside from the old Craftworld, but the planet had little contact with the greater galaxy and had not had a visitor from offworld in decades. The language they were greeted in seemed to be some sort of Old Earth descendant language strangely hybridized with craftworlder High Speech. The Imperial ambassadors were later to learn that this was the global language of legal documents and trade, a practice mirrored in the Imperium with High Gothic.

The Imperium had expected Colchis to be controlled by an Eldar aristocracy ruling over a human underclass. To their surprise, no Eldar on the planet held any position of power above the level of provincial assistant administrator or equivalent title. The refugees of Bel-Shammon had never wanted to rule, they only wanted a place to settle. Colchis was brought into the Imperium as a unique and civilized world reminiscent of an idealized version of some pre-fall Eldar haven, albeit with only 8% of the global population actually being Eldar.

Colchis has remained relatively peaceful despite the general tumult in the galaxy since joining the Imperium. Colchis may not be armed to the teeth like Cadia or Krieg but it has still had to fight off its fair share of invasions. Among the people of the Imperium, humans from Colchis tend to get along better with the Craftworlds than the average human, due to their similar culture. Craftworlds like Alaitoc see Colchis as proof that mankind are not completely hopeless and can eventually learn to be civilized, perhaps in a few million years or so. Human and Eldar supremacist groups like Craftworld Dorhai see the harmonious and relatively non-militarized world of Colchis as the embodiment of everything wrong with the Imperium.

"See, this is the cultural suicide of both the Eldar and human of this world. What my sights lay upon is the abominable fusion of both and the advancement of none. This is the destruction of Eldar culture and their human partners follow suit, there is the strength of none while holding the weakness of both."
- unknown Dorhai writer

"See that fool? That one right there? That is the actual suicide of both Eldar and humanity. I look upon them and I would be turned to pity were it not for the disgust at their stagnation and wretchedness. They prattle on about purity whilst their society crusts over in bones of wraith and dies starved of love or sunlight. They prattle on about purity, romanticizing a time that never was when they lived in some unseen Eden all the while carefully omitting their decadence and depravities. Let them turn inwards and look no more upon the outside world. We will pick their corpses clean, we will out last them, our beautiful hybrid society ever young, ever vigorous. If they cannot change they will rot."
- Her Ecumenical Excellence Mother Dwynwen XXIII of Colchis.

Necromunda

See Necromunda

The Craftworlds

The Eldar Craftworlds mostly entered into the Imperium as the same manner as the Survivor civilizations. The Craftworlds were never ones for formality or paperwork, but they venerated their goddess Isha, who was in a political marriage to the Steward, and originally followed for that reason. Like the Survivor civilizations the Craftworlds had to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, the terms for their inclusion varying from Craftworld to Craftworld. Over time many Craftworlds saw the benefits being part of the Imperium and integrated to greater and lesser extents, whether it be interacting with the galaxy directly or the colder, more pragmatic reason of having the rest of the Imperium as a buffer against any would-be enemies.

See The Craftworlds

Minor Xenos Races

Although the Imperium is best known as the grand alliance of humanity and Eldar, there are also numerous other minor Xenos races that also call the Imperium home. The Imperium first began officially admitting other races into the Imperium in M36, as a token of gratitude after receiving significant assistance from the Demiurg in the Imperial Civil War. Since then numerous other species, including Tau, kinebrach, the Watchers in the Dark, kroot, Tarrellians, even a few Necron Lords, have all been united under the Imperium’s aegis. These races are often known as “minor Xenos races” not because they are unimportant per se, but because they make up such a small proportion of the Imperium’s total population, even compared to the depleted Eldar. Even the Tau, the most numerous of the minor xenos races, are still outnumbered by the Eldar by an order of magnitude. Like Eldar Craftworlds and Survivor civilizations, minor Xenos races are often given a high degree of autonomy in the Imperium, so long as they follow the few universal rules. In some cases (e.g., Necron lords) inclusion into the Imperium is more like a mutual non-aggression pact than anything else, the Imperium pledging to keep its other citizens from antagonizing its signatories so long as those signatories in turn do not antagonize the citizens of the Imperium.

Tau Empire

The Tau are the most recent addition to the Imperium, and in some ways the most reluctant. They stood for thousands of years on their own, weathering Ork WAAAGHs, AI uprisings, Dark Eldar raids, and the vanguards of the hive fleets before finally admitting they could not survive alone in mid M39. They were a large nation by non-Imperium standards, the size of Ultramar or any of the other Survivor Civilizations integrated into the Imperium, and are the third largest single demographic in the Imperium after humans and Eldar.

Their long refusal to join the Imperium was a puzzle to Imperial minds. For thousands of years, 'Imperium' was essentially synonymous with 'Civilization'; for the Tau to reject membership was essentially to reject their own civilized nature, as far as the Imperial diplomats were concerned. Their stubborn independence is even more puzzling in light of how well Tau and Imperial ethics mesh, the 'Greater Good' ideal of a place for everything and everything in its place having a great deal in common with Imperial ideals of strength through unity and diversity. The Tau, naturally, believe the Greater Good is more complete, comprehensive, and generally superior.

Of course, integration was hardly frictionless. The Farsight Enclaves split off after a brief but bloody war to avoid becoming part of the Imperium. Many Tau resented going from an independent empire to a province of a far larger one, even though they understood the necessity. The subsequent attempts to accumulate more political power within the Imperium generated resentment among the Imperial aristocracy. But in the end, the truth won out- better together than alone.

As of M41, the Tau have become reconciled to their place within the Imperium, but remain ambitious. They want to become the equals of humanity and the Eldar, not just a junior member of the Imperium. They have the technology, they have the will, they have the unity of purpose- if they survive the coming storm, they have an excellent chance of doing so.

If.

Diasporex

More of a religious movement than an actual species, the Diasporex are a nomadic fleet-bound civilization encountered by the Imperium during the Great Crusade. The Diasporex were first discovered by the expeditionary fleet of the Dark Angels, who were surprised when they accidentally stumbled upon what appeared to be veritable fleet after dropping out of warp around what they thought was a dead star. After an initial awkward misunderstanding, diplomatic contact with the Diasporex was made, and after turning down initial overtures at joining the Imperium the Diasporex pointed the Dark Angels in the direction of the nearest uncontacted human world.

The movement of what would come to be known as the Diasporex began during the Age of Strife. The founders of the Diasporex were native to a planet that was devastated by the warp storms and other psychic phenomena common to the Age of Strife and were forced to leave their homeworld to the relative safety of voidspace in order to survive. It was here in space that the Diasporex had what could be considered a religious revelation. They realized that here, in void space, not on a planet, not in the Immaterium, it was peaceful. Upon further thought, it seemed obvious in retrospect that the Void represented the true nature of the universe, given that the Void made up the vast majority of the universe, with the only significant phenomena being the movement of the major heavenly bodies across the cosmos.

Today, the Diasporex are a nomadic civilization, constantly moving from star to star across the cosmos. One of the only reasons they ever stop are to refuel their ships at the hydrogen collecting space stations they have set up at various waypoints across their pre-planned journey. The Diasporex travel through space using a unique type of engine of unknown origin. It is still debated whether Diasporex engines are of xenos design, represent a modified pre-Warp Dark Age of Technology engine, or are a mixture of both. Although the Diasporex engines work well for their purposes, they are maddeningly useless for any Imperial use. Diasporex engines are no better than their Imperial counterparts for in-system travel, and although being to accelerate to slightly faster than the speed of light, their slow speed means that it can often take the better part of a year at minimum to move from one inhabited system to its nearest neighbor.

In times of peace, the only other time the Diasporex ever stop their journey is to visit inhabited worlds, to trade with the locals for goods that they cannot grow or manufacture aboard their ships, and to proselytize others to abandon terrestrial life and join their creed. The Diasporex are a veritable menagerie of sapient species, including humanity. It is not clear if the original founders were human, xenos, or a mix of both. The Diasporex have deliberately obscured the true origin of their founders as a point of pride, to show that their creed is open to people of any species.

The Diasporex creed follows several simple rules: 1) Warp travel is forbidden, or at least restricted to an absolute minimum. Although Diasporex ships are capable of Warp travel, they only use it if the fleet is under direct attack. According to Diasporex beliefs, warp travel irritates the universe and makes it more difficult to hear the Harmony of the Spheres. 2) No violence except in self-defense. The Diasporex exalt peace and self-harmony, though they realize the galaxy is unlikely to conform to their beliefs. Peace-loving does not mean unarmed. 3) Relinquishment of worldly possessions. In addition to the simple reasoning that if everyone brought their belongings on board there would be no room for anything else on the ship, the Diasporex believe in asceticism in order to keep focused on the nature of the void. However, the Diasporex are not cruel. They often allow new initiates to bring on objects that have personal value or could benefit the fleet, such as a picture of family members or books.

As can be expected, the Void Born like the Diasporex and their way of thinking quite a bit, although not enough that they are willing to part with their worldly possessions and join them.

The Imperium mostly lets the Diasporex survive unmolested for several reasons. First, as the Diasporex travel from world to world, they trade and barter for goods with the inhabitants of each planet they visit. The Diasporex essentially act as a trade convoy for the worlds in their region of space, one that the Imperium does not even have to expend resources to maintain.

Additionally, the Diasporex serve as an important early warning system. The path of the Diasporex is well known and can often be predicted years in advance. If the Diasporex caravans scatter, it means that something unusual is going on. Furthermore, despite being largely non-aggressive the Diasporex have proven to be tenacious in the defense of their way of life, helping the Imperium during several Black Crusade by channeling the power of the stars they absorb energy from into devastating beams of destruction. The Diasporex are also skilled voidsmen due to the amount of time they have spent travelling voidspace, often able to outmaneuver Imperial ships despite their relatively antiquated technology.

The Diasporex and the Imperium have only come into conflict over two specific issues. The first is when an individual, usually an Imperial Navy officer, tries to join the Diasporex and brings Imperial property such as an Imperial Navy voidship with them as a gift. The situation is usually defused by the Diasporex denouncing that they have any claim to the ship, although they are willing to accept new converts and new voidships, they will not do so at the risk of angering the Imperium. The other is when someone tries to disturb or destroy the various hydrogen collecting waystations scattered throughout the galaxy. Although the Diasporex are typically placid and unconcerned with the actions of those inhabiting the solar systems they travel through, they will vigorously defend any threat to their way of life.

The Diasporex occupied quite an awkward position in Imperial politics for many years. After it became clear that the Diasporex were a theocratic democracy, and that they had only sent humans to meet with Imperial representatives because they felt humans would be comfortable talking with human ambassadors, it was clear that the Diasporex could not be simply admitted into the Imperium in the same manner as Colchis or the Interex. However, the Steward did not want to allow free trade with the Diasporex as a non-Imperial power, as that might give other systems a legal excuse to trade with more unsavory entities. At the same time, it was clear that it was not possible to stop the Diasporex migration and trade with other worlds without resorting to open war. In the end, the Diasporex were named an honorary member state and protectorate of the Imperium, albeit one that kept to themselves and never interfered in Imperial politics. When the Imperium began accepting non-human, non-Eldar member states into the Imperium in M36, the Diasporex finally had a place to fit into the Imperium’s political structure. Nevertheless, the Diasporex still almost never exploit their status to affect Imperial politics, preferring to sail the same route through the stars their ancestors plotted centuries before.

Kinebrach

The Kinebrach are a heavy-set, simian-like species of xenos native to the Segmentum Pacificus. Indeed, it is thought that many of the fortress worlds scattered around the segmentum were originally built by them. In many ways, kinebrach appear very similar to Old Earth gorillas. Like gorillas, the kinebrach are ape-like, mostly herbivorous (though they are more omnivorous than gorillas), and when given the choice prefer to live in humid swamps and jungles. However, unlike gorillas, kinebrach walk bipedally erect, though their extremely long arms (which extend below their knees) betray their tree-dwelling habits.

Kinebrach have a tripartite jaw with well-developed grinding plates, which they use to grind vegetation and crush fruits and nuts. A deep slit between the two upper jaw plates contains the kinebrach’s oral olfactory organ, which lies at the front of the roof of their mouth. Kinebrach will sometimes flare the two flaps of their upper “hare-lip” apart, in order to better smell an unfamiliar individual or object. A kinebrach’s skin resembles a hippopotamus or wild hog, with a thick, dark blue-black skin covered by a thin layer of wiry brown to russet fur.

The Kinebrach are most famous throughout the galaxy for their skill as metalworkers. Metalworkers occupy an almost legendary status in kinebrach society, to the point that the kinebrach are actually led by a council of warsmiths. To the kinebrach, to be a decent leader you are almost expected to be a good blacksmith, as a good metalworker exhibits all the traits that must be present in a good leader. They must have vision, in order to be able to shape the metal to their liking. They must have patience, in order to be able to perfect their work into the form that they desire. And they must have strength of spirit, in order to endure the heat of the forge and the physical toil of hammering the metal into shape. Disputes between major kinebrach political figures are often settled by forge-offs, with each party trying to forge a superior work to demonstrate the righteousness of their belief or grievance.

This obsession with metalworking even extends into the Kinebrach’s method for dealing with daemons. Like many sentient species, the Kinebrach have figured out that if a daemon is bound to one place, then it can be easily accounted for and cannot roam freely to corrupt others. As a race of metalworkers, it seemed obvious to the kinebrach to bind troublesome daemons within forged weapons, as opposed to ordinary objects or living beings. These cursed weapons, as the Kinebrach call them, are then sealed in such a way that no one can access them or be tempted by the daemon sealed inside. Such cursed blades include Drach’nyen and the cursed blade stolen by Erebus during the chaos of the War of the Beast, which was later broken by the Dark Prophet and forged into the eight Anathame, the so-called “splinters in the eye of reality” that plague the Imperium to this day.

There is some suggestion that some kinebrach have gone rogue and joined the Chaos-worshipping Davinite warrior lodges, taking cursed weapons with them. The kinebrach are not happy to hear this news.

Kinebrach names are written as a series of hyphenated syllables, said almost like a drumbeat. This is apparent even in Kinebrach writing, where individual names are written in a distinctly different script than the words that surround them. This appears to be due to the modern Kinebrach writing style being the result of the fusion of two previously distinct Kinebrach cultures many millennia ago. Although the Kinebrach seem like a monolithic culture now, they apparently were not before the Age of Strife.

Like all sentient life in the galaxy, the Kinebrach were hit hard by the Age of Strife. After the end of the Age of Strife and the birth of Slaanesh, the Kinebrach believed themselves to be a dying species. This fear was only magnified when they encountered their nearest neighbors, the Interex. After first contact, communications broke down between the two species, and the two empires went to war. This war was devastating to the kinebrach, who feared that the conflict merely confirmed their imminent extinction. However, after about a century, the kinebrach were contacted by diplomats from the Interex. The Interex claimed that the breakdown in communications was due to imperfect translation technology on the Interex’s part, and they had never wanted to exterminate the kinebrach in the first place. Instead, they proposed an agreement. The kinebrach would become a protectorate of the Interex, providing them with advanced technology and metalworking in exchange for the Interex’s military protection. In addition, the Kinebrach would be forbidden to carry arms except during times of war.

The Kinebrach, for their part, did not care. They had been more concerned about the survival of their species than their ability to bear arms. Indeed, despite being led by a council of warsmiths, the kinebrach were a rather non-aggressive people and did not mind if another, more vibrant species went to war on their behalf. What’s more, the conflict had become so heated that some of the Kinebrach had almost been tempted to take up the cursed weapons out of desperation, something that the rest of the Kinebrach knew could have easily destroyed both civilizations. The Kinebrach were glad that such a worst-case scenario had not come to pass.

Like the Watchers in the Dark, the Kinebrach came under the aegis of the Imperium much earlier than other minor xenos races, entering as a protectorate of the Interex. However, with the official admission of minor xenos faces into the Imperium in M36, the Kinebrach became an officially recognized independent member state of the Imperium, albeit one with close political and economic ties to the Interex.

Today, the kinebrach are highly respected in the Imperium for their ability as metalworkers, representing one of the Imperium’s few non-Adeptus Mechanicus sources of technology along with squats and Earth Caste tau. However, unlike the Adeptus Mechanicus, the kinebrach are first and foremost artisans and metallurgists, rather than manufacturers. The kinebrach are more interested in making new alloys and crafting new masterpieces than in mass-production. Although the kinebrach have the knowledge to build starships, most find the intricacies of large-scale machines less interesting. Your average kinebrach would be more interested in a wall made of rare, high-quality, or particularly well-crafted metal than a highly-complex machine.

Given their similarities, many have wondered if the kinebrach are somehow related to the Jokaero, another simian-like race with an affinity for crafting and technology, some even going so far as to suggest the jokaero are a subspecies derived from the long-lost descendants of the kinebrach that existed outside the Segmentum Pacificus. However, genetic testing has shown that the kinebrach and Jokaero are two completely unrelated species, and their ape-like similarities evolved completely independently. When asked about this, the kinebrach replied that they had once wondered the same thing regarding Eldar and humanity.

Watchers in the Dark

When the Old Ones left much of their webway-making equipment on Caliban, it left a bit of a hole in the fabric of reality. This slowly allowed Warp energy to leak through into the Materium, something that wasn’t very helpful for a planet already so close to the Eye of Terror. Over the course of generations, much of the planet became uninhabitable due to Warp exposure mutating the local wildlife and turning the local ecosystem into a hellscape. Although natural selection due to Warp exposure had given the native sapient species a great deal of resistance to Warp energies and chaos-related mutations, it was not enough to protect them from the great beasts and detestable flora that covered most of the planet. Out of a sheer need for survival, the native sapient species of Caliban developed into a society fanatically obsessed with opposing Chaos and reclaiming their planet, but because of their limited physical prowess were unable to do much more than keep their few remaining bastions of civilization untainted at great cost.

The Dark Angels, being the first legion sent out beyond the Sol system to look for survivors of the Age of Strife, were the first to encounter Caliban. Upon meeting with the Dark Angels, the Watchers saw the opportunity these visitors from the stars presented them and entreated the Dark Angels for help. Luther, more worried that the Imperium was going to carve up Franj while his back was turned, was dismissive, whereas Lion, ever the idealist, saw the Watchers as people, a Chaos-opposing people no less, in need and stepped in to help. Lion and the Dark Angels made short work of most of the Chaos Beasts on Caliban, and in gratitude the Watchers pledged their fealty to Lion and the Dark Angels. A small garrison of Dark Angels was left on Caliban, but this notably did not include Lion or Luther. The garrison’s job was to help the Watchers rebuild their planet, but it was difficult because they could never really find the source of the Warp corruption and could only keep the number of beasts to a minimum.

The Watchers in the Dark are essentially the reason the loyalist Dark Angels even survived the schism. When two-thirds of your forces turn on you at once, it is difficult to even survive under normal circumstances. Although the Watchers couldn’t physically fight against the traitor space marines in direct combat, they could relay information and help loyalist marines find one another in the chaos, even helping loyalists tell friend from foe. And in a pinch, if you don’t pay attention to a Watcher in the corner with a knife while fighting your loyalist brother, he will seriously mess up your day. However, in the course of the fighting during the schism, Caliban was destroyed, and the Watchers in the Dark were left without a homeworld. Some say the Watchers intentionally blew up their homeworld, to deny the Fallen the use of the Chaos Beasts and the artifacts beneath its surface.

The Watchers are a very minor xenos race, even in comparison to the other minor Xenos races of the Imperium. Their homeworld is gone, and there are only just enough of them to act as support staff for the loyalist successor chapters of the Dark Angels. At first the Watchers were a rather poorly kept secret to the rest of the Imperium. However, when the Imperium started allowing minor xenos races to join the Imperium, the Dark Angels were some of the first in line to present a petition on behalf of the Watchers. People coughed when they saw this, but let the Watchers in anyway. It is likely that the Steward knew of the Watchers’ existence and their contributions to the fight against Chaos before they were officially known to the Imperium at large (probably from the Lion if nothing else), which is probably the reason why the Watchers were admitted into the Imperium despite being a group of mysterious Xenos attached to the descendants of the legion most infamous for going rogue.

Even as an official part of the Imperium, the Watchers are rather enigmatic. Watchers in the Dark can occasionally be seen on hive worlds and other metropolitan areas, but are almost always running some kind of errand for their chapter. Their biology and social structure beyond “warp-resistant, long-lived, and hate Chaos” are only known to the Dark Angels and a few Ordo Xenos Inquisitors who have found out via other avenues. Even the gender or age of a given individual is not clear. The Watchers technically don’t pay a tithe, but since the entire species is basically a vassal race nearly inseparable from the loyalist Dark Angel successors, nearly every adult member of the species serves in some fashion.

Despite, or perhaps because of, this lack of information, a whole host of rumors have appeared regarding the Watchers in the Dark. As with all rumors, it is almost impossible to tell where these stories came from and if there is a grain of truth in them or not. Some say that the Watchers one sees today are the same Watchers that served during the War of the Beast, and there have been none born since the destruction of their homeworld. Others point out that the Watchers would have become extinct by now through simple attrition if that were the case, even if they had lifespans longer than the Eldar. However, exactly how the Watchers are reproducing is unknown. Some say that they are simply nomadic creatures now, forever moving with their Astartes masters and making their homes in star bases and fortresses and ships, whereas others say they haven’t died out because they have one last secret breeding ground, deep under one of the hives of Old Earth.

Other rumors are perhaps more farfetched. Some of these rumors, bordering on conspiracy theories, say the Watchers are able to travel through darkness itself, or are able to know the names of everyone they meet, or are the only creatures besides the Eldar who know how to navigate the Webway, or that they sing beautifully but they won't let anyone hear them, or are Imperial sword Hrud. Some theories are as fanciful as the Watchers hand out present to good little boys and girls on Sanguinala under the command of "Cypher Claws", to as conspiratorial as the Mechanicus uses the Watchers to spy on your comings and goings and dreams, to as eerie as the rumor that the eldar forgot who they were, but the Watchers remember them and remember much more than the eldar would like. As with all things, the Watchers never confirm or deny any of these tales.

Tarellians

During the unification and the Great Crusade, the Steward encountered the Tarellians. Though their race had never risen to match the levels of the Eldar, the Tarellians had a modest interstellar confederation of loosely aligned agriworlds. At first, things went well enough. The Tarellians were cautious, and after a few inconclusive skirmishes, were receptive to human ambassadors. In point of fact, they scorned worlds that were not self-sufficient enough to be able to survive off of their own food supplies, meaning they did not contest Imperial settlers that took the barren (If resource rich) unexploited rocks in systems surrounding them. But, eventually, one Tarellian governor got greedy, and attempted to enslave a human colony en masse to manufacture weapons for his soldiers. Well, the Imperium sent a naval ship, and the governor ran back to his confederates, and a war started.

The Tarellians were good fighters. Managed a few wins against the odds, due to bickering and overconfident Imperial generals. Then a primarch came. Luckily, it was only Dorn, but just the same the Tarellians were beaten horrifically, and quickly forced to peace. A white peace with mild reparations, but one that shattered the Tarellian confederacy over the shame.

After that, there was no more Tarellian Confederacy. The fractured states were left alone, and "Tarellian Space" was just another lawless backwater. Until the tyranids came. The Imperium intervened (even over the protest of some particularly proud Tarellian despots), but by the time help arrived the damage was done. Over a full quarter of the Tarellian population died fighting on worlds consumed.

Now, the Tarellian sector is peaceful. They provide mercenaries and foodstuffs. They're likeable enough, and cautiously judged by the Inquisition as mostly loyal subjects, even if some Tarellian mercenaries are found among ork and chaos warbands, and the rest mutter about how Tarellia will rise again from time to time. It is generally considered bad form among Imperial officers to remind the Tau of the Tarellian histories, though Tarellians themselves seem to regard the Tau well, particularly for their resistance to joining the Imperium.

When the Tarellians spread out from their homeworld, they developed a number of highly divergent cultures on the planets they lived on. Tarellians also range wildly in body size based on planet, ranging from Tau-sized to slightly taller than a baseline human. Even during their most unified periods, Tarellian culture and social norms could vary wildly depending on the planet. Hence the Tarellian Confederacy, instead of the Tarellian Republic or the Tarellian Empire. Nevertheless, there are enough cultural similarities between them that the Tarellan cultures see themselves as distinctly Tarellian, much like the different Greek or Mesoamerican city-states saw themselves as a distinct cultural unit.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that there are many different groups of lizardmen out there in the galaxy, of which the Tarellians are but the best known because they developed the most extensive interstellar network. The Imperium, lacking imagination, might refer to the species as a whole as Tarellians even though the term only really applies to the Tarellian Neo-Confederacy.

Like some groups of Native Americans (Comanche, Sioux), Tarellians are well known for their mobility in war, able to march hundreds of miles from base camp in order to strike. The difference is that the Native American tribes did this through the use of horses. The Tarellians do this on foot. Tarellians originally evolved in an arid environment where they had to keep pace over shifting sand dunes and the uneven terrains of arroyos in extreme heat. Marching through a relative flat environment in balmy weather is a literal walk in the park for them. The Tarellians don’t really have riding cavalry, though they do domesticate heavier draft animals.

Tarellian Weapons

Perhaps the most distinctive weapon of the Tarellians, aside from their disruption weaponry, is the kultarr. The melee weapon of choice for Tarellians, kultarrs resemble a cross between a polearm, a pickaxe, and a hatchet. The kultarr was originally thought to have started out as a simple hand tool repurposed for war, until it developed into the weapon known today. At the far end of the kultarr is a simple spike. The main purpose of this spike is to blunt cavalry or infantry charges, or finish off a downed foe. Just behind this spike is a recurved spike, which is the main armament of the kultarr. Typically, a kultarr is swung downwards like a tomahawk to brain a foe or impale them and allow them to be dragged closer. The spike can also be used as a hook to drag cavalry from their mounts or pull an opponent off balance (their more traditional use, seeing as the Tarellians did not have cavalry until the Industrial Era).

The military success of the kultarr has led the Tarelians to produce numerous derivations on the design, most prominently the mahukultarr. Instead of a single recurved spike, a mahukultarr has several backwards slanting blades appressed together to form a massive cutting edge. The purpose of a mahukultarr is to leave large, jagged wounds that bleed readily and are difficult to easily close. Although resembling a broadsword, the weight of a mahukultarr means that it is wielded more like an axe or a club. The cutting edge is composed of numerous smaller blades, rather than one complex piece of metal, in order to prevent breakage and make it easier to replace blades that are broken. However, the sheer weight of a mahukultarr means that it is almost impossible for a Tarellian soldier to carry both one of these weapons and a rifle at the same time. As a result, mahukultarr wielding-soldiers are relatively rare.

Tarellians also prefer their own types of ranged weaponry, the disruptor rifle, which literally boils the molecules of its targets. They do make some use of autoguns and lasweapons when available.

Worlds of the Tarellian Neo-Confederacy

See The Tarellian Neo-Confederacy

Tarellian Religion

EDITOR'S NOTE: Per original writer, section with Be'lakor could use some rewriting/expansion

The Tarellians, in a rather roundabout fashion, worship the Old Ones as their gods. The Old Ones, from what little we know about them, seem to have some sort of connection to the Tarellians. However, the Tarellians are not direct descendants of the Old Ones. The Old Ones, despite having dry, leathery skin, were still semi-aquatic and had to return to the water to breed. The Tarellians have scaly skin, and lay eggs. Instead, the Tarellians appear to be descended from components of the Old Ones’ biosphere, likely spread to other planets in the Old Ones’ first attempts at terraforming. In human terms, it would be as if a race of sapient rats rose to power long after the extinction of humanity, only to find human artifacts and come to believe humans represented a race of gods.

The Tarellians did not evolve on the original homeworld of the Old Ones. Whatever planet the Old Ones originally hailed from was lost long before the War in Heaven even began, although there are numerous fringe theories as to where said planet might have gone. The Tarellian world with the greatest concentration of Old One artifacts was Tarellia, the planet where the Tarellians originally evolved sentience. Unfortunately, most of the Old One technology on the planet was rendered non-functional beyond any means of repair and only the simplest, most resilient objects, such as statues, tablets, and stone carvings, remained intact. Ironically, the few Old One artifacts that have survived the millions of years since the War in Heaven tend to be either exceedingly primitive (stone carvings and tablets) or ridiculously advanced (the Blackstone Fortresses, the Webway, three of the four Ruinous Powers). According the Tarellians, the writing on these Old One artifacts inspired their own writing system and they can even translate it to a crude degree, though modern Tarellian differs greatly from the language used by the Old Ones.

After Tarellia, the Tarellian world with the greatest concentration of Old One artifacts was the colony of Xibalanique. Xibalanique was a harsh, dry world, even by Tarellians standards, one of the reasons why so many artifacts were preserved there in the first place. Said artifacts were just about the only reason the world was of any interest to the Tarellian Empire, as the world was barely habitable otherwise and its population before the Age of Strife was almost entirely composed to researchers studying the Old One artifacts. When Xibalanique was cut off from the rest of the galaxy during the Age of Strife, the Tarellians stranded there had to either adapt, or die. Xibalaniquans are short and stocky compared to other Tarellians and tend to be relatively heavyset, which is thought to be due to genetic adaptations towards conserving energy for times of famine in harsh environments.

The inhabitants of Xibalanique were also notable in being all psykers, a situation somewhat analogous to a Tarellian Prospero. It is not clear if this is because of something the Old Ones did to Xibalanique, or if it was simply due to a founder effect from the original population of researchers having a higher-than average proportion of psyker genes relative to the rest of the Tarellian worlds, as Tarellians psykers are not unique to Xibalanique. Tarellian psykers are normally so stoic and dispassionate as to appear almost emotionless, interspersed with huge spikes of emotion whenever they use their powers. This makes them less susceptible to daemonic attention than psykers of other races, but it also means they tend to use their powers in quick bursts and become rapidly exhausted when trying to do anything strenuous. Nevertheless, this was not enough to completely avoid attention, as Xibalanique was destroyed shortly after the end of the Age of Strife.

The Xibalaniquans that survived their planet’s destruction migrated to the other Tarellian worlds, where they were eagerly assimilated with open arms. The Xibalaniquans were of interest not only for their psychic abilities, which were of value to any Tarellian warlord, but also for any potential lost knowledge that had been lost to the wider Tarellian Confederacy. Due to their psychic powers, the Tarellians viewed psykers as being closer to the Old Ones and on many worlds these psykers (typically Xibalaniquans) were organized into councils of mage-priests, who often served as advisors to the resident warlord. This arrangement varied from world to world; for example Maza has no mage-priests in an administrative position, whereas on Tikal at some point in history the mage-priests became the direct rulers of the planet, rather than just advisors. The organization of mage-priests into councils was not simply for symbolic reasons, as it also allowed for the organization of mage-priests into choirs similar to the human astropath system for interstellar communication. Even today, the Tarellian remain one of the few non-human, non-Eldar races to use their own methods of faster-than-light communication.

The Tarellians know the bare basics of the War in Heaven. They know that their gods were in a war with a pantheon of anti-gods and that their gods spawned a race of dark gods to help them. They know that the gods made lesser beings to act as soldiers. However, this is where the Tarellians get a few things wrong. They believe that they were the race created by the gods to fight in their war, when they were not. Indeed, in terms of age, the Tarellians are closer to humanity or the kinebrach than the truly ancient races like the Eldar or Orks.

The Tarellians believe the stylized bipeds in the Old One hieroglyphics at the right hand of their gods, figured to the same scale that peasants are often figured relative to gods and royalty, are the semi-mythical ancestor kings and queens, from who the Tarellians claim their descent. They’re not, but don’t bother try telling the Tarellians that. They’re actually representatives of the various gods of the mortal races the Old Ones uplifted during the War in Heaven. Isha recognized herself in the carvings, as well as Kurnous and Qah. Actual mortal representatives of those races are nowhere to be seen.

The Tarellians also believe that their gods walk among them, though perhaps not in a physical fashion. When Isha discovered this fact in M30 this, as well as the general physical similarity between the Tarellians and the Old Ones, was enough to excite the then recently-freed Eldar goddess Isha about the possibility of finding surviving fellow survivors of the War in Heaven and Age of Strife. Although, still acclimating to the current situation in the galaxy, Isha made plans to travel to Tarellian space at the first opportunity. The mage-priests were excited at the prospect of an outsider taking an interest in their gods, and eagerly escorted Isha to the nearest temple to “show her their gods”. However, Isha’s hopes were to be dashed. Instead of finding living, breathing Old Ones, she found stone statues and temples filled with a few attending devotees. Isha, furious at having her hopes raised at and having that hope yanked away just as quickly, almost lashed out at the “horrid little newts” in her grief and rage, before being calmed down by the Handmaidens. The mage-priests at the time were confused and did not know what they had done to make the outsider so angry, but it is thought that later priests figured out what happened and were slightly bitter to the Eldar about it, seeing Isha’s reaction as a dismissal of their gods.

When the Daemon Prince Be’lakor, the last of the Old Ones, found out that the Tarellians worshipped the Old Ones, he realized he had potential means to take control of the Confederacy. It has long been known that Be’lakor has a habit of setting himself up as the power behind the throne in a number of empires both human and alien in his attempts to break free from the machinations of the Chaos Gods, though typically his involvement with these petty empires was visible only in retrospect. Be’lakor often likes to cover up any evidence of his existence, or better yet lay contradictory evidence or trick his enemies into destroying the evidence for him. However, in the millennia following the Age of Apostasy, Be’lakor began to find he had fewer and fewer civilizations naïve to Chaos to work with, with most either being absorbed by the Imperium, subverted by other aspects of Chaos, or being outright destroyed. When Be’lakor found out the Tarellians worshipped his people, being the last of the Old Ones he was by default their rightfully inherited master.

When Be'lakor felt he had enough information, he made contact with the Tarellians and enunciated his demands. At first, the Tarellians were surprisingly receptive to Be’lakor, apparently believing his claims and requesting that he meet their mage priests at their peoples’ traditional sacred meeting grounds to consecrate his reign. However, when Be’lakor and his court of Warp anomalies manifested in front of the Tarellian mage-priests, the Tarellians dropped the act and Be’lakor realized that for the first time in millennia he had miscalculated. Despite worshipping the Old Ones, Tarellian society is largely meritocratic and achievement-based to the point that social advancement is based on personal deeds.For Be’lakor to show up and claim that the Tarellians should fall to their knees and worship him because he is one of their long lost gods simply because he is a god, rather than what he has accomplished with his godhood, was highly insulting. The mage priests told him as much to his face.

This, according to Kroak, leader of the Tarellian delegation, meant one of two things. Either he was a fake god who knew nothing of Tarellian culture and was stealing someone else's title and accomplishments for his own ends, or he was a terrible god with no glory to his name and did not deserve to be worshipped in the first place. On that note, the Tarellians revealed the so-called “sacred meeting grounds” Be’lakor had met them at was actually a fake (which, the Tarellians added, if Be’lakor had really been one of their gods he would have realized was a fake in the first place) built above a vast cavern and wired with explosives. Then they triggered the explosives and sent Be’lakor and his retinue screaming down the mile-deep crevasse. Kroak himself dealt the final blow, striking the daemon prince with a house-sized rock as he tried to fly out of the rockside and burying Be’lakor beneath the debris.

Unfortunately, the Tarellians paid a terrible price for their insolence. The Tarellians had maintained their freedom, but they had done so by humiliating Be’lakor, someone to disrespect at your own peril. Be’lakor would not tolerate such disrespect from the younger races, but he was patient and more than willing to play the long game to get his revenge. Less than twenty years after the Tarellians banished Be’lakor, Hive Fleet Leviathan made galaxyfall. It is rather noteworthy that despite coming from the same general direction as Behemoth, something made the Hive Fleet change course at the last minute causing it to take a different path through the galaxy. Right through Tarellian space.

Nicassar

The nicassar are a species of gasbag sophont, a species in which the organic components are wrapped around bladders or other containers filled with a lighter-than-air gas (usually hydrogen or helium) to form an organic blimp. Through an unusual quirk of evolution life on the nicassar homeworld evolved in such a manner that their physiology produced hydrogen gas as a waste product. At some point an organism developed a way to capture this waste gas in bladders rather than just release it and a whole evolutionary radiation of floating organisms evolved (lightning strikes are fun on said world). The Nicassar homeworld’s gravity is higher than Earth (which actually improves flight ability for large animals due to denser atmospheres), and the Nicassar also supplement their natural hydrogen buoyancy with their psychic powers.

The nicasssar themselves basically look like furry UFOs with bear-like heads and six arms spaced evenly around the “disk” of their body. Their belly is covered in tough plates of skin kind of like an armadillo carapace when they want to drop to the ground to rest or hibernate. They actually give birth in a similar manner to Earth marsupials, the baby is born small and underdeveloped and crawls into the mother’s pouch during their frequent hibernation bouts, where they will suckle while the mother’s deflated body hangs from the ceiling like a bat until she wakes back up. Because of their status as gasbag sophonts, the nicassar tend to have a rather ethereal, “breathy” voice, even when communicating telepathically.

Nicassar are driven by an insatiable curiosity and are compelled to travel and seek out new experiences. This is as much rooted in biology as anything else, since as large airborne organisms it encourages them to disperse everywhere. Between their psychic powers, ability to hibernate, and three-dimensional thinking, it was rather easy for the Nicassar to develop space travel. They had spread out pretty widely (but thinly) over the area near Ultramar and the Tau cluster, and were well-known to the Imperium before they started letting alien races join.

Even after the Imperium started letting other species in, the nicassar were almost deemed Xenos Independens because of their wanderlust and curiosity. When the Tau were an independent power of the Imperium, it was hard to keep them out of Tau space. In many ways they were like the hrud, except unlike the hrud you could get the nicassar were capable of if they really had to. The primary fear was that the nicassar would go to a Chaos-corrupted system that was put off limits, get corrupted, and then spread it to the rest of the galaxy. Some even worried that their curiosity and desire for new experiences was a ready-made gateway for Slaaneshi corruption. And indeed, there are Chaos nicassar, like there are Chaos everything else, but the isolated nature of their conclaves makes it difficult for corruption to spread, and the initial fears of the nicassar being a vector for Chaos corruption seem to have been unfounded. Indeed, as the nicassar are all psykers, they knew about Chaos from the start and knew that it was only a shadow’s width away. It wasn’t some forbidden fruit waiting for them to come and visit it in some far off system, they had looked upon it already and presumably at least most turned away.

As they are curious by nature it could be more on the nature that they need interesting stuff to think about and they exhausted the potential for this of their homeworld. To this end they like stories and due to their psychic nature consider people to be walking storybooks. They travel a lot through tau space not because they consider the tau to be more interesting than any other group of people in and of themselves but because their homeworld, and their primary breeding ground, is on the border between Tau Empire and venerable Ultramar. It is frontier space for both peoples but the novelty hasn't worn off for the blue-skins yet whereas their ships in Ultramar space barely get mentioned because of how often they have been seen down the long years due to diplomatic interaction between the Tau Empire and the Imperium. Overall, the nicassar are kind of like the Diasporex in their tendency to wander endlessly and their nature as traders, but the Diasporex are in the northwestern corner of the galaxy and the nicassar are centered on the Eastern Fringe.

In more recent years, the tau have used the nicassar as a method of training the human and others psyker in their domain when no alternative can be made, the problem with this being that the Nicassar are unreliable and although they will let you on their ship they won't usually stop the ship so you will more than likely complete your training on the other side of the sector. The ships aren't all that fast but they are extremely efficient and low maintenance and so never have to stop. However, the positive of the Nicassar psyker training is that it's free. The presence of the new person on the ship is a new book to read and a new ear to listen. The Nicassar love to tell stories as much as they love to hear them. However they are made happy by gifts of sugary food. Honey in particular.

The ships of the Nicassar are not the most advanced in the Imperium, they are built for efficiency and rugged durability over most other concerns. For much the same reason they aren't the most well-armed or armoured. They don't typically go very fast because the inhabitants like to run them on the equivalent of not much more than tick-over. When startled they are more likely to run than fight, they might as a people look somewhat frightening in a bizarre way but they are not naturally aggressive or fighters. Their ships when commanded to do so do have a surprising turn of speed as the inhabitants shape their minds and psychic shape into something like giant sails and plunge deeper into the warp than most will go to get the deeper currents.

The technology that allows for this method of warp travel is non-transferable as it is linked directly to the Nicassar's psychic ability in some way. Attempts by both commissioned adepts, hereteks and earth caste specialists to build an analogous system for human or other species have met with only failure.

Ulmeathic League

The Ulmeathic League was a collection of world protected/subjugated (the correct word becomes very hard to define when talking about the League) by the Ulmeatheans, a species of large (eight to nine feet tall outside of armor) semi-aquatic reptilian xenos that resemble crocodilians or marine iguanas. The Ulmeatheans are primarily herbivorous, having evolved from more carnivorous ancestors, but only relatively recently, still having the claws and large fangs to match. Their hide is covered by white, calcified callouses similar to those seen on marine iguanas or whales, which makes their skin even tougher to penetrate. Other than their callouses, their hide tends to be variations on green with some being almost blue and some being almost yellow, becoming gray, leathery, and with more pronounced scales with age. They have the ability to regrow severed parts given time but a limb will still take a few years. They are cold blooded and long lived, typically living about 100 to 120 years barring major illness or injury with the record being 168. They do have two sexes but outsiders can't tell them apart, the men tend to dress in brighter colours is about the only clue. Despite rumours they can't smell if you are lying and their sense of smell is no better than the average humans, similarly their visual range doesn't extend into the infrared. They can distinguish between colours better than baseline humanity and are brilliant at spotting thing like holofields, camelioline and camouflage nets.

Ulmeatheans naturally operate on a very authoritarian way of thinking with heavy emphasis on the notions of dominance, thought to be due to their evolutionary history and social structure. To the Ulmeatheans, the strong deserved to rule and the Ulmeatheans ruled the Ulmeathic League because they were strong and at the top of the social heap. The Ulmeathic League was primarily a caste system composed of the Ulmeatheans and a few other species of xenos. The Ulmeatheans were exclusively rulers and warriors, whereas The other species basically ran Ulmeathic civilization and performed all other tasks. That was how Ulmeathic society ran and for a good long while it worked. Any of the subjugated species could have challenged them for dominance and if they won their roles would have reversed and the Ulmeatheans would have been fine with that.

The Imperium never bothered much with the Ulmeathic League beyond token diplomats and a few Rogue Traders. They were between the Ghoul Stars and Tarellians space on the edge of the galaxy, stayed out of other people’s business, and acted as a good buffer. The Imperium left the Ulmeathic League to themselves and more or less forgot about them due to more pressing concerns. Then Hive Fleet Naga came. The first real contact the Imperium had with the Ulmeathic League was a refugee fleet telling them that the League was gone. Just gone. To their credit the Ulumeatheans themselves had fought to damn near the last and bar a very few Ulumeathic children the ships were packed to the gills with their vassal races.

The Imperium offered the refugees settlement rights to a few systems with habitable but not all too pleasant worlds, gifts the League survivors accept with tears of gratitude in their eyes (well, if they were prone to such emotional displays, anyway). Today the League is a fading memory of better times. The Ulmeatheans were proud alpha males and females in the League’s prime, now they just look lost and sad. The younger generation deal with it better because they only heard tales about the League and how mighty they once were but they were either too young to remember or were just eggs when it all died. Soon a generation will be born without any contact with The League, Imperial Ulmeatheans. But the old grey-scales remember and they know the League won't rise again so they make lives as best they can. The Ulumeatheans have not tried to regain any of their old authority, their whole society is about knowing your place and they know theirs in the Imperium. They do though make very good soldiers.

The fact that the Ulmeatheans are reptilian, their ancestors were carnivorous, and their homeworld was right next door to Tarellian space raises the possibility that they are yet another lost Tarellian colony, ones that became “ab-tarellian” in the same way that ogryn are abhumans. The Ulmeatheans are incredibly offended by the idea that they were just an offshoot of those other tiny pipsqueaks (six feet being pipsqueaks by their standards); they forged their empire themselves, thank you very much. Younger generations are also prickly about it, though some are willing to entertain the idea. Actual geneticists don't know either because of said pricklyness, but consider it an avenue worth investigating further in trying to create or consider it possible but hard to tell with how prone Tarellian genetics are to shifting to fit their environment, or are working on finding out alongside their main project of seeing if they can use that malleability to create some scaly super-soldiers.

Passer

The Passer are an avian race located in roughly the same region of galactic space as the Ulmeatheans, though their tech was universally ahead of the lizards, if still comparable. Even so, they were friendly and a bit naive, so they played buddy with the big lizards and helped them onto their interstellar feet. The two races saw each other as equals- Ulmeathics perhaps begrudgingly, but if the strongest should rule, then those of equal strength should be of equal standing, and the fact that their technology was the source rather than physicality didn't really affect that- strength is strength is strength.

Then some other race in the local galactic neighborhood started expanding, and were expanding through the worlds of the Passer first. While their name isn't remembered, their savagery and brutality most certainly is, as well as their penchant for taking slave to serve as labor and "entertainment." The Passer fought and fought hard, but while their ships were advanced they had never needed to pump them out on a war footing, and the aggressors had absorbed other races before them and was experienced in the art of killing. World after world fell as their fleets burned and tales of the horrors being inflicted on those who could not flee filtered through, until every Passer world had fallen and the survivors fled in burning ships into Ulmeathic space, gleefully pursued by the ones who even now caged their families and made them perform for their twisted entertainment.

Their assault on the Ulmeathians can be likened to slamming headfirst into a wall.

The Passer had not hidden their plight from the Ulmeathians, and had been sharing all of their information on the invaders, especially once it became clear the end was coming. Technology once reserved to stay competitive was now given freely, along with the scientists and scholars who could teach and implement the new knowledge. They knew the Ulmeathians well enough to understand that doing so meant they would never again be free, that the Ulmeathians would demand their subjugation as they were no longer equals, yet they chose to at least sell their freedom to the masters who would not slit their throats in front of their families and laugh. For some, it was simply passing on the torch in hopes that maybe their neighbors would survive the onslaught in some fashion, unlikely though it seemed. Those who thought so grimly were unprepared for the Ulmeathian response.

Unlike their plucky neighbors, the Ulmeathians were prepared for conflict, and had already set their war machine into terrifying motion, the steady beat of a heavy drum announcing their slow but steady march upon the warpath. Asteroids were ground to dust for shipyards that worked beyond their designed parameters, every male and female unnecessary for production drafted and pressed into service, and generals and admirals meeting daily to review new information, give orders, and draw up battle lines and strategies.

When the enemy came, they found fleets triple the size of any they had faced before, worlds hardened and prepared to endure sieges for years, and cold reptilian minds unflinching in the face of their vessels decorated with the corpses of their victims. The fight was long and bloody, the Ulmeathians never hesitating to sacrifice lives if it created an opening, never failing to go for the kill on a fleeing opponent, never falling back or giving so much as a single inch.

Then the Ulmeathians began to push the invaders back.

Their advance through what were once Passer worlds was slow but inexorable, their industrial might combined with Passer advances meaning their losses were always replaced by stronger, improved forces. Ship by ship, world by world they advanced, each world retaken immediately being mined for resources and fortified against counterattack, the rubble of a destroyed civilization being used as bricks in defensive walls.

The Ulmeathians had taken prisoners at first, respecting those who submitted to those stronger than them. Then they reclaimed their first Passer world, and saw what had been wrought. There was no more mercy after that.

The once-haughty invaders began to crack against this onslaught; once-timid races they had subjugated began rebelling once more, their leadership bickered and set upon one another with pointed fingers and bitter accusations that may have robbed them of their finest minds. They saw the stone boulder rolling towards them, and could not comprehend why their slaves could not match the efforts of a numerically-inferior force. They did not understand the unquantifiable multiplier of a willing workforce who did not need to be whipped to work long beyond when their bodies should give out.

The end was a long time coming, but inevitable. Whatever it was the Ulmeathians had seen that so incensed them has been lost, or rather destroyed. Their march did not stop at the worlds of their former neighbors, but onward through the stars claimed by these aggressors, freeing many who had been under them so long they did not know the taste of freedom, and accepted their new masters willingly.

Their crusade was unforgiving and absolute; the vile homeworld of the aggressors was burned to uninhabitable rock, and their works and knowledge ground into dust, even their name struck from all records to erase all trace of who they were. Considering speculation that they had fallen to the Ruinous Powers, this may have been for the best.

It was a bitter victory for the Passers; while their friends had won, the nation founded by their people had burned, their worlds broken and their cities reduced to rubble that had now been used to build fortresses and machines of war. No longer were they caged, but shackles still weighed their ankles, and now if their new masters chose to they could easily inflict the same pains upon them, and this time there would be no salvation. Many wept bitter tears as they braced for the victorious Ulmeathians to turn their gaze from the broken enemy back to their new possessions- for that was surely what they had been reduced to, a prize to be taken for having bested the adversary.

Their tears fell anew when the Ulmeathians pressed tools into their hands, and bid them build not bunkers and bullets, but homes and cities of Passer design. Where they had braced themselves for an iron fist, they found an open hand upon their back; controlling, yes, but also steadying and pushing them back onto their feet. Their brightest minds were accommodated for and recognized, and while they were ruled they were not unrepresented, electing parliaments and senates from their own to implement laws not far removed from their own.

For the Ulmeathians are not slavers, just authoritarian. Though they have no qualms about ruling over their once-equals, they still remember when they stood side by side, and would not allow the kindnesses shown when they themselves were weak to go unrepaid.

F'feng

The F'feng are a desert-dwelling humanoid species. Mostly nocturnal and spent the daylight hours in borrows. They had primitive firearms, some success with agriculture and a very limited industrial base when the Ulmeatheans discovered them. In their way the Ulmeatheans took pity on them and conquered them for their own good, as is their way. All in all they were better off under League rule and in the end, when Hive Fleet Naga came calling, the lizards fought hard to buy some of the F'feng time to escape their doomed world. Technically, the term "F'feng" isn't the name they call themsleves, it's actually derived from a slightly obscene word in base-Ulmeathic that translates to moron. The planet was called Nok-F'feng which was Idiot Town for all intents and purposes. The F'feng had no word for themselves as a species that didn't just mean "people" (and therefore excluded everyone not from their world and quickly fell from common usage) and had no actual word for the planet as a whole.

The Chief Commander who took over the running of Nok-F'feng was unusual and was almost certainly given the "great honour" of being a planetary overseer fore being so unusual. Jovial Ulmeathics do not exist or if they do they are so rare as to be not a consideration and are considered by their peers to be damaged in some way. Krupfoth was possibly a female of good cheer but it was channeled into the usual displays of power and authority that so characterize her kind. Having been given rulership of the Worst Planet in the League she set about making it less shitty. She made all wars illegal on the planet without her permission and declared that she would eat the chief of which ever tribe instigated hostilities. After a few F'feng chiefs being invited to dinner the message was taken seriously.

The energies of the tribes were then set to more constructive uses. Mostly this consisted of diverting or damming rivers, building vast irrigation systems, and generally maximizing the usefulness of what water the planet had whilst simultaneously getting the orbiting patrol boats to nudge chunks of space ice into the path of the planet. As the first stages of the work were reaching completion fruit trees were planted along the banks of new waterways and lakes to hold the earth together.

Krupfoth was not popular with the F'feng as they saw her as enslaving them to her will and denying them the freedoms they had enjoyed as little as a generation ago. But she did not care for the petulant mewling of idiots and her fellow Ulmeathic enforcers ensured that rebellions were short lived and ended brutally. It could not be denied by sensible F'feng that things were objectively better for the average subject if they kept their heads down and didn't cause trouble. They were better fed, less likely to die in skirmishes and raids, there didn't seem to be as many virulent diseases as there used to be and it wasn't as if the Chief was working them to death.

Many of Krupfoth's public speeches had such wonderful lines in them as
"Cower before the might of League engineering prowess"
"Plague and Contagion are slain without mercy"
"Resistance to my agricultural reforms are futile"
"All will tremble as I take your wastelands and beat them into gardens"
"Your petty squabbles are nothing compared to the might of League Law"
"Quake in fear as I call for rain upon the desert"
"Your homes are being protected, peace is been imposed and nothing you can do can stop this"

Nobody could tell if she was taking the piss or not because all Ulmeathic public announcements blatantly emphasize the strength of the current leader, what that strength is being directed towards and a declaration of challenge to any opposition.

Krupfoth was a 112 and very grey in the scales when the Hive Fleet arrived. She did not survive but many of her subjects did. The F'feng no longer hate her, time has changed her in the memories from a tyrant to a noble protector.