Name: Strahlender Viktor

Gender: Male

Legion: The VIII

Homeworld:
Sometime in the far, distant past Abenteuer was originally a tropical world. Humid, covered in vast and lush vegetation and inhabited by a large number of different mega fauna alien species that came in herbivore, carnivore and omnivore varieties. Originally it was settled in the hopes of turning it into a farming world, be it for plants or its animal population. This hope proved... unfounded. The soil proved ill suited for sustaining edible corps on a mass scale and the mega fauna was discovered to be uncooperative to domestication.

Despite these setbacks, Abentueuer's colonization continued. Rather than food production, it turned into a scientific hub as botanists and biologists from all over humanities worlds flocked to investigate what Abentueuer had to offer from its native life. It also proved to be a remarkable tourist destination for various big game hunters in the galaxy who were interested in the planet's mega fauna and the stories and trophies they could provide. It helped that a lot of them actually tasted pretty damn good when cooked.

When the Age of Strife struck and isolated the world, both scientist and big game hunter factions banded together for the sake of survival rather than fight a pointless war for dominance. After all, they were stuck there for the foreseeable future due to the rampaging warp storms, so they might as well get comfortable and make themselves at home.

Many years later in the modern day, about a third of Abentueuer's landmass has been converted into man made settlements and structures while the rest of the planet remains its flora covered self. One would think at first glance that this was a death world situation in which humanity had fought tooth and nail in order to claim what it had from the world but this is actually not true: Their scientific and hunter ancestors both had a deep respect for the natural world, even if for different reasons. As such, they largely invested their time and resources into developing and making use of 'green tech' in order to preserve as much of the world of Abentueuer as possible while allowing themselves to have comfortable lives.

Even if they are no longer bound to the resources of Abentueuer, its people continue to show the same respect their ancestors did. After all, if you hunt all of a species to extinction then the next generation isn't going to be able to make hunting stories of their own.

Appearance:
Strahlender is a giant of a man at 14 feet tall. While he is incredibly physically strong, he is actually somewhat naturally chubby in both body and face. His hair is brown and kept short, while his mustache is generally kept prim and proper while the rest of his face is kept clean shaven with a few exceptions (namely, long term campaigns in which there is little time to break and stop fighting).

Strahlender's power armor was originally based on an early design for terminator armor, but like the rest of his legion it has been combined with the designs of Abentueuer's 'Knight Armor' in order to maintain the same functionality and purpose, but have that familiar feel of home. The primary difference between Strahlender's personal armor and that of any of his legionaries is that of scale, since he tends to tower over them.

While prone to changing up his weaponry in response to battlefield conditions instead of using a singular weapon, Strahlender is best known for the usage of his custom made powersword that is almost as big as he is. While Strahlender could use it one handed if needed, he is much more comfortable wielding it with both hands.

The story goes that it was originally the primary melee weapon of a Armiger-Class Knight who was fighting alongside the 8th when they heroically covered a withdrawal of the Imperial Army from an armored ambush at the cost of the user and the almost complete destruction of the knight itself. Strahlender would honor this fallen hero of the Imperium by claiming the large powersword they used and using it to finish the fight against the foes that had killed them. Strahlender has kept it ever since.

Concept:
A literal 'Black Knight' to serve as the Emperor's chief enforcer with efficiency, skill and brutality if need be. However, things go wrong when he's introduced to Chivalry and a desire to embody the greatest of human virtues.


Skills:
Leader of Men:
Strahlender is a strong, charismatic man who fundamentally feels that humanity doesn't need to be driven like sheep, but led. He will never ask someone to do what he is unwilling to do himself and if battle must be fought, he will always be among the first leading the charge. These convictions bleed over into his words and actions and inspire loyalty and a desire to follow him on his cause and to do the best that they can in its name.

Weaponsmaster:
Strahlender makes use of a number of different weapons, depending on the battle in question he is about to fight. He knows how to use all of them at an inhuman, master level.

Strength of Conviction:
Strahlender is an honorable knight who follows his own code of chivalry and glory. He will follow this code of honor above the laws of men and Emperor. There is no force in this universe that would make him deviate or abandon it, consequences be damned.

Science Nerd:
Despite being an adventuring knight with a code of honor and a desire for glory, Strahlender is rather intelligent and highly educated in various fields of science and technology.

Assignment Grade:
Kappa

Strahlender really doesn't have much in the way of psychic ability, nor has he ever tapped into it before. Maybe one day he might sit down and actually explore this side of himself but for the time being he has better things to do.

Legion Name:
The Black Guard.

Legion Number:
VIII. The Eighth.

Primarch:
Strahlender

Concept:
The Emperor's Enforcers.

Without the guidance of their Primarch, the Black Guard are notorious for their willingness to maintain the order of the status quo, regardless of if that order is just or fair. They are also prone to efficient brutality to restore order as quickly as possible, regardless of if it is the best course of action they can take for long term stability. Infrastructure is a much greater priority in their military planning then civilian causalities, since the tides of humanity can easily replace those revolting.

Faction Name: The Schuisse Guardians

Faction Overview/Concept: An elite mercenary regiment claiming a heritage of bodyguards and hired soldiers for rulers dating long before the Age of Strife, roving the wastes of Terra to offer their services in exchange for supplies and advanced technology. What they lack in numbers they make up for in skilled training and organization.

Faction Assets: The core fighting force of the unit is around 1,000 combatants, with additional support staff, transportation, and similar. Primarily they operate as a special operations infantry force, outfitted with general infantry small arms and body armor. Their more specialized troops, known as the Honorbound, utilize a special form of power weapon, a halberd with a tip that fires a concentrated beam of energy.

Key Characters:
Nico Thron - The current standing leader of the Schuisse Guardians, he's a stern man with a fierce dedication to duty and tradition. Much of his time outside of battle and day-to-day affairs of the company has been to organize what they know of their traditions into a unit history of sorts, cataloging everything the formation's stories say about their past, and how they claim to have been organized and drilled since the start of their existence. After recent success in the lands east of Europa, he's ordered the unit to move further east, hearing rumors of a great warlord in Hymalazia preparing for battle.

Mathis Risch - The second-in-command and leader of the Honorbound, Mathis has long had a reputation for playing opposition advocate to Nico, pushing for consideration of various reforms, reorganizations, and reconsiderations on who to ally with for a contract. He's currently trying to talk Nico out of introducing the company to the ruler of Hymalazia, fearing the lands' proximity to Ursh makes it an unenviable position.

The Honorbound


Regular Infantry

Character Name: Amalasuntha, the Black-Hawk

Rank/Role: Venatari Custodes

Appearance:
Amalasuntha would fit any amongst the custodes, tall and the pinnacle of physical physique but she is as lithe as a hunter on the Himalayan mountainside. Her skin is rough and calloused of years of exposure to the cruel elements and the vast gene-modification and training that those of the Custodes must go through. Her wings have been painted black to mark her shadows amongst the skies, so that those may feel their final fear knowing that one of the Emperor’s chosen has come to slay them. Her head, shaved clean save for a single taut ponytail that would be a clear refinement of her head, though the most notable would be the mask that belongs to another faction within the Imperium - which covers her mouth to nose. While she is not amongst such a role, it is a more personal item that she carries on her person.

Biography:

Amalasuntha’s past, whatever of it that has not been completely wiped clean of her time being amongst the vaunted Custodes, was clearly bonded with that of a psychic blank that served as a test for the Emperor, her true sister. No amount of hypno-therapy had been able to break such a bond, her will had been unshakable. However, whatever that sister's name Amalasuntha had never known, given the two were raised in quite different environments, all that was left was the great feeling whenever the two worked in concert. Amongst the heights of the Himalayan Mountains, as the Emperor’s own bodyguard, there was little time for the two to truly understand and get to know each other - nor for any true conversation to occur. Yet, with any chance for performing an operation with her sister, she would always force herself to work alongside them and hunt the psykers that plagued Terra. With Amalasuntha’s one focus being the service and protection of the Emperor, she could not afford such distraction. And yet, she could not say why it was that she felt such anger and hatred when it was her bonded sister that had been felled in battle, felled by a shot from one of the barbarous ‘Thunder Warriors’ that her lord employed whilst securing their first foothold.

It was then that she had slaughtered the Warrior, killing him savagely and swiftly as if the Thunder Warrior had threatened to kill the Emperor himself. Amongst her shield-kindred, it was known that her aggression and ferocity had grown and her goal had been shifted to keep a distant eye upon those warriors so that they might know what happens if they were to be given into their degradations. It is Amalasuntha who served as a great judge of how the Warriors conduct themselves, inspiring fear and awe amongst their ranks. For this reason, she had been given the armor Venatari, so that she might cast an infernal shadow amongst the battlefields of Thunder Warriors, marking any who might stray from their path for an early demise. Amongst these prospects she has been effective in determining the quality of them, becoming a hawk with her mice.

The XIII Primarch

Primarch | Zaphariel ibn Varranis, Malik of the Illuminated Pandjoras Star Sultanate, Sheikh of the Star Serpent, Unifier of the Thirteen Houses, Child of the Hassan, Star Emir of the Dusk Sands, Master of the Suma’tah, Grand Faris of the Thirty Palaces, Grandmaster of the Assassins, Emissary of Falak, Nazim of the Seventy Sectors, Padishah of the Umbral Armada, Conciliator of the Three Hundred Worlds, the Arbitrator, Caliph of Neu Amalut, the Steel Companion, Grand Rival of the Dawn

Legion | The Thirteenth Legion, the undying blades of the dusken lands of the Achaemenid. A legion built with the concept stolen from ancient Terran legends in the desert sands of the Middle Eastern continents. Their mutability is unparalleled, fashioned from the DNA strung from their Primarch’s ability to adapt to environments at a preternatural rate. Most of their number are referred to as dreamers, awaiting their promised primarch and growing aggressive over the time passed between the dreams of their progenitor.

Appearance | Unlike his brothers and sisters, Zaphariel rises only a mere nine feet, seven inches tall with a thin frame in comparison to hardier primarchs. Tanned skin that threatened to darken under arid skies breathes life into reality, while pale orange orbs stare out with serpentine pupils at those before him. A mess of dark hair permeates around a thin, long face that stretches into finely trimmed facial hair. Thin lines of black trace his eyelids with artificial pigments such that his stares appear more daunting. A sweet scent of cinnamon permeates near the Primarch whenever he eschews his helmet or armaments. Typically, without his power armor, Zaphariel wears silk-like robes heavily embroidered with depictions of bulbous palaces and dunes. These breezy, dark robes are laced with gold, cuffs at the wrists, and draw up to a hood to protect against the oddly polarizing weather on Pandjoras.
On the battlefield, Zaphariel adorns the perfected union of his artifice armor and the robes that flutter across its resplendent edifice. With a Maximus helmet that shares the likes of his sons, a heavy hood embroidered with the likeness of Pandjoras hugs the armor and descends into a surcoat that ends in a waist cape. An emboldened emblem of his Legion resides proudly on his chest, while a void serpent engraving wraps around his low gorget in a place of honor. Long tubes of graviton particles run from the back of his greaves up to the power pack and outstretching closely to the edge of his wrists. Like the ash wanderers of Pandjoras, Zaphariel bears a part of their legacy into his armor to be able to handle all manners of gravity turbulence with ease. The armor of Pandjoras is a deadly piece of wargear made for assassination with the tips of the gauntlet clawed and underslung with graviton barrels.
When the battlefield in question changes from diversionary to clandestine, Zaphariel eschews all manner of armor to bear the hassan robes that the old man had raised him with. Midnight black garment of sublime satin tightly garb his body above the low-grade power armor that Pandjoras is notorious for. The armor and robe combination is devoid of appearance, depiction, or emblem.



Homeword | Pandjoras; The jewel of the serpentine Star Sultanate, once classified under Imperial record as a (“Civilized World”), resides in space as an arid beauty unparalleled in its savage nature. A world that hugs the northern edge of Segmenteum Pacificus, inside a stellar empire that snakes close the forgeworld of Stygies. At the height of the Dark Age of Technology, Pandjoras was the crux of its region of space as the primary supplier and hubworld for the sector. The inhabitants of this desert world lavishly delighted in all of their amenities being met to such an extent that the majority of their homes were lifted on anti-gravity mounts. Entire hovering palaces oversaw the automated process of a miniature empire within the realm of humanity. Vast aqueducts acted as the arterial veins that saw their world slowly reforming into a utopian paradise; however, doom met the sector when the Old Night split apart all the work of humanity. Pandajoras felt its death throes as the planet suffered an acute polarity shift in its magnetic core. Millions of anti-grav shunts fell silent leading to a sector-wide apocalypse that resulted in nearly five millennia of famine, death, and technological decay. From then on the golden grains of sand that blanketed the desert paradise became naught but warped, ashen fragments of dusk.
Mere thousands survived the Old Night apocalypse on Pandjoras and untold numbers on other worlds connected to the former coreworld in the sector. The leviathan aqueducts that once saturated their world failed to survive the catastrophic onslaught of post-explosion graviton particles. The natural resources that dubbed the world the crown jewel of the sector were exhausted beyond tribulation. The Pandjorans could not flee their world, nor could their cries be heard to the greater beyond. Thus did the Pandjorans hide beneath the dusk tides of their dune sea in subterranean caverns where the natural lifeforms of the desert world prey upon the meek. Unknowingly, these caverns became the birthplace of the asasiyun and their hashshashin traditions. From the guidance of a lone, old man the Pandjorans rise from the gray grains into their inhospitable world once more. Legacies of the Age of Technology were claimed, cannibalized, and reused to return to the lives their ancestors once had. Pandjoras, however, had significantly changed from oratory stories of their past. The gravity alone had warped along with its sands, vibrant springs of graviton particles pooled in malignant ponds, and hills had become imposing mountains. Hundreds of native-born Pandjorans died in pursuit of bringing mankind back to the surface, yet they succeeded at the turn of the 30th millennium. The people had adapted, refitted their archeotech palaces, and walked the wastes astride specialized suits of powered armor fueled by the very material that had destroyed their civilization previously.
Humanity walked the scarred surface of Pandjoras once again, but fate had other intentions for the Pandjorans. Conflict arose as to the legacy that would lead their people to prominence among the stars again. Wars erupted over petty squabbles of long-dead inheritances. The old man who had guided their people ushered in the first House of the future Star Sultanate - The Caliphate House of Varranis. Those souls that had wholeheartedly believed in the old man banded as enclaves of assassins that either silenced or pushed the usurpers off-world. It was only the beginning of a long conflict but the House of Varranis had won and secured Pandjoras. Thus were the pillars of creation erected for the dwellers of the ashen sands to heartedly live above their subterranean homes. The old man continued to guide his people into building the modern infrastructure and veritable House that would rule the dusken wastes of their world.
In the most modern terms, Pandjoras has been restored to some level of technological height through the future efforts of Zaphariel and the sheer amount of archeotech rubble scattered across the planet. Instead of millions of hovering palaces in the Dark Age of Technology, there now reside a mere thirty that operate as both suborbital stations and bulwarks against foreign interlopers. Foreigners traveling the surface of Pandjoras are prone to extreme shifts in weight, requiring first-time travelers to wear specialized suits of powered armor. On the surface, the black sands lay host to a variety of post-apocalyptic dangers such as graviton lakes and physics-defying serpents the size of mortal men. Despite its initial upheaval, the former desert world remains hell-scorching through the everlasting dusk skies. Enormous refineries stretch the length of the planet, carefully harvesting the particles to return Pandjoras to its original beauty.

Skills |
Weightless: Countless years spent in the strange, abnormal conditions set on Pandjoras grants those that withstand the planet’s atmosphere a level of permanent buoyancy and weightlessness. Zaphariel, and by extension Pandjorans, perform with insane ease within zero-G environments. This includes locations with remarkably heavy gravitational weight. This adaptiveness has allowed the Primarch to act as a flitting wraith in normal environments, further pushing his ability as a trained assassin and granting an air of lightness around him. Despite this special trait, Zaphariel and the Pandjorans must routinely weigh themselves down with adamantium augmentations and avoid extremely punishing blows lest their skeletal structure cave beneath the force. Curiously, the Thirteenth Primarch had always felt the weightlessness as an innate trait of his person, but never understood the genetic compatibility with Pandjoras' obscure density.

Master of Coercion: Zaphariel is remarkable at convincing and manipulating those around him to act or perform the things that he wishes. This profound ability to weave words, dance around political games, and duck through near-galactic incidents has granted Zaphariel a form of impenetrable shield in most situations requiring any level of dialogue. While this skill is invaluable in regards to interacting outside of the Legion, it falls short when interacting with those within the Dusk Wardens. This is because the Sons of Zaphariel require no coercion to blindly follow the orders of the Star Sultan, and neither do those under the hierarchy of the Primarch require overt persuasion. Although known to only a select few, the Malik of Pandjoras can push the psionic limits of coercion with his words. Unconsciously, or intentionally, the words of the Thirteenth Primarch can become reality with a reverberating echo. Those who listen, even with a high willpower, find themselves under his temporary thrall. Those not enthralled, typically those with outlandishly unnatural willpower, find themselves weakened by the attempt.

Suma’tah: One of the most intriguing abilities about the Primarch is his stumbling creation of a martial ka’tah. Suma’tah was born from the intrinsic fighting ability of the Star Sultan, the strict survival scenarios on Pandjoras, and the harsh lessons taught to him by the Master of Assassins. The suma’tah is the dance of the desert, twirling between grains of sand with the breath of the wind upon one’s lips. This fighting style focuses on nimble footwork, precision blade handling, and oneness. The stillness of the body allows for perfect control over one that is already considered genetically perfect. This blade work is precise, methodical, and utterly deadly. Each strike of the blade is a piercing slice to a jugular, a fresh cut to an artery, or a vivisection to a vital organ. To counter and defeat this art is to be irrationally strong, deft, or psionic enhanced beyond what an immortal can achieve. Before Zaphariel had met his Legion and the Emperor, he had simply thought it was necessary to learn as part of their furusiyya. A bastardized, imperfect version of this fighting style has been passed down across the Dusk Wardens.

Eyes of Hassan: The mystical eyes of Hassan are the mutations granted simply by surviving on the dusk sands of Pandjoras. These are rumored to be gained whenever the ashen grains touch the bare skin of a person, others speak that it is the graviton pools that pollute the atmosphere. In truth, it is a combination of both. Graviton particles occasionally sublimate dusk grains into a micro powder that infiltrate the retina and open porous’. Those with the Eyes of Hassan experience their retina turning orange and their pupils sharpened to slits, granting distinct predatorial eyes. An unusual side effect of the Eyes of Hassan, other than cosmetically, is the ability to physically see vibrations, changes in the wind, and view a unique infrared common to the void serpents of Pandjoras. Zaphariel gained the Eyes of Hassan from an early age while left in the open air of Pandjoras’s volatile atmosphere; however, this mutation only further improved his abilities as a warrior and a hassassin. When the Legion arrived on the dusken sands to reunite with Zaphariel, he bade them walk into the deserts without a helmet such as he did. Now, as a process of initiation, Legion recruits will wash their eyes in a processed mixture known as the ‘Tears of Pandjoras’.

Grandmaster of Assassins: To the people of House Varranis, it is no secret that Zaphariel holds the title of Grandmaster to the Order of Assassins. The only recorded individual on Pandjoras to own such a title is only known as the old man of the mountain - Zaphariel’s adoptive father. The old man has passed on every single shred of knowledge known to him onto his adoptive son, molding him into the ultimate asasiyun. The title alone holds significance to those around him, one that he isn’t afraid to use in the appropriate circumstances. Through the old man’s training, Zaphariel can become one with the shadows or the twisting dusken sands of Pandjoras. Any tool was a weapon of assassination from a a grain of sand to a macroclade fleet. Any single individual was a body to utilize. These tenets were passed onto his sons as a form of teaching from master to students. A hafiz in his own right.

Assignment Grade | Beta. The Thirteenth Primarch has always exhibited intense talent for the psionic arts even at a young age. The first of his abilities was noticed upon discovery as he controlled a tide of venomous serpents through his words. These talents were only further honed through the Old Man of the Mountain's training as a hassan. Everything and anything was a weapon that could be utilized. The Empyrean was one tool that entered into that philosophy for Zaphariel ibn Varranis. Biomancy became the essence of his dive into psionic supremacy, pushing the limits of what a deity of mankind could achieve. Cellular regeneration, psionic speed, and enfeebling words became the primary weapons of his warp-influenced dominance. Chief among his stellar abilities as a psyker was his 'words of reality', a bespoken skill to psionically influence those he spoke to perform unhindered by forced reactions. This ability alone has become his most honed craft, skillfully improved to reduce a psionic footprint and drastically increase the length and strength of the coercion. At the furthest edge of his psionic talents, the Thirteenth Primarch can feel the innate gifts of Diviniation just outside of his peripherals. A connection to the deepest edge of the warp draws a thin web to something lost beyond the veils of reality.

Concept | The Thirteenth Primarch, the Unifier, supplanted with the guile and spoken charisma of the Master of Mankind in genetic form. He alone bears a level of persuasion unparalleled in other beings of his kind, but he does not share the strength or fortitude of his siblings. Smaller and weaker, the Thirteenth proves his worth to the Emperor with his cunning, martial skill, and diplomatic prowess. Designed with the thought of a unifier in mind, the Thirteenth has proven his abilities through his accolades; however, his deceitful nature has only awakened doubts beyond peril within the vast expanse of his mind. This natural doubt evolved through the teachings of Pandjoras’ hassans, willingly accepting the ideology of weaponizing everything and everyone. Despite this, the Malik of Pandjoras readily accepts his siblings either in truthfulness or in an attempt to utilize them for future endeavors.

Legio XIII - Bronze Scorpions

Assassin-Dreamers of the Thirteenth Primarch

---

---

Legion Number | XIII

Legion Strength |
At the dawn of their inception, the Bronze Scorpions numbered only a hundred from the young dredges on the outskirts of the Achaemenid Empire. As the long, desert nights grew on, the Legion expanded to two-hundred and fifty souls by the time Jermani had fallen. When the Astartes were unleashed unto those that defied the Emperor, His scorpions had grown to a thousand in number. When Abyssna had fallen to pincer and stinger, the Legion slaughtered into the Pan-Pacific Empire with two-thousand seven-hundred-and-fifty Astartes. As Ursh fell to blade and bolter, it did so with five thousand scorpions. Lo, behold, that the stars became infested with ten thousand insects as prophecy whispered from their lips.




Legion Appearance |
The Bronze Scorpions adorn their armament in their namesake, copper hue slabbed on chestplate, helmet, and pauldron. In keeping with their heritage in the Achaemenid steppes, these Astartes cloth themselves in dark fabric that double as cover and an emergency weapon. As the Legion kills, massacres, and cleaves through conquered regions, they decorate their weaponry and armor with trinkets, trophies, and paraphernalia. Skulls, tanned skin, and shards of broken monuments hang from pauldron and tabard alike as an intended tactic to sow fear. On their right pauldron forever sits the numeral for their clade, and on the left side resides the paired scorpions guarding their Legio number, XIII. Seniority amongst the scorpions are rarely depicted by plumes or cloaks, rather their hierarchy is represented through pincer and stinger. The upper echelon (praetors, consuls, etc.) sharpen the tips of their gauntlets, mount metallic scorpions to their helmets, and fashion chains to their weapons. Prolific weapons for use in close combat, those that command the legion fashion themselves as living weapons in the heat of the battle.

Without their armor to defend them, the Bronze Scorpions appear as dusken facsimiles of their distant genefather. Pleasing to the eye, tanned skin, and thick clumps of dark hair compliment their otherwise rugged features. Thinner and more toned in comparison to other Astartes of different breeds, the Thirteenth’s sons deceptively appear shorter and weaker to combatants. This fact of their physical feature is only a boon as it allows them to stab into disregarding necks. Where other Legions would certainly outperform in strength, the Scorpions outperform all in speed and silence. In rare cases abroad, some Bronze Scorpions have been able to perfectly blend in with mortal crowds upon Terra due to their flaws. Light footsteps and thin frames only enhance their abilities as supreme killers.

Legion Warcry |
‘Blood of the Sand!’ or ‘Gloria Scorpii!’ are uttered when operating on their own in a secular environment, away from other agents of the future Imperium. When working together with other components of their liege’s military, the Scorpions will shout ‘Ave Imperator!’ or ‘Gloria Raptoris!’ as is most common amongst Imperial forces on Terra and beyond.

Legion Tactics |
The Bronze Scorpions claim their forcewide infamy from their bizarre tactics. A natural blend of highly aggressive shock assaults, perfectly augmenting covert ambushes and conniving assassinations. Their brutal efficiency in clandestine operations and shock warfare earns them an infamous reputation as little and less is left behind in the wake of their open battlefield warfare. Fatal feints, elusive flanks, and heinous pincers bait foolish opponents directly into insectile stingers. Many reasons exist for the use of underhanded tactics such as these, but their reasoning is nothing short of their genefather’s affliction of weakness. After startling surprises from their first few assaults, the scions of the Thirteenth have adjusted to counteract their inherent fragility. If their enemies could break them easily, then certainly they could inflict the same devastation a thousand times over.

These Astartes thrive in urban environments as opposed to field battles, despite their notoriety as ferocious slaughterers. No amount of words could properly explain the depths to which the Scorpions will go to assure victory within a city. Controlled slaughter, assassination, burglary, kidnapping, torturing, sabotage and more await those that face-off against these genewarriors in the darkness. Even those that they consider friendly are not immune to these as the Scorpions will intentionally let a defensible location fall in order to butcher the celebrating attackers. The Scorpions will go as far as to abandon a city entirely if their tactics will not work, if only then to wipe it completely from reality with orbital bombardment, mass artillery barrages, or malicious internal detonation. Many wonder where the Thirteenth learned their tactics from, yet none dare tell the answer. Always, unless confronted by their liege, they would answer ‘from our dusken dreams’.

In the early years of their deployment, these assassin-dreamers would operate in ten-men cells known as clades. Each clade, unlike a host, would be assigned pivotal targets by a consul while in an operational zone. A small set of clades is then managed by a praetor in any given situation, either electing to view their unit destroy and slaughter or join in on the carnage. All of the praetors are supervised by the Legion Master, who commands the entire force structure from beside, furthest within, or farthest behind them. When operating as a single conglomerate, the Legion Master will eschew all usage of the clades and begin full-scale battle tactics as a cohesive army. In the later years of the Unity, the Bronze Scorpions will opt for Terran Standard Organizational Template as all other Legions. Only when tragedy befalls them deep within the promised stars will their organization drastically change once more.

Legion Characteristics/Ideologies |
A common phenomena when dealing with the Bronze Scorpions, even in the early stages of their deployment, was the eerie and distasteful reactions from others. Even fellow Astartes found their brutally cunning and insular attitudes difficult to deal with. Despite their inherent, unnatural charisma gifted to them from their genefather, the Scorpions never failed to repulse and attract outsiders. Grisly displays of butchered trinkets, treacherous attitudes to anything other than the Emperor and his cohort, and a wildly xenophobic culture begrudged their Legion. Though their reputation is forever stained, the assassin-dreamers truly hold no disdain for their cousin Astartes legions. A plethora of actions confirmed their repulsion, but none so much as their near-religious talk regarding their yet-to-be-found Primarch.

Even amongst the most tactical minded of their number, the Bronze Scorpions suffered from frequent visions and dreams regarding their genefather. Small recollections of the Thirteenth Son’s childhood in the black sands of an unknown world, or frenzied attacks against gravity defying creatures haunted their waking world. Regardless of their mental torture, these Astartes were able to turn their dreams into training as they utilized every bit of information learned from within. Influenced from beyond, the Scorpions took tendencies, habits, and experiences from their genefather. At random moments in interaction with one of these Astartes, one could noticeably see the shift in their demeanor when using the Thirteenth’s memories. Only those at the upper echelons can fully exploit this phenomena, extrapolating their Primarch’s talents into raw knowledge and technique. Thus the spread of a peculiar doctrine has spread throughout the Legion, paving the way for mere Astartes to become supreme assassin-dreamers. In due time, they would live up to the whispered ranks of those beings within their visions.

Perhaps it isn’t the fault of the genesons that they falter from frailness and psionic insanity. Perhaps it is the very thing that nestles deep within their radically altered biology that afflicts them so. The geneseed of the Thirteenth Son is a precarious strand of genome, a growing organism that follows the same template as each and every other similar to it. High mutability, high adaptability, and high performance enhancement like others of its kind. Unlike other genomes, their seed was cursed from the beginning either from lack of material or unfavorable events. All of the Bronze Scorpions suffer from inherent fragility and weakness, their structural anatomy degrading within the first years that the Black Carapace is integrated. Despite this overwhelming flaw, their bodies become lighter, faster, and easier to manipulate than other recorded Astartes. Their troubles fail to halt at that implant as a mutation occurs between the Omophagea and the Sus-an Membrane approximately three years after full geneseed growth. The nervous system augmented by both implants, either through mutation or psionic potential, merge into a singular cerebral nerve that elicits visions during periods of rest. Due to this, these Astartes exhibit expert control over all functions of both organs while being hindered by their genefather’s memories. Only time can tell whether these geneflaws will resolve upon reuniting with the Thirteenth Son.

Legio Cataegis ‘I’, God-Slayers

Faction Overview | The First Thunder Legion, the first gene-warriors amongst their numbers to bear the lightning and eagle of the Emperor’s sigil. Titanic, bloodthirsty Himalazian knights with the same genecode as the most honorable of their number; Aeternus Rex. The foremost amongst the twenty regiments to cast off the shackles of religion and guide humanity alongside the legendary form of the Master of the Lines. Their gauntlets, stained red with demagogues and warlords claiming divinity, bear the right to grip the heraldry of the Emperor as the ‘God-Slayers’. A brazen, uncouth name for a Thunder Legion built for the sake of slaughtering those that proclaim themselves as deities. The eldest Legion with a tide of veteran warriors that have plunged into the strongest citadels to slaughter technobarbarian kingdoms wholesale. When called upon by the Emperor, or His stewards, the First readily accepts the order with an unnerving readiness. Compared to the barbaric nature of their cousin regiments, the First retain an identity of nobility while showcasing the utter savageness within. Thus their legacy is written by the efforts of their leader in perpetual pursuit of accolades to prove his worth.

Despite their Primarch’s attempt at proven accolades, the First saw the most notable deterioration at the end of combat. Often their fellow Thunder Warrior would slay them in an attempt to preserve the wishes of Aeternus. These actions have been looked upon favorably by the Emperor and his companions, providing the First with more time and warriors to further prove themselves. This culture of noble ‘mercy’ has resulted in no shortage of infighting or emotional outlash. Each argument, complaint, and plea from the First is heard by Aeternus, who shares their burden and relieves their pain with charisma uncharacteristic of their brand of gene-warrior. Thus does the First secretly uphold a personality cult driven around their Primarch, a change that has not gone unnoticed.

Faction Assets |
Three-Hundred Thunder Warriors
One-Hundred and Fifty Units of Mark I ‘Thunder’ Armour
One-Hundred Units of Umbra-Pattern Bolters
One-Hundred and Fifty Units of Scavenged Armour
Two-Hundred Units of Lasrifles
Fifty-Units of Powered Melee Weapons
One-Hundred Units of Motorized Melee Weapons
Innumerable Units of Melee Weapons
Innumerable Number of Escort Vehicles
Innumerable Number of Unmodified Support Staff

Key Characters|

Primarch Aeternus Rex: The noblest, strongest amongst their number handpicked to lead the God-Slayers by the Master of the Line. Devoted, loyal, and charismatic to a fault with a stoic face that hides the pain of watching his brothers die to the ever-present deterioration. Aeternus is well-renowned throughout the Emperor’s forces as a warrior unparalleled in war, compared frequently to the likes of His companions. A perfect warrior, echoed only by a noble soul fraught with strife over the warriors under his command.

Captain Caestus Caligula: First Captain of the God-Slayers, personal protege of the Primarch and friend to many in the Thunder Legions. Caestus is widely known amongst the regiments for the driest humor, rivaled only by the apparent age of the draconic Thunder Warrior. His reputation is eclipsed only by his martial prowess with a lasrifle, capable of decimating and surgically killing. Unfortunately, later into his years, Caestus has sparingly been known to stop dead in the middle of a joke and stare off into the distance before resuming. A worrying sign for the Primarch and those that adore the captain.

Captain Victorius Nero: Second Captain of the God-Slayers, the tactical arm of the Primarch and a renowned, callous general to boot. Where Caestus is the soft commander for his hundred warriors, Victorius is the harsh warlord of his hundred warriors. Few are the times that the two commanders agree on a single topic, usually devolving into a show of force between themselves in front of their warriors. Despite Victorius’ reputation, the Captain heralds results exemplary of his status as a commander within a Thunder Legion. In battle, the Second Captain is a berserker in comparison to other gene-warriors, fighting with a pair of motorized melee weapons in a gruesome hurricane of blood.

Captain Curzio Tiberius: The Third, and final, Captain of the God-Slayers. The voice of reason in a storm of aggression, Curzio is renowned amongst the First for his unnaturally calm attitude towards anything and everything. Where tempers flare between the First and Second Captain, the Third readily steps in with cryptic advice. This strange attitude is a front for an otherwise psychopathic, sinister side that Aeternius begrudgingly exploits. The Third Captain is a master of skullduggery, a capable commander that has harmonized innumerable strategies of the God-Slayers through ambushes and feigned retreats.

The Old Man of the Mountain

Pandjoran Grandmaster of Assassins

Appearance | A tall, lanky elder man with a skull-faced mask permanently suctioned to his face, dressed in dark fabric fashioned from void serpent scales. A short, black beard escapes the bottom of the mask, while salt-and-pepper pulled back hair decorates his scalp when visible beneath his cowl. A pair of unnaturally bright blue eyes stare out from the lenses of the skull facial wear.

Biography | The heritage and history of the Old Man of the Mountain has long been forgotten by the annals of time, hidden in the dark sand of the dusken world. What is known collectively by the unified technotribes of Pandjoras is that the title has been passed down through the ages of their people. This iteration of the Old Man is commonly known as ‘Unifier’, or Muahad in Pandjoran. The name was given to this elder man from his efforts to bring the people of Pandjoras back to the surface from their subterranean homes beneath the black dunes. Through perseverance, innovation, and bloodshed was Muahad able to successfully uplift the Pandjorans to once more rule over the umbral plains. The Old Man guided the local tribes to the tallest mountain across the surface of the dusken world and built Neu Alamut with his own hands. When Neu Alamut was completed, Muahad journeyed across the planet in a grand pilgrimage to reunite the lost tribes and scavenge the archeotech ruins of the long forgotten stellar empire. So it was that he gathered the descendants of the survivors of the Long Night, pillaged the sacred vaults of collapsed palaces, and birthed the first Caliphate House of Pandjoras - the House of Varranis.

With the formation of House Varranis and it’s home of Neu Alamut, the unification effort of Pandjoras began in full swing; however, the Old Man knew that conflict would plague the dark sands of their homeworld. Thus did he band together with the techno-savants of the fallen palaces to construct the first model of powered armor for navigating across Pandjoras. The second House of Pandjoras was born from their technological union, bestowing them the name of Bahamut and allowing them sovereign rule over the archeotech wastes. Humanity could now walk the sands of the world without worry of imminent death, yet even this would not be enough to unify their people. Self-proclaimed warlords began to appear in tribes that had yet to receive their formal proclamations as Pandjoran Houses. Raids and skirmishes peppered the dark dunes of the dusken planet; however, Muahad had anticipated this as his tribe had always done. His tribe, the first of the asasiyun, understood the necessity of death more so than any clan on Pandjoras. It was through the actions of the hassassins, guided by the Old Man, that quelled the rebel warlords and settled the disputes between warring factions.

With time, either through assassination or diplomacy, Muahad united the dusken wastes under the rule of the Caliphate House. Although the Old Man had no wish to rule over his people, he ultimately accepted the responsibility of continuing his role as a hafiz. Under his watchful gaze, the first of the floating palaces was reconstructed and the beginning of modern Pandjoran society began to expand from Neu Alamut. Houses were proclaimed, approved, and allowed their sovereign rule over sections of Pandjoras. Time would pass as the Old Man oversaw the growth of their homeworld, but nothing would prepare him for the arrival of the Thirteenth Son…

Name: Johannes Von Kurplauen

Legion: XVIII Legion

Homeworld: Belivahnn



Psyker Grade: Beta

Skills/Abilities:

Pyroclast focus - His abilities with the warp focus as a pyromancy, and his pyroclastic abilities grow strong and uncontrolled with his anger. When in control, his sword, and helmet typically become immolated in his fire. He also can grow a large pair of firey wings, or at least it appears to be wings from his back. He can release a burst of flame when controlled, and when uncontrollable, he can create a firestorm around his body without thought. While he does study other parts of warp powers, fire is what comes from him the most.

Knight of Belivahnn - Being of one of the roaming knight orders of his homeworld. He is someone who tries to protect others and will do anything to save the lives of the innocent. But, it teaches him tactics, comradery, weapon maintenance, and diplomacy.

Master of Creation - Someone who builds spectacles of engineering and the forge. Creating weapons, engineering ships and vehicles, and constructing incredible architectural feats in buildings and fortresses. Making not only creations of great power, but those that are somewhat pleasing to the eye.

Mighty in Body and mind - While not a militant genius like some of his siblings. He is relatively balanced in the battlefield, a jack of all trades but in one department. He is massive, a hulk of a man in both height and strength. Who's body would be destroyed without any training purely based on his physical might alone. His other half, that of the psyker, is also incredibly powerful, while not as powerful as all, it still helps him in battle with or without him knowing it.

Appearance: A tall bulky man who towers over almost all beings and can be the contender for the tallest of the primarchs. His skin is an almost creme porcelain color, with a thick head of hair. Typically kept in a braid, and his beard was typically kept tamed. The color of his hair is primarily brown, but with red layered to give his hair a brighter color. His eyes are a rose gold color.

His face is relatively rough, and cracked from work, the sun, and wind upon his face.



Concept: Polish Winged Hussars/Russian Cossacks/Teutonic Order after unification

Legion Name: Nightbringers

Eventual Primach : Johannes Von Kur-Plauen

Concept : Not Unified with primarch - Line Infantry and artillery - The Nightbringers legion - Currently Thunder Warrior legion - see below

Color Scheme : Grey, with red highlights/markings.

Known Flaws : None

Faction Name: Nightbringers

Faction Overview/Concept: A Warband of Thunder Warriors underneath the Emperor of Mankind and the namesake of the Eighteenth Legion Astartes, and where the legion of Astartes adapts their tactics from. These warriors typically wore grey, purple details, and a bright red plume on their helmets. Known to be brutal warriors and savages, they are known to make trophies of their enemies and treat battles like competitions. Their mental status tends to see them as rather dull compared to most Thunderwarriors, who use simple and dangerous tactics to defeat their enemies. Mental instability and degradation seem to be expected through the lesser ranks of this legion of the Legio Cataegis.

Faction Assets: (Brief Overview of their Strengths/Capability)
Two hundred and sixty~ Thunder Warriors
Three hundred estimated melee weapons sized for Thunderwarriors
Twenty incendiary projectile weapons
Hundred and fifty larger caliber auto weapons sized for Thunderwarriors
Seventy estimated large caliber shotguns sized for Thunderwarriors

Four hundred men and officers
Three hundred and eighty autoguns
Thirty estimated handguns
Four hundred knives
Twenty estimated swords
Fifteen artillery pieces - 155mm
Twelve large caliber tripod mounted autoguns - 10mm
Five direct-fire assault guns - 80mm
Fifty Hauler trucks
Five Armored Personnel Carriers (Think M54 gun truck from Vietnam)
Seven Armed transportation cars (Think Willys jeep with a machine gun on the back)

Key Characters:
Commander Theadon Red - Commander of the Eighteenth Legion Thunder Warriors - Known for his ability to tame and release the anger within his legion, most notably his captain. He is the one who can reign in the legion and who knows how to release them with 'minimal' damage and casualties. He typically refers tactics and communications to his Lieutenant Bombda. He is also the most potent and capable officer in the legion regarding fighting.

Captain Grunbah - Second captain of the Eighteenth legion Thunder Warriors - Known for his high volatility, skills with a chain axe, and who usually see in red in the moment of a fight. Brutal in combat and post-combat until he has come down from his murderous high. Usually, he has to be led away from people for a short time after the battle has concluded.

Lieutenant Bombda - The tactical 'genius' of the legion, able to mold both the legion's barbarous identity and the combat scenario in front of them. He has to plan and communicate with the legion commander to place the order through, even while in the heat of battle. Typically being in the backlines with the human retinue that mans their heaviest weapons, he would be considered the commander, if not for his lack of authority, as he is seen as the runt of the legion, even though he is one of the most immense; as the legion favors strength and battle capability to decide their leadership.

Character Name: Kelso Vaharr

Role: Priest

Appearance: An older-looking man maybe a hundred years of age. He is bland in most looks, typically seen with a pepper beard and fading, stringy hair. His skin is thin, dusty and ashen, quick to bruise and damage, and it typically shows. He is very boney and gaunt, to the point of looking malnourished. Even though he is pained, he is typically seen with a smile upon his face.

He is usually seen with a wooden walking staff far taller than him. He typically wears bland brown robes and a thin white headwrap.

Biography: Born long ago to another name in the province of ancient Africanus, he was destined to become a sacrificial offering to an ancient god. He was rescued when a man in gold slew the ancient winged god and banished it's soul from the Earth forever. Thus, he and his mother secretly began to worship this savior, as did many others. Becoming another addition to their faith.

But this tribute Vaharr, like this saintly figure, would live on past this time. This man, during his time, would be considered a witch or a seer. It entirely depended on the times he was alive, an Eta-level psyker, and a perpetual. He lived many lives and sometimes felt the inching in his head that a familiar soul was near him. But he would typically be a priestly figure in his life, someone who, even when secular thought was prominent, believed in a higher power, but he believed that that higher power lived among us.

That is what kept him going through the ages; living in different times and places, he would typically hide in the populations and make small sanctuaries within places he had set up in his prior lives. Usually, staying out of people's way and preached to those who needed something to believe in. He lived through many tragedies; he lived and saw many places, met many people and lived thousands of different lives.

But, it changed when those who hated his church and his teachings in one lifetime decided their faith was the true faith. While he survived the onslaught of hordes, martyrs, and murderers, he saw creatures from beyond the mortal realm rip his followers apart and destroy his works. He knew that his higher power was the savior, and that would protect him. He knew that figure out come out to save him, not in this life, but in the next. Thus he took his own life to escape and has done that several times when he has seen the touches of this evil in the universe come for him.

In his current life, he lives in a church in the area of his original birth of the Desert Wastes. His chapel, built into the side of a mountain, is enough to house a hundred souls and is made of stone of the mountain it is built into. There is a system of caves that lead to open basins that are hidden by the mountain. Within these are small ponds of water. Here, he does small experiments to try growing wildlife in the open air and local soil to try to have the old wildlife of Terra reborn into the world once again. So he can see his homeworld as something besides an irradiated wasteland once again. Most of these plants he gets from a small bio lab inside the mountain, he placed them there in a prior life, and now he is trying to help his planet again. But, it is also how he grows food, as a hydroponics bay is connected to it, another hindsight he had placed in.

It does mean that he has to give a food tithe to local warbands sometimes who travel in the area and claim it as their own, although most do not live to pick up a second payment. So he lives as a recluse within the world's wastes, hoping to be left alone with those who believe and have faith.

Powers :
Perpetual - Rebirth upon death, his body forges itself anew, or repairs itself back to life. He does use some of this power to try and revive the plants within his laboratory, but often than not, it is up to science, and not the warp to help him there.

Concealment - Able to conceal himself, or when concentrating an area of 150m for a short amount of time to seem as if it is just landscape

Words of empowerment - His words, although they cannot directly control someone to do something, will tend to do as he asks or believe him in most cases. Such as when preaching or when trying to get out of trouble, it works the best.

First forged of the Astartes, Legio I was designed from its inception as a proof of concept for the Astartes project and its capability to enhance as much of mankind as possible. Possessing extremely stable gene-seed intentionally crafted to reduce chromosomal rejection, they can and do recruit from almost every reservoir of the human gene-pool that has sworn fealty to the Emperor. Lacking any singular cultural tradition, aside from the general Hymalazian origin of the earliest Astartes, they are the first fighting force that can be considered to be 'Imperial' in character, the melange of technobarbarian traditions all forced to adhere to and compromise with the broader institution without a central point to rally around.

Serving as both a rapid reaction force that can revitalize its numbers by recruiting from allied local forces as well as a promise that if one surrenders they may attempt to gain such power themselves, it is increasingly common to see them distributed as penny packets across fronts. However, within their central barracks, the First have been given custodianship over some of the most horrid weapons ever constructed, entrusted with using them only at the most dire need or upon the Emperor's orders. This combination has led to many sociology-sages to posit that, over time, the Legion culture will adapt to view itself as the defender of and bridge between humanity and transhumanity at best, or as mankind's rightful rulers at worst.

Faction Name:
Orde Galaksi Baru

(Or the New Galactic Order)

Faction Overview/Concept:
The immediate successor state of the Yndonesic Bloc. The Orde Galaksi Baru was officially recognized by the former leader of the Yndonesic Bloc, Cardinal Tang, and the leading figures of his regime on Vox, TV and before a mighty thong of citizens of the capital Hive City of Baru Jakarta as they handed over the right and power of governance of the Yndonesic Bloc to its new leader Dagon and his new administration, for which they were also turning themselves over for their crimes against the people of the Yndonesic Bloc.

The fact that Dagon is an insanely powerful psyker who actively used their abilities to puppet Cardinal Tang and his people into doing this performance before they were all tired and executed publicly was an open secret. However due to a combination of the hatred of Cardinal Tang and his regime, the fact that anyone in a position to try and lead a war in the name of restoring the old regime was dead and the fact that, despite how questionable the performance might have been this was honestly the least bloody the transfer of power away from Tang and his vile Church was ever going to get, the general population has largely accepted the change in leadership peacefully.

The Orde Galaksi Baru is a relatively new political entity on the stage of Terra and thus its virtues and faults haven't manifested yet. Master Dagon addressed the public after the executions of the former regime, assuring them that effectively immediately that all of the former regimes edicts under Cardinal Tang were to cease and the purging of intellectuals was over. They also proclaimed that this would be the dawn of a new era; The start of humanities return to glory as first they strove to reunite Terra once more before not only returning to and reclaiming their place among the stars, but restoring mankind as the dominate power of the galaxy.

It remains to be seen if the Orde Galaksi Baru can actually achieve this lofty goal, but it is a hopeful message in the darkness of war torn Terra.

Faction Assets:
The Orde Galaksi Baru has inherited the Yndonesic Bloc and did so in a relatively peaceful, popular manner. As such, they have managed to lay claim to the region without the destruction and bloodshed of conquest, civil war or a succession crisis that such an event would normally trigger.

The cessation of Cardinal Tang's various genocidal polices that made up their eugenics program has given the Orde Galaksi Baru a great deal of support and loyalty among the population, but for good and ill those policies were in effect for an extended period of time under the former regime. While the population is likely among the most genetically stable on Terra with mutations and mutants in low numbers due to the purges, the Cardinal didn't exactly limit himself to just mutations in his zeal for racial purity.

The purging of intellectuals with views that opposed the former regime is also something of a blow. Yes there were bright minds that managed to endure the whole mess and they were going to be invulnerable in getting things back in order, but recovery was going to take time... and some things were lost to the flames of mad zealots forever.

Character Name:
Dagon

Rank/Role:
Master. Ruler of the Orde Galaksi Baru.

Assignment Grade:
Alpha Plus

Appearance:
There was once a time in which Dragon could have blended into the masses of the Pan-Pacific Empire as just another face in the crowd. That time has long passed.

Standing at eight feet tall and bulging with raw physical muscle that seemed far beyond the means of baseline humanity, a pair of glowing gold eyes stares out at the world as they crackle with barely contained warp energy. A pair of beautiful black feathered wings extends out of his back, strong enough to actually lift Dagon off of the ground and keep him in the air for short periods of time. His head is devoid of hair, through its hard to tell if its just not growing or if they shave it off.

His hands and feet have mutated into reptile like claws, covered in scales of the purest white. Patches of white and black scales dot along his tanned skin, creating the framework for an interesting pattern that has yet to fully develop.

Biography:
Dagon was not born Dagon. Truth be told they don't actually remember what their birth name even was. It was just something else that was shed during his awakening.

The human that would become Dagon was born in the Pan-Pacific Empire. They had a family that is remembered in blurs, if remembered at all and was raised under the regime of Narthan Dume. Crushed under the weight of the infamous warlord's oppressive government, the family tried to flee into a neighboring region with the hopes that life would be better there. They did not survive the attempt.

Dagon... doesn't quite remember their awakening in crisp detail. Sometimes they remember it one way, sometimes another... but what is consistant is that they remember watching people they were were sure were their family being killed by... something and the pain and stress of the whole situation triggering something deep within his very being. What happened next on the physical world only took six minutes and forty three seconds, with all evidence of what actually happened that day erased from existence in the process. But mentally? Mentally thousands of years passed.

The teenage boy that became Dagon saw the history of mankind play out before him in a grand tapestry of visions. It's early beginnings... its development into a species that could leave their planet and venture into space. The glories and failings of the human nation that claimed the stars before the nightmares of the Age of Strife truly began and tore it all down. Right up until that very moment as the young boy who mentally wasn't a boy anymore sat on their knees in long dead soil as the sheer power of the warp overtook his flesh and twisted his body, screaming until his voice was horse and the bodies around him had completely been removed from reality itself.

The process and knowledge shattered the mind of the former human. But from those shattered pieces something new began to emerge.

The being would call itself Dagon going forward, because that was the name it had held when it was cast out of heaven by God so very... very long ago. This hadn't been the first time it had worn meat and flesh in its long existence, but it was always an interesting experience to have a mortal body of its own again. It was a shame that the human they had been before they had awoken to their true nature had to be discarded, but humanity needed divine intervention if it was going to turn from its dark course.

The age of enlightenment would start in the Yndonesic Bloc.

Faction Name:
Guardians of Sanctii and Her Illustrious Holdings

Faction Overview/Concept:
Located in the frozen wastes outside of the borders of Northern Ursh, the City State of Sanctii is a massive hive city poised on the edge of a great rift in the earth. It has stood defiant against Ursh invasions for as long as the city has kept records of itself, and stands as a shining beacon of progress and science in the Northern lands drawing many a wayward and weary traveler to its curtain wall.

Sanctii operates on a parliamentary council system, with matters of state being proposed and debated at length high atop the central spire and the effects of these decisions being felt as far down as the foundations of the hive. Its people enjoy a standard of living seen only rarely amongst the warlord nations and lone hives of Terra. Food, water, and animal meat is in abundance, due in part to ancient automated mechanisms deep within the hive that provide all manner of genetically modified and strengthened crops and animals for consumption above. Medicine is plentiful, as the hive has a thriving pharmaceutical industry that trades regularly with the Terrawatt Clans to the west, and less frequently with the Selenite Gene-cults of Luna.

This same pharmaceutical industry is also responsible for the purity of the hive, gene therapy, widely learned from and improved upon in many ways from the Selenite methods is widespread, and in many lower areas of the hive it is mandated to stave off aberration and mutation. Among the middle and upper class within Sanctii, gene modification is taken to extremes of beauty and tastefulness. This occurrence extends even to the defenders of Sanctii, the Council providing gene therapy and enhancement to even the lowliest of its defenders. The renown of these defenders is well known to Sanctii’s neighbors, who fear their hulking and deadly defenders.

While the gene therapy of Sanctii lends much of the bite to the cities defenses, it is the massive technological gap that exists between Sanctii and all of its neighbors that has seen it survive so far. Like the ancient mechanisms that keep the city fed and supplied for, Sanctii possesses a considerable cache of Standard Template Constructs practically unheard of in size among all of Terra. Although the exact number of STCs and their specific patterns is a closely guarded secret, it is no surprise to any that visit the city, and especially not to any that have attempted to take it, that the weapons of war Sanctii maintains are both lethal and enduring. Disintegration guns and advanced enclosed carapace armor is standard issue amongst even the lowest of defenders, while weapons and armor only increase in protection and lethality as the ladders of the cities defense force is climbed.

Faction Assets: (Brief Overview of their Strengths/Capability)
- Thriving Pharmaceutical and Gene Tailoring Industry
- A sizeable cache of STCs (Presumed by outsiders to be in full working order)
- Standing professional and genehanced army of 650,000 with an additional reserve of 100,000 and militia numbering close to 1.1 million.
- Capable of stellar travel in limited scale (No further than Luna)

Key Characters:
Yurij Arturovych Yarov - Prime Minister of the City State of Sanctii
Deep Winter - Central Administrator
Nina Kuzmenko - Keeper of the Keys
Stefan Popov - High Negotiator of Sanctii and Her Illustrious Holdings
Vadym Yaroslav - Commander of the 51st Genehanced Guards Assault Brigade

Faction Name:
House Hastings

Faction Overview/Concept:
Mercantile House of Albyon, relocated all House assets to the Hymalazia's after Marquess Willem Hastings encountered emissaries of the Emperor during an expedition to establish trade with the Pan-Pacific Empire. Now entrenched as a middling mover of goods and materiel for the Emperor's war machine, attempting to climb ever higher.

Faction Assets: (Brief Overview of their Strengths/Capability)
- Extensive network of trade assets and connections stretching from Albyon to the Pan-Pacific Empire.
- Hastings House Guard: Well equipped and trained interior Guard of House Hastings
- Considerable supply of land based and airborne trade and security vessels (trucks, land sailing vessels, airships and flyers)
- Hastings Estate: A massive complex of trade related buildings and the luxury villas of the Hastings family, overlooking the entrance to the Kora La Pass.

Key Characters:
His Lordship Willem Brallow Hastings, Marquess of Kora La
Her Ladyship Robyn Vesten Hastings
Lord Grayson Montre Hastings, Baron of Mustan
Lord Jasper Everett Hastings
Lady Elodie Elaine Hastings
Lady Dahlia Amber Hastings

Character Name:
Amaranthus Gallus

Rank/Role:
Ephoroi, Adeptus Custodes

Appearance:
Baroque golden armor of grandiose design, golden helmet with crimson plume, and lenses of the deepest red. Amaranthus has not been seen by those outside of his order unarmored since he was inducted into the Ten Thousand.

Biography:
Amaranthus Gallus Kaspian Venetiae Barkand Labellan Nilus Venetus Lutetia Taramanac Kiev Katabac Zarinam Sanctum Dicentis Xozer Somnium Selenum Aeternum’s story has just begun.

Legion Name:
Frontrunners

Associated Primarch:
Nelchitl Cuamani

Concept:
The major emphasis of the Frontrunners is on maneuver warfare and combined arms. With nearly a third of the Legion made up of Devastator Squads, the Frontrunners prefer to lock an opponent in place at key locations in a battle with overwhelming fires from these squads before sending in Tactical and Assault Squads to maneuver on and destroy the pinned down force using a combination of Dreadnought and mechanized armored assault carriers vehicles to close the distance.

Name:
Nelchitl Cuamani

Legion:
XVII Legion Astartes, Frontrunners

Homeworld:
Ixhun, Segmentum Pacificus

A dense jungle planet located in the Segmentum Pacificus. Originally colonized in the later stages of the Age of Technology, Ixhun was to be used as a major exporter of wood and exotic animals among other jungle related goods.

As the planet received a handful of STCs and more colonists began to bolster its population in preparation for the exploitation of its resources, great warp storms cut the entire system from the rest of mankind even before news of the Men of Irons revolt was able to reach them. Ixhun, like many other planets, was plunged into a state of disarray. For millennia Ixhun remained cut off from the greater whole of mankind. The population of Ixhun finding itself split almost down the middle as the Warp Storms influence began to corrupt the jungle, animals, and even the populace themselves. At first the change was subtle on Ixhun, animals migrating enmasse for unexplained reasons, great blights upon the jungle, and eventually, the loss of contact with the city-states of the Eastern hemisphere.

When the war began it was without warning. In the dead of night the combined forces of the now corrupted Eastern city-states had fell upon the pure states of the West. The fighting was brief, and several smaller cities fell to the sudden onslaught, but as quickly as the attacks had begun they had ended just before sunrise. This pattern continued as night after night the Eastern states attacked only to withdraw before dawn in the event of unsuccessful sieges.

In desperate wars for survival, the loyalist city-states in the Western hemisphere of Ixhun warred with the savage and unrelenting corrupted city-states of the East. Over time the warring took its toll on what little infrastructure and industry existed on Ixhun, causing the planet to slowly revert back to a nearly feral state of technology and knowledge. Weapons slowly moved back to melee focuses as the STCs were one by one lost or simply unable to be maintained by the loyalists.

As the wars raged, the loyalist city-states found themselves pushed ever further back by the (unbeknownst to them) corrupted city-states of the East. Falling back into great walled cities of stone the Western city-states would continue their nightly fight against the East from behind their walls for the next several centuries. This everlasting conflict saw the populace of the West recognizing the Easts apparent disdain of the sun, and in time the West built great flat topped pyramids to perform rituals closer to the Sun, adopted symbology and a mythos that revered the Sun as their ardent protector, a God that kept the night at bay.

The fighting as well gave rise to a great warrior culture, placing emphasis on ones combat ability above most other forms of intellectual pursuits and seeing the ascendancy of great Priestly Warrior Kings within the city-states themselves. Seen as the chosen of the Sun and the protectors of its light, the Kings were worshiped on the level of a deity, and ritual sacrifices of captured enemies were offered to them just before nightfall in order ensure their protection from the encroaching dark lest they fail in their duty to their cities.

Psyker Grade:
Nelchitl's Assignment Grade is Kappa. She possesses no ability to actively harness and unleash her latent psychic ability, though it manifests regularly as miraculously lucky events.

Skills/Abilities:



Appearance:
Coming in at 9' 2", Nelchitl is the smallest in stature of her sibling Primarchs. With dark brown eyes known to deeply entrance or unsettle most mortals Nelchitl looks upon and black hair to match, she is a strikingly beautiful Primarch stirring great emotions in all mortals who gaze upon her. Though her beauty flickers and falters when compared to her sister Primarchs, her beauty is yet undeniable. Possessing a far more lithe figure than the majority of her brothers, Nelchitl is not lacking in strength despite this apparent size difference.

When not in her power armor, Nelchitl opts to wear rather standard Astartes robes and a body glove beneath it.


Concept:
While Nelchitl's brothers and sisters are patient strategists and calculating logisticians, naval geniuses and thousand year empire builders, Nelchitl is none of these things. The tedium of war councils do not suit her, the endless numbers and data sets of the logistics of war bore her, the complex navigational and firing data of naval engagements mean little to her mind, and the finesse of diplomacy required in empire building fails her. Impatient and ever wanting for the next burst of excitement in her life, Nelchitl is very much the antithesis of the vast majority of the children of the Emperor, a tool to be used for the most unceremonious of work. His will be done.

Intended as the Emperor's Executioner, Nelchitl is practically peerless in close combat and possesses a lust for excitement and war beyond simply thrill seeking. Nelchitl often places herself at the forefront of battle where the action is thickest, chasing a worthy opponent and a fight worth remembering. With a tenacity practically unrivaled among her siblings, Nelchitl is relentless in her pursuit of that which she craves. Be it the next hill in thick combat, a planet teeming with xenos filth, or men and material to sate her unending thirst for action. She pushes forward by what means she has along the path most open to her victory until the victory is hers to relish in.

Nelchitl is by no means a blind war crazed Primarch. She understands that not all battles can be won and is more than willing to withdraw a failed bid for the chance at victory another day. Though she possesses a mind more suited to battle than the planning surrounding every engagement, she is more than aware of that fact and leaves the majority of planning to her trusted war council.

Faction Name: the Eternal Monarchy of Ierné

Faction Overview/Concept: a highly militaristic society ruled by a long, ancient bloodline of Navis Nobilite, Ierné has waged a bloody war against the invading forces of Albyon for hundreds of years. They've survived only by sheer, stubborn will, fighting against a nearly overpowering enemy that worships rapacious bloodshed, led by the notoriously brutal Uilleam the Red, reviled by the populace of Ierné as a demon of war and rampant destruction. Ruled by Luigsech, the latest in the line of Novators to rule Ierné, the monarchy employs highly advanced technology, the materials for which are often purchased from Merica or their allies in Franc, then refined in Ierné into locally-produced armaments.

The massive, emerald plateau has been painstakingly preserved -- relatively compared to its surroundings, at least -- though it is still effectively a wasteland compared to what once was. Although somewhat strangely spiritual, due to their ongoing war with Albyon, most psykers are highly distrusted by the people of Ierné, as are those who claim to speak to spirits, other than those capable of binding and disabling other psykers. Others are usually executed or imprisoned in perpetuity after being nerve-stapled.

Ierné exports large quantities of alcohol, drugs and medical equipment, various industrial chemicals, and even anti-pollutants, vital for the production of potable water (particularly those made of gypsum), highly valuable resources only matched by the skill of its chirurgeons and alchemists, who are also given the responsibility of sequencing the genome of every citizen in Ierné, ensuring genetic stability and keeping watch for newly discovered bearers of the Navis genes and ensuring that the inbreeding required to reliably create navigators does not result in crippling genetic defects.

Faction Assets: necessitated by their constant war with the much larger Albyon, despite their military alliance with Franc, most adults in Ierné have some degree of military training, while those actively serving in its military are themselves impeccably trained, well-armed soldiers, heavily genetically modified and augmented, often cybernetically. Short on the materials necessary for promethium fuel, Ierné instead relies almost entirely on its infantry, equipped with light armor, a large quantity of energy weapons, and rarely-used chemical ordnance, employed to pacify and cripple the crazed soldiers of Albyon. Ierné also employs a wide variety of intimidation and psychological warfare tactics, horn-amplified war cries to sonic weapons designed to disrupt enemy troops, and even hallucinogenic chemicals, exploiting the bloodthirsty nature of Albyon soldiers by tricking them into slaughtering each other in the gas-induced confusion.

Gallogach -- the legendary heavy infantry of Ierné, the Gallogach are equipped with a primitive form of powered armor, energy shielding, jump packs, and a wide range of melee weapons, all the way from power spears to melta-bombs, chainblades, their famed Klaimor, and plasma-edged long-hafted axes. Few, if any, are equipped with ranged weaponry, their jump-packs designed to allow them to quickly close with the enemy where they can do the most damage. Like most of Ierné's elite soldiery, the Gallogach receive a relatively large quantity of combat augments to supplement their already impressive physical ability. Most Gallogach are equipped with chemical grenades modeled after old-Earth crowd control gasses and particle dispersants to stun and confuse their enemies before closing into melee.

Gallogach are almost always selected from long bloodlines selectively bred to serve as Galloglach and only Galloglach, the failures typically relegated to labour and doomed lives of social rejection and insignificance.

Kierna -- the light, skirmishing equivalent to the Gallogach, although quite capable in melee, the Kierna are primarily intended to provide Ierné's ranged firepower. Unlike the Gallogach, Kierna wear comparatively light armor, and are equipped with proper "jet" packs designed for highly agile longterm flight. In addition to chain and mono-edged swords, targe-type shields, and shortspears, the Kierna equip shoulder-mounted dart launchers containing various types of energy shells, heavily charged mitralock, artisan laslocks, and rapid-fire melta-pulsers for the destruction of vehicles.

Militia and other forces -- the militias of Ierné are armed with a wide variety of weapons, though most commonly multi-purpose jezailli allowing the. to fight equally well in melee and at range without needing to carry multiple weapons. They are also equipped with a wide-variety of energy-based infnatry support weapons, from lascannons to multilasers, though they use very minimal quantities of artillery.

A handful of formations in Ierné's military are lucky enough to ride genetically-enhanced steeds or war-bikes, equipped with everything from powerful vehicle-destroying las-spears or melta-lances, large quantities of throwing weapons, and a smattering of other armaments. They are, however, primarily light skirmishing cavalry, trained to accompany the Kierna battle, harassing enemy forces and crippling supply chains, already difficult to maintain in the toxic, blistering wastelands of Terra.

Falanagh -- even more elite than the Gallogach are the Falanagh, Navis Nobilite trained to cultivate their powers specifically for combat, armed and equipped with Dark Age-era artifacts, from highly advanced personal shields to artificer-quality armor, supercharged las-gauntlets and pistols, and even a small handful of disintegrators. In the heat of battle, the Falanagh are utterly terrifying, capable of boiling away the flesh of their enemies with mere glances from their third eyes, locally altering probability itself, and reading the moves of their enemies before they even act them out. They are also capable of hiding themselves from psychic sight and dampening the effect of psychic powers, making them especially effective against psykers, though not outright immune to their abilities like true Blanks.

As part of Ierné's nobility, the Falanagh are often placed in leadership positions as generals, given their choice of weapons and armour from their own armories, and occasionally rewarded with special equipment from the monarch's armories themselves. They, as with all Navis, are expected to spend much of their free time producing viable heirs, and are forbidden from impregnating or being impregnated by anyone not possessing the Navis genes. Otherwise, however, they are bound by relatively few rules, though they are punished incredibly harshly for misuse and misappropriation of vital war resources and food supplies. They also serve as bodyguards for the Novator.

Key Characters:

Novator Luigsech dé Dannah -- the current ruler of Ierné, Luigsech is the unquestioned leader of her people, and the most potent Navigator in their ranks. Although technically not a psyker herself, she is capable of incredible feats of power as one of the most potent living Navigators, handily obliterating whole formations of her enemies with her eye, burning away the souls of the corrupted like kindling, dampen psychic powers by forcing the warp into calm, or utterly paralyze soul-bearing beings. It is said that she can even peer directly into the souls of those she directs her gaze at, uncovering their most deeply-held secrets with incredible ease. Unmarried, she instead reproduces with whichever Navigator she pleases, selecting only those with the most desirable genetics.

Greágar, General of the Fionnach -- as the commander of Ierné's Fionnach, Glunnar is charged with hunting down and capturing or killing witches and those believed to be consorting with otherworldly powers, effectively serving as a hunter of witches and priests. Though old and grizzled, he's kept well in fighting shape, despite visible deformities resulting from his advanced age and the Homo Sapiens Navigo genes. He is a consummate master of the Aether doldrums, able to severely dampen the power of psykers, as are most of the Navis in his command, though the Fionnach are still primarily composed of mere Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

Lady Aishlin -- the Novator's seneschal, Lady Aishlin manages the daily business of the Novator's palatial fortress, from her day-to-day servants, to her harems, to her daily itinerary and travel arrangements, aided by her own staff. She is herself a Navigator, though a relatively young adult, and her powers have thus remained relatively muted so far.

Édoain -- Commander of the Gallogach, Édoain is perhaps the best-equipped baseline human in Ierné, and one of its most skilled warrior. A giant of a redhead, she features prominently in Iernéan propaganda, armed with an absolutely massive artificer-quality power axe capable of cleaving even men in power armor in twain with a single swing. She, like many of Ierné's best, has been extremely heavily augmented, towering over mere mortal men.

Character Name: Luigsech dé Dannah

Rank/Role: Novator

Appearance:
Hauntingly beautiful, the young Novator adorns herself only in the rarest and most beautiful fineries, adorned in jewelry and dresses found nowehere else but in Merica's most exclusive ballrooms. Even her cybnertic augments -- a pair of clawed, gold-brushed secondary arms, are of the finest quality, though despite her preference for decoration and ceremony, she is an extremely lethal and physically fit combatant.

Biography: As Navigators are wont to do, Luigsech's family history has been precisely recorded further back than most surviving nations of Terra -- and her own life was no exception, gene-tailored before birth to remove any hint of defect or undesirable trait from her genome. By then, her people had become masters of genetic science by necessity, pruning out the inevitable unwanted result of the thousands upon thousands of years of selective inbreeding that was deemed necessary to ensure as many Navigators were produced as possible.

It was no surprise, then, that much of the Novator-to-be's early life was tightly controlled, from who she interacted with, to how she spent her free time, and even her hobbies -- the day would eventually come when she'd have freedom, but until then, her duty was to prepare for her duties as Novator and war-leader of her people, and not a thing more. As such, while the capital of Ierné was in the arcology-hive of Bailatlith, her family in reality lived far to the west, on a heavily fortified underground estate in the country's center, where Luigsech spent most of her childhood, occasionally visiting the heavily fortified capital on propaganda visits alongside her parents and her many siblings.

From a very young age, after all, Luigsech showed an unusual degree of potency in her Third Eye, and although she too would inevitably mutate so vigorously that even the chemical science of Ierné could not stop it, she was chosen to have a long career as the leader and public face of her people for as long as it was tenable. She took to her assigned role well, unflinchingly confident in the righteousness of her power -- and Ierné's cause -- even from her early childhood, the horrors of Albyon's bloodthirst burned into her mind by both education and second-hand experience of the horrors they inflicted on anyone they captured.

However, despite her enforced distance, Luigsech did genuinely care for her people in her own, twisted way, taking every opportunity she was offered to show her face and encourage their propagandized love of her, also intermingling with both her fellow Navigators and the visiting chieftans and generals of their Francish allies, reassuring them that she, too, would continue their ancient alliance once she took her place as Novator. For decades, she served this role, occasionally joining the armies on Ierné in battle once she reached adulthood, earning herself a reputation as a coldly vicious combatant and a capable commander, capable of both martial and preternatural lethality, earning her a pseudo-spiritual quality as a saviour figure among the general population.

It wasn't until she turned forty that her parents were removed from power, killed by Albyonese assassins, thrusting her into a position she has held for nearly ten years as of present, leveraging her immense power to systematically cripple Albyon's armies and re-establish connections with Merica, bringing vast quantities of much-needed raw material into the country for Ierné's capable weaponsmiths. Word has reached her through distant traders and contacts in House Hastings of a powerful Himalazian warlord with ambitions to conquer Terra, however, who she now seeks to contact, to assess whether he could prove a valuable ally, or whether he, like Albyon, must be stopped at all costs.

Individual Character: Regatus Legio Gaul



Rank: Custodian

Role: Custodian Warden

Appearance:
Possessing pale skin, his face is set in hard lines that portray a lack of emotion. He has short brown hair, shaved on the sides. He stands roughly 9'4 and possesses the traditional armor of the Wardens, stylized with the emblem of lions and thunderbolts. He has a lion skin attached to his pauldron and cloak, denoting his rank.

Biography:
One of the 10000, Regatus was denoted as a Lion, fighting much as a young child before he was taken by the emperor and raised up as one of his companions. He gave up the entirety of his existence, all in order to serve his Emperor better. His mind expanded, his knowledge grew, and his personality all refined in order to be 'Better'. He devoted himself to the marital path, while pursuing art in the form of Landscape painting. He tries to capture the memories of the Emperor, taking his words and crafting them into images of landscapes long altered by the tides of time and war. His proudest art piece was of a great 'Waterfall' known as Niagara Falls, told to him by the Emperor one passing night. He finds great joy in his art, and it is one of the few ways for anyone to strike up a conversation with him, as he is always happy to speak on the art of Nature. He has few accomplishments to his name, but is more than willing to put in the work in order to change that. He shall serve with his full being, and nothing will stop him from helping the Emperor achieve his great vision.

Name: Wolfram Rhen

Legion: VIIth

Homeworld: Parrisan - A world in a stage roughly analogous to mankind's original Industrial Age on ancient Terra. Continents of forests, mountains and plains interspersed with vast oceans give way to a rapidly growing industrial population, reclaiming lost ancient technology and fully dominating the wilderness around them. Small villages and walled cities give way to urban sprawl and the first factories. The land Wolfram found himself in, Kortstel, is in a centralized location in one of the dominant continents of the world, and is steadily becoming primed to become a dominant powerhouse in the world.

Psyker Grade: Kappa - Wolfram's psychic potential manifests itself as a form of subconscious precognition he interprets as a "gut feeling" that regularly guides his decision-making process. It has been known to manifest more strongly in situations of high tension, stress, or anger.

Skills/Abilities:
Strategic Genius: - Wolfram is a master of logistics and broad strategy, the movement and planning of an entire front, directing entire army groups across fronts spanning an entire continent, armadas patrolling an entire ocean. Though he carries arms, they are not his true tools of battle. His weapon is the pen of a cartographer, his shield the map of a war theater, his armor the order directing distribution of forces, supply, and relief. While he has the same natural aptitude and inherent talent for physical combat as all other Primarchs, in terms of proficiency, the more intimate the fight becomes, the harder it becomes for Wolfram to comprehend. His mind is not build to lead a squad, a single division, or a ship. It is honed and trained to direct the men and women that do, to ensure they are able to operate at their peak in their chosen field of engagement.

Logistical Wizard: - There's a saying on Parrisan: The amateurs discuss tactics, the professionals study logistics. This quote is etched into Wolfram's very being, a core of how he views the world. To him, the matter of asset distribution is as much his hobby as it is his livelihood. Ensuring the people under his care have what they need, when they need it, where they need it and as quickly as possible is what gives him purpose. Efficiency, reliability, and consistency are the tenants he lives and works under every day.

Appearance: Wolfram resembles the common flavors of ancient North Europe stock, fair skin and hair, with a brighter verdant green eye color. In physical build and height, Wolfram is the best example of what would be the closest to a ‘stock Primarch’ were there ever such a thing. He stands at roughly 11 feet tall, with a build that towers over others, but with proportions more in line with one who does not actively serve in combat and instead keeps fit through physical regimens.

Concept: The VIIth Primarch was created to serve as the Emperor's Chief of Staff, to organize and direct the vast and labyrinthine military and administrative hierarchies of humanity's future empire, and service the will of those at their head. Turning the disparate and lost tribes and worlds of humanity into a well-oiled galactic nation capable of sustaining and defending itself is no easy feat, and even the Master of Mankind needs those who can organize, unite, and defend these worlds.

Legion Name: The Emperor's Hands

Associated Primach: Wolfram Rhen

Concept: Intended to serve as the shepherds and watchmen of humanity's development, the VIIth are a legion created to protect and organize mankind. Originally drawn from all across Terra at their founding, the legion's primary focus is to ready humanity to rule itself, occupying a land, fortifying it, and organizing its people before they are deemed ready, and moving on to carry again. They follow behind their gene-cousins, taking the lands they've supplanted and conquered, and forging them into living monuments to the strength of mankind.

Name:
Usriel Andreadth

Legion:
XIX - The Steel Sentinels

Homeworld:
Vion V (Fortress World)

Vion V was a world that would have been set to become amongst the other forge worlds of the Mechanicum, however, setback after setback occurred. It was a majority of the time the resistance of the locals, industrious as they were calloused to the change of the status quo upon the planet. While many forges and hive spires dot the planet, it is equal parts fortresses and redoubts - outposts and bastions made up the areas between the cities. While eventually, the planet had been subdued by the Mechanicum in late M25, it never could realize its full potential as a forge world. As such, there is a continued divide between the common natives of the planet and the great opulence of the ruling Mechanicum.

Yet, as warp storms clouded the sector, cutting off the Mechanicum from Mars, their balance would be tested. Changes had to occur lest their power be stripped away and their entire operation jeopardized. Ever pragmatic, the Mechanicum launched several culling campaigns throughout M26-M27 to keep the natives in line, but the Vionese, ever resilient, refused to allow their culture to be extinguished and would actively fight back against the legions of skitarii and the Legio Cybernetica. Countless were slaughtered, the dead and decaying littered the planetside until eventually war itself became more and more of a detriment to the Mechanicum. These campaigns would come to a halt after the Martians would sign a treaty with the natives, ending hostilities and allowing for an indefinite peace. This peace would allow the Mechanicum and the Vionese to intermingle peacefully for the first time in their shared history. It was the beginning of true change, as gradually the Mechanicum and Vionese would become one, their own sect.

The Martian red and white trimmings would become the great white and green that is now seen within the clergy of Vion 5 today. Lineages once hailing from Mars would mix with the native populace, allowing those hailing from the planet itself to become a part of the ruling body. These changes truly did bring a peace to the great ruling body.Yet, at the turn of M30, a new radical sect of the Cult of the Machine had come to rise, the Cult of the True Ones. They had not learned from the countless years passed, while the flesh was weak, the absence of it took away all humanity. They served to become more than humanity, seeking to become one with the machines rather than hoard the knowledge of ages past. As such, a war has come, one that threatened the very balance of the planet and the Cult of the Machine.

++ PRAISE THE MACHINE GOD. ++

Psyker Grade:
Beta

Skills/Abilities:

Master of Fortresses: Usriel is nearly unparalleled in the art of constructing the great bastions that the imperium rely upon for defense. It is his designs that many use as a standard for something that can be erected and defended. That said his preview goes beyond just building them, he is the great defender of the Imperium. A fortress under his command could theoretically last until there is nought but a blaster husk, able to rebuff assaults in the most dire of circumstances and able to turn a defensive action into a crushing victory.

The Lord of Plasma: A master in the use of plasma weaponry, the greatest weapon against those who try to use their armor to advance, and equally as good against standard infantry. While he has had plasma weaponry overheat in his hands, he now knows the precise means of using the unstable weaponry. Nonetheless any weapon he crafts that uses this volatile element will be of master artifice, even more so than any of the other countless creations that he formulated.

The Mechanicum’s Gifts: Usriel was born and raised upon the assembly line of the forges of Vion 5, his first thoughts past his parents were that of creation. His hands have forged many a weapon and many more shall be forged by the time of his inevitable death. They have each been classified as master-crafted, all having been able to outperform another. The only one that might be able to rival him in this regard would be another Primarch of equal skill or perhaps even the Omnissiah himself.

Psychic Awakening: While a powerful psyker, his abilities are unrefined and untapped for the most part, though he is known to react very quickly to sudden changes in a battlefield. This is partly because he can ‘see’ attacks before they occur, a fact that makes him a formidable duelist and achieve a perfect defense, but it would be the only thing to carry him to victory against another Primarch. As far as the more strange aspects of this nature, it is said that he can drive the machine spirits from enemy weapons and vehicles and that he can crush men with a wave of his fist should he have the need to do so. Though, none of these can truly stop an enemy's attack unlike his ability to make sure that enemy munitions cannot reach his men and that explosions hit something in the air that cannot be seen by the likes of mortal men.

Appearance:
Usriel has been described as twelve feet tall, looming over others with his mauled and otherwise scarred body on his body. These scars are all different in nature, though many are from combat and others from ceaseless work. His head shaved and kept clean, his pale body a mass of muscle built as if he were a very wall that he aspires for his legion to be. It is perhaps, that this is why his tired eyes continue to look on, ever vigilant of a threat against the threats of his legion and the Imperium itself. He looks as if he radiates tired energy, one who has grown tired of war, tired of rule over his home. This may be the reason as to why there always appears to be an unkempt stumble strewn across his face which sometimes is grown out as a short, black beard.

Additionally, his body hosts some implants from the priests of the Mechanicum which he controls finer than any of the cult could possibly imagine. A singular servo arm is normally attached to him, hosting a weapon of some form or some tool to help him continue his work.

Concept:

The Nineteenth Son of the Omnissiah, was made with an affinity towards protecting the holdings of the Imperium. Entrenching the great strength of the state behind towering walls and trenches to protect its countless soldiers so that none may dare raise a rifle against it. However, faith and duty has forged him into a great crafter of weapons and a staunch pragmatist who is willing to trade lives in order to keep the defenses running or to break the enemy. This is what he can provide his Lord, the Emperor - cruel and calculated sacrifice so that the Imperium may stand fast against the horrors of the galaxy and the enemies of man. No foe may pass his gaze, no haunt shall slip through the gap to Harry those who the Nineteenth has sworn to protect in the name of His Holiness the Omnissiah. Whereas others may be His Sword, Usriel is the great shield of the Imperium.

++ TO GIVE ALL TO THE OMNISSIAH IS THE ONLY COURSE ++

Legion Name:
The Steel Sentinels

Associated Primach:
Usriel Andreadth

Concept:

The Steel Sentinels are a legion defined on Terra by their honor and integrity, influenced by the stoicism of the custodes and the honor of select Thunder Warrior or Techno-barbarian groups that conducted themselves well during the Unification War. In a way, whilst they hold no specialized manner in which they conduct warfare, they do attempt to hold themselves to higher standard often wishing to resolves conflict with the least amount of bloodshed possible - either through diplomatic means, single combat between commanders and officers, or swift strikes to demoralize their foes in a pitched battle. The Astartes of this legion have grown fond of duels and often compare themselves to the knights of old Terra, conducting themselves in honorable and humane ways.

It is rare that they engage in total warfare, never wishing to destroy their enemies wholly or bring wanton death and destruction. Outside of combat, they always hone their skills, whether through duels between fellow Astartes or even keeping pace with their human side with artistry; often shown through making their own weaponry (both to be self-sufficient and show their own creativity) or customizing their armor to how they see fit. Many of the officers of this legion show their status by donning the storm shield and power sword - honoring those to which have inspired them upon their time in Terra.

Faction Name: House Parthian

Faction Overview/Concept:

House Parthian is the dynasty that has been reigning supreme over the Hyrkanian Hegemony for two hundred years; a city-state sat on the triple border between Ursh, the Ethnarchy and the Kievan Russ Khaganate, composed of the hive city Hyrkan and the surrounding wastes harboring sparse settlements and hydroponic farmsteads.

Hyrkan is situated on a key merchant route and a sizeable portion of the trade flowing back and forth between the Mediterranean Dust Bowl and the glacial north transits through it. Its people has ever fought back against its three neighbors who covet its riches and strategic position, but ironically always managed to remain independent because it is so coveted. As much as the Kievan Russ Khaganate, the Ethnarchy or the Ursh wish to bring Hyrkan under their control, they cannot allow one of their rivals to control the city-state. And so, when the Ursh invade with a horde large enough to overcome the hive, the Kievan Russ and the Ethnarchy repel them. When the Ethnarchy’s war machines threaten to break the Hyrkanian defenses, the Kievan Russ and the Ursh counter-attack. And when the Kievan Russ marches its armies forth to siege the city, Ursh and the Ethnarchy break the siege with a pincer attack.

The Hyrkanian Hegemony’s domain teeters on the edge of a razor blade, steered by its monarchic leaders named Kazars. It must maintain a careful balance of relations with its bellicose neighbors, while having enough bite to make any invasion a slow and costly affair. The Hegemony does not have the manpower needed for an in-depth defense of their whole territory. Instead, it relies on vast numbers of aircraft churned out by the hive’s forges, along with a massively bloated airborne force capable of deploying quickly, striking hard with infantry and all manner of vehicles light enough to be airlifted, and then flying away before the enemy can bring its full force to bear.

Faction Assets: (Brief Overview of their Strengths/Capability)

- Large-scale aircraft factories.
- The Silver Hawks: the elite of the Kazar’s warriors who get first pickings for aircraft and wargear.
- Tremendous wealth acquired through trade.

Key Characters:

Kazar Solomon: The current monarch of the Hyrkanian Hegemony and head of House Parhtian.

Kazarin Kazaenen: Wife to Kazar Solomon, she rules Hyrkan alongside him.

First Prince Jakub: Eldest son of the royal couple, commander of the Silver Hawks and heir to the throne of Hyrkan.

Princess Thensyra: Younger daughter of the royal couple, honorary commander of Hyrkan’s Urban Guard.