Though it will come to be known as, officially, the largest known space hulk within imperial space, the Vestige of Hope is in fact more akin to a derelict space station. A hulking bulwark of Dark Age humanity’s prowess so ancient that Imperial records answer nothing of their nature, and so vast it is comparable in size to Luna itself. Though huge swathes of the ship are uninhabitable - tainted by the effluents of the warp or by forgotten contaminants of the dark age of technology, exposed to the cold vacuum of space by great rents torn in armor plating from battles long ago, haunted by things best not seen or described that have come to infest its labyrinthine halls - much of it is. Home to a baffling array of seemingly normal humans, abhumans, mutants, and more, the enormous assemblage teeters on the edge of the Maelstrom that lies at the heart of the galaxy.

The history of the station is a mystery. Its ancient cogitators yield little information that has not been lost to the malign influences of the warp, and any of the original crew are long since dead. Even the inhabitants of the Hulk know little and ask even less, for their days are numbered by hunger and thirst, by predation of hideous abominations that spew forth from the Maelstrom, or from internecine conflict. The Vestige of Hope is, and always will be, a dangerous, lethal environment. Though food and ammunition are plentiful from the station’s ample manufacturing bays and the partly-intact vessels within enabling the pillaging of nearby debris fields for raw materiel, the hulk offers no shortage of abominations to threaten human life day by day. A fierce warrior-poet culture has developed within it, as rising talent seeks to prove itself against the deadliest of monsters that seem to spring ever forth from its deepest recesses and in the pursuit of knowledge, archeotech, and stories to tell. Returning triumphant these young warriors compose songs and sing fabled stories of their trials, bringing home not only glory but recovered archaeotech from yet-unexplored catacombs and passages. Among this number the most fitting may be selected for implantation with some of the bounty of archeotech the station continually provides and marked as the greatest of fighters to hold the line against the monsters that threaten their homes, and where their songs of prowess and learning and their feats of arms and valor may ring true into the void.

The Vestige of Hope’s original name has been lost to time, its purpose is self evident. Boasting enormous docking bays for arriving ships, an entire fleet could easily dock within the station’s moorings with room to spare. It is, at present, largely defenseless excepting the small vessels manned by its inhabitats, many of the guns of the ancient weapons lie in disrepair or outright destruction, once capable of turning aside even the mightiest of fleets but now sitting cold and dead. Lifeless Void Shield generators sit idle instead of protecting its structure and thick armor plating covering hardpoints for the weapons and dockyards has in places been blasted or burned through by the fire of an aeons old attack. Far cry from its former glory, the station is a testament to everything wrong with humanity’s position. Teetering precariously on the edge of oblivion and surrounded by the decayed splendor of a now dead golden age.


Eiohsa is one of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy, and the most powerful of the twenty primarchs. Terrifyingly prodigious in numerous fields, she fights wreathed in warpflame, incinerating enemies with the thrust of a hand and sundering armor with the flick of a finger. Though lacking proper tutelage, her potential is self evident. In addition to these, she has unusual extra abilities beyond the norm.

Eiohsa is perhaps one of if not the most powerful Empaths in the galaxy. She senses the emotions and feelings of those around her, sensing truth and lie, fear and hope, pain and pleasure. To stand amidst a throng of humanity is to stand amidst a swirling vortex of the human experience.

When gazing upon another being, she sees not merely the corporeal vessel of their body, but the psychic print of the individual’s soul. Though similar to the normal “witch-sight” displayed by all psykers, the Fifteenth displays this ability to a degree well in excess of the norm.

Eiohsa has the curious ability to alter her physical form at will into nearly any shape she desires, she can additionally mask the powerful aura of a primarch from most, but powerful psykers are able to see through the guise.

most terrific and terrifying of her abilities is her ability to reach into the minds of others. A palm upon the forehead and a hapless captive can do nothing as information is ripped from their minds. With the wave of a hand she creates illusory glamors, fooling the five senses of entire crowds. With the snap of a finger, she instills thoughts, emotions, and feelings into those around her.


As the pre-eminent psyker of the Emperor’s Primarchs, Eiohsa’s natural curiosity is in large part directed towards the study, exploration, and understanding of psychic phenomena. Rather than a cloistered scholar however she prefers to indulge wholly in the full breadth of what psychic abilities can bring to humanity. She explores not only the mysteries of the arcane, but explores how to wrap the minds of those around her little finger, both to further her end goals, and for simple mutual pleasure.

Eiohsa is a primarch. Eiohsa is an empire builder. She sees a ruined galaxy around her, a decrepit station in need of repair, and resolves that she will unite the galaxy, and bring about a golden age of enlightenment.

Eiohsa is a natural born artisan. She delights in the exploration and modification of the plentiful archeotech aboard the Vestige of Hope, understanding its workings and tweaking its functions to suit her needs perfectly. Though not by any means as much a prodigy in technological matters as psychic, her burning curiosity and thirst to create extends to technology and craft as well.

Like all Primarchs Eiohsa is a masterful combatant and represents the pinnacle of human martial skill. She is not the most skilled combatant of the Primarchs, handily outdone by the likes of Nelchitl, her skill in using her immense psychic prowess more than makes up, and to witness her whirling through battle unarmored, wreathed in archeotech shielding and psychic warpfire, is a sight to behold.

Eiohsa is a consummate artist and philosopher, a scientist and scholar in countless fields. She can craft sculptures and paint scenes that speak more than a thousand words ever could of her dreams for the future; vivid scenes of a million glimmering souls and a hope for a bright future, scenes of a humanity at one with its emotion and living with joy in a perfect world, lurid scenes of indulgences and exultations in a true utopia.



The Psychic. The Beacon. A giant of mental might and the gifts of the warp. Eiohsa’s psychic prowess is second to none save the Emperor. She has many gifts, those of artifice and of planning, of combat and of persuasion - but her world is dominated by the psychic prowess she wields. For her, the Immaterium is not an intangible, imaginary thing. She sees the psychic print of each and every individual burning like dim candles in the void. She knows of a maelstrom of insanity and a yawning abyss that lurks beyond, and each and every one of those little lights must be shepherded and nurtured from its wrath.

Intended as the Anchor of the Golden Throne, the psychic paragon of the Primarchs, she harbors a burning curiosity for knowledge of the warp and a passionate drive to use the Warp’s gifts for the betterment of humanity. A woman driven by an inbuilt need to rebuild the decay she sees around her, she pursues everything in life with an unstoppable determination and unbreakable resolve. Be it knowledge of the warp, the repairing of her home, hedonistic pleasure, the expansion of her sphere of influence, or repairing the galaxy at large and ushering it into a golden age. She knows she was created for something great - exactly what, however, remains a mystery.

But psychic prowess is nothing without the will to back it up. Eiohsa’s greatest strength is not her psyker powers, nor her gift at artifice, nor the treasure trove of archeotech upon which she sits - it is the indomitable will and unshakable determination to fight for a better future that propels her onward against the universe’s ravages. Eiohsa is strong not because of the powers granted her by the Emperor’s artifice, but because she does not back down from the impossible. Her entire life will be spent fighting for what she believes is right, no matter what road to hell that path will lead her on. She will bring about her vision of a better tomorrow and she will lead the coming of the new dawn, no matter how outmatched she might ultimately be by the weight of the galaxy, and even if it ends with her own death - she would prefer to die accomplishing something real than live forever accomplishing nothing.

---

Moving almost gracefully through battle, the Sirens are a picturesque symbol of Imperial aspirations. Originating from the lands of the Achaemenid Empire, the Sirens are aesthetic, elegant, and refined in their conduct. They favor negotiation over assault and the refined arts of blade and psychic power instead of the crass violence and indiscriminate obliteration of total war. The Legion holds a strong appreciation for the finer things in life and the lofty aesethetic and enlightened virtues of the crusade against disorder and madness. Silk hiding steel, the legion is well capable of ruthless brutality when called to battle. One of the smallest legions owing to the low stability of their geneseed, it insists upon immaculate skill in every possible field from its Astartes. It positions itself as an elite force of impeccable poise and elan even when cleaving those who would defy the emperor in twain.

However, the Legion may have the psychic prowess of their Primarch, counting an abnormally large number of psykers in their ranks. They may have her love of the arts. But they do not grasp the bigger picture of their Primarch, or the Emperor himself. Their ideals are not truly humanitarian, and like many they fight because they are ordered to by their Emperor, rather than for his professed ideals. A grandiose plan for a bright future, a wondrous vision of a united galaxy full of wonder and enlightenment - these things are, for now, lost on the Legion marked more by their pride and self-described elite status as wondrous heralds of the Imperium to come than by their ideological resolve.

Individual Character
Character Name: Fabricator General Archmagos Salkor Hyfoj

Rank/Role: Archmagos of Olympus Mons

Appearance: As any Magos of many years, Salkor is an ancient agglomeration of machinery. Beneath coils and slabs of plasteel and adamantium there is a small patch of red robes and viewing lenses. He does not have legs or any other traditional means of movement. Rather there are a series of glowing anti-gravitic engines around the area one imagines his "waist" that give him a rather wraith-like appearance as he spins and wriggles through the air with vast crimson robes flowing behind. As well, the Archmagos has an exceptional amount of mecha-dendrites and mechanical tentacles even for one of his status owing to his constant need to interface with as many databanks as possible. For this reason, he is often seen with a baggage train of hundreds of similarly hovering databanks and cogitators, a small army of servitors and lesser tech-priests typically having to follow to maintain these. It is for this reason of immobility that with the years the Fabricator has become ever more stationary, digging ever deeper into Olympus Mons to accommodate his ceaselessly growing lair of servers, databanks, and cogitators.

Biography:
For all of his relevance to the Martian Cult, the Fabricator General is not a native to Mars. He was born near the Yndonesic, to a family of followers of the Singularitarian Brotherhood. The Cult was despite completely Terran origin very similar to the Mechanicum in its belief of transhumanism. Yet, millennia ago, during the adolescence of a boy named Salkor the Cult's presence on Terra was effectively destroyed. But, in the Brotherhood's technological advancement, they had just enough space faring capacity left - perhaps the very last spaceworthy craft on all Terra - to flee the world. Though less than a million managed to flee and only a few thousand survived the exit of Terra's Orbit from crashing into space debris brought on by the Kessler syndrome, many nevertheless managed to land upon Mars for safety.

The vast majority of the landed folk found ignoble ends, very lowly positions within the Mechanicum awaiting them as they struggled to reconcile the few, but nonetheless important doctrinal differences between their own ideology and the galaxy spanning religion born on Mars.

Yet, Salkor was just young but intelligent enough to adapt to the new world he came into. Lucky enough to become a mere Lexmechanic, he was careful to never step out of line through his efforts for fear that his Terran heritage be used against him. His progress through the ranks of the Mechanicum was thus glacially slow as he was careful to not take any major initiative lest a boundary be crossed, and his increases of ranks often came dangerously close to a time when his previous levels of enhancement weren't sufficient to extend his lifespan any further. But despite the pace, he nevertheless did progress through the ranks of the Mechanicum. Eventually becoming a true Tech-Priest, his gradual progress had a small degree of benefit for his future in that he met a great many other figures ascending the ranks of the Mechanicum that was a very crude sort of networking.

It was thus that well over a thousand years over his birth, Magos Hyfoj was by seniority and greater trust of his superior considered first in line to the rank of Fabricator Locum. The Fabricator Locum was far younger than Salkor, and indeed for some years Salkor was his superior before he was surpassed. It was at last that Salkor was in a sufficiently high position that he felt secure enough that the ancient issues of Terran origin from when he was more meat than plasteel were finally beneath him. Now he was a complete inductee into the Machine Cult that had more confidence in his faith than most natives. Now he had gained a great deal of ambition beyond mere survival and comfort, ideas that now seemed alien. Yet, all of this ambition was with the Omnissiah's will in mind.

The first act of major initiative he showed in his career was when he lobbied the Fabricator Locum and the Fabricator General by proxy to send out an armada of Explorator fleets. Recounting the activity of his Terran home that now seemed more like a bad dream than a true past, Salkor convinced the Martian governance that Mars needed to be more proactive lest in study and research within the comforts of their forgeworlds the Mechanicum become complacent, soft, easy to be swept up by less learned but larger civilizations just as the Brotherhood of Singularitarianism was long ago.

Though reluctant to devote some grand exodus to study and explore the galaxy, the Fabricator General at the time nonetheless agreed to the base proposal, partially simply to strengthen ties to distant Forgeworlds that had grown cold with time as communication was made more difficult by the waning number of Navigators and Astropaths in the clutches of the Martians.

It was not too long after this that the prior Fabricator General died, perished by assassination from a Servitor within the flesh of whom were hidden dozens of melta bombs. Though Salkor ascended to the second highest rank of Mars as a result of this, many were eager to point fingers at him believing this to be some sort of play from the refugees of the Singularitarians for perceived slights and mistreatments. But though he bore what he learned from them at the back of his mind he considered them a nuisance from his past. Thus he was happy to make a show of cracking down on them to restore confidence from the rest of Mars in his position. With most of his former brethren dead, he cracked down upon their children he could track down for crimes real or imagined. Though unsophisticated, the show of force was nonetheless appreciated by the many thousands in positions of power that thought an imposter was in their ranks.

Fortuitous then, was that the death of the following Fabricator General came several centuries later, when the last suspicions of Salkor were at last eroded. With his predecessor melting down a reactor he pushed to its limit in the midst of high power demands for a particularly interesting calculation, it was at last Salkor's turn to hold the highest rank of the entire Mechanicum.

Salkor would privately admit to himself that he was admittedly not prepared for the position. Though in recent years he was happy to show great will compared to what he had displayed prior, his entire life having been spent not pushing any boundaries made it very difficult to assume his new position of Fabricator General when he realized just how many different interest groups he would have to balance.

But, balance he would. He ordered the construction of a great many cogitators and other necessary infrastructure to allow himself to do many calculations, careful to likewise build sufficient power infrastructure to not be atomized as his predecessor. With this machinery the necessary computations would be made such that in almost all issues brought to him the Fabricator General could find some sort of compromise.

Very quickly the nature of Salkor's reign became clear to those around him. As de-facto leader of the entire Machine Cult, Salkor was convinced that it was his sacred duty to serve all the children of the Omnissiah rather than to be the monarch of a Martian Empire. He gave great audience to the Knight Houses in service to Mars and the broader Mechanicum, offering them many a new world that the Explorator fleets had discovered. Great deference was shown to the Forge Worlds outside of Mars, a near equal voice given to them as the scions of the Machine Cult's homeworld. Acknowledgement was given to many a sect of the Machine Cult, conflicts over minor doctrinal differences ordered to cease outright hostilities and co-exist.

The rule of Fabricator General Hyfoj would be a curious one with the progress of time. Though the Speaker of the Martian parliament, the majority of his support base was from the greater diaspora of the Mechanicum and its appendages like the Knight Houses, extra-solar Forgeworlds, and minor sects and tiny schisms that enjoyed his protection. Though these factors were important, the critical thing that prevented a vote of no confidence or other means to depose him were cyclical campaigns of public works. Though Salkor did not believe he could herald some sort of golden-age for the Mechanicum, he believed he could at the very least prevent it from falling into a dark age of complacency as a cruel mirror to the unrestrained changes of the dark age of technology. Centuries old infestations of feral servitors were cleansed from many worlds. Explorator Fleets were made to kidnap navigators and astropaths from other human civilizations to restock the waning supply of these critical mutants within the Mechanicum's inventory. Great projects of stellar defence systems were made to prevent raids from spaceborne pirates, committees were set up to create solutions for ancient and yet unsolved scap-code threats and patches in software and wetware were developed. Orkoid worlds were bathed in fire to prevent their rise in threat, and new systems of audits were made to seek out hereteks.

The exploits did not do enough to earn Salkor the favour of the Magoses of the Martian Parliament, but they did enough to curry favour with their underlings who felt their ramifications on their daily lives. It was just as the mechanical eyes of the Fabricator General began to turn to Terra, that all of his attention was stolen by the landing of a gargantuan, silvery child in a crater outside of Olympus Mons.

Name: Amunal and Slynn

Legion: The Swords of Truth (The Undying Onslaught prior to Primarch recovery)

Homeworld:
Asclepius and Brahm
The former is a world of high technologies and thought. With every facet of daily life managed by the most advanced of artificial intelligence, every man and woman lives a life of almost unprecedented luxury. It is thus that the only duty that everyone finds themselves having is to simply study ethics, philosophy, and technologies such that when they matured they will spend their days discussing and debating the matters of ethics in global assemblies. At the dusk of each day, any and all consensuses on ethics will be assembled and passed onto the High Polymaths who input them into the firmware of the billions of AI systems on the planet. Part of their bounty however, comes at the expense of the world of Brahm. This is the world upon which Slynn landed.

Located within the same system, Brahm is a world that is medieval at best. Containing practitioners of the arts of the warp, they lost the civil war of their solar system many thousands of years ago and have since been artificially reduced to a backwards state. Several times a year, great raids of the drukharii will arrive in their system, a tithe taken after Asclepian robotshunt down mightier psykers and leaders to ensure the world cannot make any meaningful resistance to the dark eldar who whisk away the people therein. For this service, the dark eldar leave Asclepius untouched, and indeed even pick away at passing Ork Waaaghs for more fodder in their arenas. This world is the one upon which Amunal landed.

Psyker Grade: Iota

Skills/Abilities:
The twins both possess a common set of abilities. For one, their fluid metallic skin gives them a particular resilience against more mundane strikes where more fleshy skins would struggle. Their surface similarly gives them some degree of chameleonic property, wherein they can shift their surface to represent a person of any race, culture, age, sex and other trait. Perhaps their most important trait is their astounding logic and intuition, traits given nurture to compound their nature in their homeworld of great intellect and technology. From first principles they can derive and understand nigh any knowledge they come across from the understanding of the extraordinary biology of an alien, to the complex law system of a new culture, to a piece of archaeotech encountered, to discerning the most expertly crafted of lies. This however has a notorious exception in any matter of the warp. Whenever they try to comprehend the incomprehensible, this creates an almost fatal confusion that will debilitate them for a great time. This effect is also observed when either of the twins finds themselves having believed a falsehood, their skin melting away as they writhe and suffer in a manner proportionate to the untruth they accepted. The twins lack any discernible true psychic power. However they bear what one might consider a pseudo-psionic strength, in what is usually dubbed “The Voice.” Their actual utterances bear power. While this can be expressed in a manner as mundane as their words being far more convincing to a subject than what is merited, more complex expressions appear too. Machines can find themselves soothed of scrapcode infection or a more biological plague may be excised from a mortal. If worst comes to worst, it could be harnessed to simply burst blood vessels by shear volume, and force the minds of mortal men to shut down as they accept inferiority, their words having an influence as pressing as any physical force like gravity.

Appearance:
The appearance of the Twins is somewhat indefinite owing to the nature of their fluid skins, their natural form being androgynous beings of smooth and nearly toneless features of a silvery, poreless, hairless cover. The Emperor designed them so such that they may morph themselves to represent a person of any possible human phenotype. Typically however they will represent their home culture.

Concept:
The Twins of the Hordes of Enlightenment are primarchs that represent what many would consider the ultimate goal of the Imperium; a life of reason, logic, of mankind always seeking to improve upon itself and achieve it true potential. But, at the same time they represent both the hypocrisy in the Imperium’s stated goals by virtue of the means they achieve what they seek, as well as demonstrating the arguable futility of the Imperium’s efforts in the results of their work never truly reaching the aim.

Name: Dorath'en'Vorth - "The Dragon of Woe"

Legion: Pyre Raptors, the Xth Legion.

Homeworld: Phlogiston Quaternus - A world of dragons. Literally. There is no word for "animal" or "creature" on Phlogiston Quaternus; the concept of dragons has overtaken it wholly, and for good reason. Every single beast on the planet short of humans themselves takes the form of some sort of draconic entity, ochre-skinned monsters engulfed in purple chitinous armour, with bio-plasmic breath weapons galore. A great many of these even have wings - dragon-eagles, dragon-wolves, dragon-tigers, even dragon-turtles - and if they aren't dragons with wings, then they are likely their six-legged drake cousins, who in truth are simply lesser dragons. Furthermore, the flora of Phlogiston Quaternus is warped and alien in form, whilst the air is typically choked with spores spat into the air by these plants: wonderful for the dragons, inimical to humanity.

One may wonder how humanity has survived on this world; nay, thrived, for their hive cities are grand and technologically advanced, in spite of both the local environs and external factors. Not towering constructs of reinforced rockcrete and plasteel, these spires are smaller, far more stable, and even pleasant to the eye, though each is surrounded by autonomous defense systems keeping out dragon and drake alike, though the exact nature of these systems goes unknown to the typical civilian. More concerning to an outsider are the gladiatorial pits that most of these cities seem to use as entertainment, scattered across the levels and even extending into multi-storey amphitheaters for those from certain cities, wherein those ruling up above as well as the more typical citizenry further down enjoy gory spectacles on a daily basis.

The truth is, though most know it not, Phlogiston Quaternus is a low-level Daemon World, or at least headed in that direction: not yet dragged into the Warp, but inching ever closer with every deal the ruling sorcerers make with their "aether-dragon familiars", every life sacrificed to them for personal gain and protection of their territories, every soul burned by the pits to fuel their city's defense systems. Perhaps the only reason it has yet to fall outright is due to how these hives tend toward internecine conflict over which way of life is better - that is, which Chaos God ought to reign supreme upon the world - as well as both daemonic and mutated threats spawned from within and the draconic nightmare beyond their bounds, devouring everything within their walls when they tumble into outright madness long before the madness can spread beyond them.

Not all cities scattered across the world are so vile, but few remain that have not taken to this brand of disturbing symbiosis, and those that do are ever-imperiled by the creatures lurking at the walls of these easier, more resource-dependent targets. The Long Night has been long indeed, and the race to the bottom is swift when the price can be readily paid by someone else.

Psyker Grade: Uncertain, no formal measurement. Likely Gamma, focused on Pyromancy and Telepathy with lesser presentation of Biomancy.

Skills/Abilities:
Draconic Figure - A mix of factors has led the Xth Primarch to develop a look akin to that of the mythical dragons of Ancient Terran lore. Whilst still recognisably human in frame, his pupils present as cross-shaped slits within flame-like irises, his fingers are tipped with diamond-hard rending claws, and he need only open his mouth wide to reveal a mawful of oversized, retractable teeth, with features representing a wide range of predatory beasts. In addition, he seems to be all but immune to heat and flame alike, not so much as charring in temperature ranges including those of molten metals, re-entry speeds, or plasma blasts and other heat-based weaponry. Lastly, whilst any of the native abilities of a Space Marine are naturally enhanced in their Primarchs, the Xth's unusual modifications lead to his upper gastro-intestinal tract and associated glands producing substances that mix into something closer to self-igniting promethium than acid, letting him more or less spit napalm at enemies and consume substances that even other Primarchs wouldn't risk stomaching.

Survival - Dorath'en'Vorth is unnervingly capable of surviving in, quite literally, the most inhospitable conditions known to mankind. He possesses an inhuman tolerance for extreme conditions, from intense heat to glacial cold to radiation that would kill an Ork in minutes, as well as an innate understanding of what is and isn't useful for survival under such duress, including what can and cannot be consumed for sustenance. Furthermore, his body will continue adapting to these conditions over time through exposure, making them ever less concerning for him even as he instinctively processes how best to render an environment that most would consider unworkable suitable for human life and further occupation.
Should a locale prove utterly uninhabitable even to his extraordinary physique, or in other equally extreme circumstances, he can enter what is essentially a state of cryptobiosis: the suspended animation of lesser Space Marines extrapolated to the natural logical conclusion of a Primarch's near-demigod physique, complete with a nigh-indestructible cocoon of hardened bone, keratin, and chitin, as his physique gradually adapts to the outside environment until he is ready to emerge once more.

Creature Empathy - To complement his innate survival traits, the Dragon of Woe has an unnerving capacity to telepathically commune with any local wildlife, even those that ought to be extraordinarily hostile. Through subtle psychic rewiring and what may as well be innate animal magnetism, he is able to convey his wishes to fauna expertly, and without further goading they will assuredly be followed through on. Indeed, this connection seems to remain even after he has left, letting him more or less domesticate creatures that would be basically unmanageable for anyone else, and ensure that they remain in that state even with planetary, and perhaps even astronomical distances between them.

Infernal Rapture - Should worst come to worst, and Dorath'en'Vorth suffers from mortal harm, he has one final trick up his sleeve. Rather than merely succumbing to injury, his body will sooner or later ignite, spontaneously combusting from within and searing away those threats about his person, before the Dragon of Woe steps forth from the pyre in phoenix-like repose, unmarred by his past wounds. What this represents on the level of his soul, whether it be a potent psychic reaction or something more meaningful, remains to be seen.

Appearance: As described above, Dorath'en'Vorth's features have a distinctly draconic bearing. However, his body is still far from unrecognisable as human. Indeed, behind the natural weapons, he is almost average in appearance, at least for somebody destined to become an 11'7" tall wall of lean muscle with limited interest in self-grooming; but at rest, he bears quite unremarkable dark-brown hair, tied together into wide, pointed locks for the sake of keeping its length out of his eyes, and his skin is a distinct tan blend averaging about every tone one might find within baseline humanity, with scarring to spare too. Of course, in more extreme environments that demand it, his skin tone is likely to shift drastically - but strangely, so too does his hair, seemingly changing colour with no shedding. His musculature and even skeletal height are prone to warp swiftly yet subtly too, in appropriate circumstances; regardless, he is not consciously aware of these changes as they happen, and rarely implements them with intent.

Concept: Terraformer - The Xth Primarch was designed with extremely malleable DNA bases, essentially mixing together a great many Terran animals to provide, at least in due course, whatever biological tools he might need to survive even on the harshest of worlds, and from there to engage in whatever activities were necessary to convert that world into a planet suitable for habitation by humans.

Legion Name: Pyre Raptors

Associated Primarch: Dorath'en'Vorth

Concept: Charging in on assault bikes, speeders, jetbikes, jump packs, and grav-vehicles, the Xth Legion is designed with the intent to break down enemy civilisations to the point that they can no longer resist invasion by the Emperor's greater forces. Their purpose in war is not merely to defeat their foes, but to end their threat by violently sabotaging their logistical infrastructure - ideally before they can even understand that everything they've strived for has been reduced to nothing more than ash and rubble - and then frustrating efforts to rebuild until either society collapses under the inertia of failing supply lines and non-functional core industries, or additional forces finish the job of crushing all resistance. Stealth is an option for the Legion if needs must, but it is a secondary tool compared to the preferred modus operandi: pushing to the heart of the enemy in a rapid, overwhelming spear of destruction, typically through the application of intense heat, with volkite, fused hydrogen, promethium, plasma, and phosphor providing the standard firepower for this Legion.
In turn, however, they inherit their Primarch's drive to follow up by restoring the sites they have devastated after surrender and occupation has been achieved, rendering them suitable once more for humans to start living and building in, as well as restructuring those worlds whose ecosystems may not otherwise be suitable. This post-war rebirth may be seen as a waste of good Space Marines by some, although with how quickly they can act in revitalisation after initial destruction, and the extended need for suppression of rebels in the short term, they are rarely an unnecessary placement until greater manpower can be implemented.

Name: Uran Bodan

Legion: III, nicknamed ‘Skullcrushers’ by army soldiers.

Homeworld: Naguia

A fantastically beautiful world, Naguia’s beauty is not a quirk of nature: But a deliberate effect wrought by alien hands. The world is divided between the few city-states that managed to survive the Age of Strife relatively intact.These city-states hold a wealth of technology that makes their standard of living comparable with civilized worlds, with ancient and powerful weapons manning their towering walls to keep out the deadly fauna, and the occasional overly bold tribal warlord. The city-states consider a direct war too catastrophic, so when it cannot be avoided they fight at select, designated spots. Within the jungles and deserts of Naguia, roam the forgotten human tribes. Exiles from the city-states, bare survivors of the ancient fall, and a dozen other origins besides. These tribes battle it out for survival on a daily basis, managing each other and the terrible beasts that roam the land. Each tribe can vary wildly in difference, from those that are barely above being death cults who strive to kill everyone who are not them, to those who seek harmony with the land and its people. Tribes trade and war with each other as easily as they make peace.

But if there is one spot on Naguia that all of its human inhabitants have agreed as a sacred, forbidden place, it is the Yoren mountain range.

There, deep in those too-tall ancient mountains, dwell the mysterious Eldar. Exodites from another land are the most the human settlers have been able to gather, for the Eldar do not tolerate incursions of any sort into their land. Long ago, at the height of an empire, this world was crafted for them. When that empire fell, and the galaxy turned to chaos, it became their shelter. The human settlers were barely tolerated, but with the destruction of both their empires, they became prisoners on the same world. However, eldar fauna and human fauna have mixed to a near disastrous extent, leading to dangerous beasts roaming the land.

Psyker Grade: Alpha +

Skills/Abilities:

While existing in the nebulous point beyond the rankings that straddle and strangle lesser psykers, Uran is nevertheless among the least powerful of those who hold the same ranking as he. The Chief of the Bodans focuses his attention, instead, on skill instead of simple brute force. Uran possesses the usual abilities often associated with primarchs, but there are a few areas where he desires true mastery beyond the nimble ease of understanding that comes naturally to primarchs.

Sorcerer Supreme: Uran is capable indeed in the sorcerous arts, seeking to wield this most deadly of tools with as much skill as he can muster. The Bodan tribe may revere psykers, but they understand the dangers all too well, something which has been imparted upon Uran, who deeply desires to avoid the same destructive fates that have befallen countless other psykers. So he seeks to become not the most powerful, but the most skilled psyker.

Scholar: A hoarder of knowledge, Uran seeks to pick apart the universe, to uncover every last secret, no matter how vast or small, and stitch it all back together. Uran is very capable in picking apart secrets and folding them together to gain some sort of greater whole, from understanding weapon arrays from simple fragments of ancient blueprints to devouring whole libraries and storing the knowledge within his own head.

Survivalist: His upbringing in the Bodan tribe has left Uran with a solid base of knowledge on how to survive in any harsh environment, and the ability to vastly expand upon that knowledge.

Appearance: Walks around in flowing robes that cover most of his body, with a mask for his face and leather gloves for his hands. Bits of tribal talismans hang from his robes, alongside scraps of chainmail. His hair is black, with strips of gray running through it. Face has a gaunt, haunted look to it. With faded hints of aristocratic features. Eyes are gray, speckled with gold normally. However when he uses his powers they turn golden.

Concept: A curious spirit with a hunger for knowledge, that is nevertheless aloof and cold. The Emperor's intended purpose was for a weapon to combat the more sorcerous threats, and a back-up for the Golden Throne if his desired subject was unavailable. As well as to act as a collector and guardian for the psychic arts, and to destroy anything the Emperor deemed unacceptable.

Legion Name: III, nicknamed ‘Skullcrushers’ by army soldiers.

Associated Primarch: Uran Bodan

Concept: Clad in unpainted gunmetal gray, the Third Legion has yet to win any honors in the desperate battles of the Unification Wars. They have existed mainly as a support unit, working together with Imperial Army forces, aiding them in hotspots other legions may deem lesser or a misuse of their time. The Third Legion practices a flexible tactical and strategic mindset, attempting to use the standard combined arms approach. But their tendency to end up as the hammer that breaks siege lines has given them a growing preference towards close quarters assault and rapid maneuver tactics and weapons. The Third has no official name, but they have been given the crude nickname ‘Skullcrushers’ by army troopers for their tendency to break siege lines with brutal close quarters combat.

Name: Kargan Hoth

Legion: XI - The Brass Hands

Homeworld: Orichalcum - Class : Hellworld Size: Super Massive (Neptune Equivalent)

A Volcanic world on the Brink of being nothing but a Molten Ball of Metal Slag, with mass quantities of Brass and Non-Ferrous Metals, making it an excellent source for War Materials. Its people have naturally adapted to the Extreme Environment, able to resist the immense Heat and handle molten metals due to an innate Epsilon Level Psyker ability amplifying their Innate Heat Resistance. They live in Underground Cities, built beneath mountains of Metal that is churned up from the core which inversely sucks the heat from the inside of the planet, causing a cooling effect within the Mantle area of the planet.

Psyker Grade: High Gamma

Skills/Abilities:
Biomancy/Pyromancy Psyker Abilities : He is limited to the Iron Body, Endurance, and Warp Speed Biomancy Abilities
Master Level Smithing and Engineering
Gladiatorial Combat Expertise
Defensive Dueling Master

Appearance:

10'8 Ft Tall

Pale white skin, his body is covered in Brass Veins of liquid metal as a side effect of his Psyker Abilities manifesting in order to adapt his body to survive his homeworlds environment.
His pupils are Brass Colored and his scelra are Black

Concept:
One of the twenty Primarchs, Kargon Hoth was launched to the Hellworld of Orichalcum, his pod launching deep within one of the deepest crevices on the planet, which just so happened to hold the Capital of the Planety, Mythrilla. A city of gleaming Brass and titanium, cast into the cliff side. Large metallic Pillars lining the streets, as the Child Primarch landed within the confines of the Noble Hoth Family. Taking it as a Sign from the Heavens, the Hoth Family took the Child in as their Honored son and he was raised along side his two brothers and soon to come Sister. His world is one of many within the Aristocratic Military Junta that ruled the nearby sector. A total of 14 worlds, across 8 Star Systems, each colonized world a mirror reflection of Orichalcum, were considered the Midas Empire. The Hoth family was one of the Noble Sub-Families beneath the current ruling Caesar, Alexandros Midas.

Legion Name: The Brass Hands

Associated Primarch: Kargon Hoth

Concept:
A legion specialized in Attrition Warfare, masters of the slow advance favoring a heavy forward guard while the back line hammers the enemy with a sweltering rain of fire to grind down the enemy as it advances yet this is not their specialty. Given the nature of their abilities, The Brass Hands are Paramount Defensive Fighters, able to hold a position and even regain ground through the sheer losses they inflict on advancing armies. They make use of hidden defensive installations to launch flanking strikes, or automated turrets that mow down key army heavy weapons and armor before it gets within striking distance of their encampments and bastions. They have elite Ambush Units, hidden within the local terrain meant for lightning raids on Command units with in the enemy. Any attack against The Brass Hands and any fortification they are holding will be costly in the extreme.

This Legion makes use of Psykers, the Molten Masters favor the Pyromancy discipline while on the field. Many of the Marines have at least Epsilon level Psyker Grades, and many manifest the Iron Body ability to endure a sweltering amount of fire unharmed. With just a handful of Marines, they could hold a pass against thousands and make the enemy pay for every step with a tidal wave of bodies.

Character Name:
Cacyce

Rank/Role:
Forge Master of the Magma City

Appearance:
Constantly hooded, his face is a gnarl of augmetics, an ornate bronze grate replacing his mouth and nose while a number of red lenses replace both of his eyes. What skin remains of his face is pallid and drawn tight around burnished bronze and steel. Where the shadow of his hood covers his neck the telltale protrusions of augmentics of unknown use pressing against the fabric are visible to all.

Biography:
Disciple of the late Explorator Adept Laszlo, Adept Cacyce is the current Forge Master of the Magma City and a member of the Martian Parliament. He is a quiet and calculated Adept, preferring to show an air of disinterest in the most divisive of Martian matters while maintaining a façade of obedience and utter reverence for the Machine Cult and the Mechanicum's rule. Secret inheritor of Explorator Adept Laszlo's most important discovery, the unfinished Noosphere.

Character Name: Patrimonia Ghum

Rank/Role: Heirophant Technis of Ryza

Appearance: The Archmagos has a relatively small frame for that position, only about one and a half the size of a normal human. Yet, as one approaches closer they will notice that the Ryzan carries as or even more technology upon their frame than most other Archmagoses. The fact is simply that it is contained within digi-tech, miniaturizing the technology in a manner providing far more efficiency than the great metal bloat that other great figures of the Mechanicum are known for.

Biography:

Patrimonia began life as a vat-grown warrior of an Explorator fleet, a simple Ranger on the hunt for technology. Many an Orkoid or outdated pattern of human were ended by a blast from the arquebus of the soldier. But eventually the Taghmata found its match as a world they probed all but spontaneously spewed Aeldari from concealed webway gates. Though the Ryzans fought valiantly, they were outgunned and outnumbered by the Eldar that appeared from seemingly nowhere to obliterate whole columns of the Mechanicum in a flash.

Though it would certainly be an exaggeration to say the fleet was destroyed in entirety, it was still only a few ships that were left to limp back to Ryza. At this point Patrimonia still had sufficient flesh in their brain to feel some trauma from this, and would be guided by it.

Relaying the precious knowledge accumulated, Patrimonia made it their duty to climb the ranks of the Mechanicum to never be a victim as such again. As a mere Skitarii Ranger, it was a difficult process, but ambition overrode the institutional immobility and eventually the highest rank upon Ryza was attained.

Patrimonia's policy as Heirophant ensured relatively frequent conflict with xenos, for study of their technology was of particular interest. Jokaero were an especially sought after prize, many pens built to hold hundreds of them for the orangutans to create digi-tech. Yet, the Heirophant did more than simply seek scraps with aliens. In particular, much experimentation was done with automata. While v ery careful to not escape the rigid bounds of the Mechanicum's doctrine, Patrimonia's rule has seen Ryza become far more populated with robots than other Forgeworlds, a fact that with passing years raises ever more proverbial eyebrows from the rest of the collective Machine Cult. The efforts to dismiss these concerns were abruptly taken over by the arrival of a new humanoid crashing through a distant Forge of Ryza....

Name:
Archmagos Prime Rik Uixien.

Alternative Titles:
Myrmidax Rik Uixien.
Avatar of Destruction.
Primarch of the Eighth.
The Lightbringer.

Legion:
VIII.

Homeworld:
Pentious was not the planned final stop for Explorator Fleet XXXIV.

By all accounts the planet shouldn't have existed at all! The system it was found in actually had some surviving records from prior to the age of strife and there simply hadn't been enough raw material for a new planet to form, let alone develop in the time frame from the start of the Age of Strife to the arrival of the Explorator fleet from Mars... and yet Pentious was there. It had only recently formed its first oceans and hadn't even developed the basic building blocks of life yet, let alone a breathable atmosphere... but while it was largely barren apart from its volcanic activity and its newly developed bodies of water, it was loaded with mineral wealth.

Despite their misgivings about a world that had somehow gone through the process of hundreds of millions of years required to not only form but actually develop into a somewhat stable world in a matter of mere millennia at best, they didn't really have a whole lot of options due to the damage they had endured during transit in the warp and Pentious was almost picture perfect to convert into a Forgeworld of their own.

So they landed. Mining began for raw materials, settlements and forges were built that were air tight in order to protect from the 'air' outside and early terraforming was started with the intention of changing that fact: While Pentious was planned from the get go to become a Forgeworld and thus become highly polluted by industry, it was felt that developing the atmosphere to at least be somewhat breathable to humans would make living on the world somewhat easier in the short to mid term, as well as make growing human edible foods somewhat easier.

Unfortunately, Pentious would not be uncontested for long. Roks under the command of the orkish Warboss Kracker'Laker appeared in system almost a century after the followers of the Machine Cult had arrived and started to put down the foundation of their world. Seeing the chance for battle, plunder and a world rich with metal to help fuel his Waargh!, Warboss Kracker'Laker turned his Roks towards the world and impacted with much fire and blood.

The defenders of the young Forgeworld were not unprepared for attack or invasion: While the Warboss was the first outside contact since planetfall, it had long been accepted as inevitable that something would turn up in order to try and either wipe them out or enslave them. They had even detected the invading Greenskins coming once they entered the system and were able to prepare. However, over the span of decades war raged between the brave defenders of the Machine Cult and the invading Orkish tide... and despite the technology that the former had access to, attrition favors the greenskin. Strongholds and lesser forges fell in battles that raged for years, until at last only the original forge built around the ships that had been forced to land on the planet remained.

The defenders knew they were doomed, but in a stoic, grim resolve that only those who embraced the illogical human desire to fight on despite logically being no chance at victory they planned to fight until the bitter end. That end looked certain as Warboss Kracker'Laker took to the field to lead the final assault personally.

But then, the Omnissiah intervened.

Psyker Grade:
Delta

Skills/Abilities:
Archmagos Prime:
Rik is a dedicated student of the Machine Cult and its teachings... to the point where he has risen to one of the highest ranks that the Mechanicum can offer. To reach the rank of Archmagos Prime is not an easy thing to do as it requires an understanding of technology and its secrets that few have the ability to comprehend, the ability to handle oneself in the political arena of ones Forgeworld and the military know-how to lead armies into battle, if not engage in combat oneself in one form or another.

Myrmidax:
While Rik has studied the ideals of different cults within the Mechanicum, it was the sub-cult of Myrmidon that captured his heart and mind. Embracing its ideals and beliefs to the point of becoming a Myrmidax, Rik is a weaponsmith of legendary ability. If it needs to inflict pain and death, no matter how difficult the task or how hard it is to make said target suffer pain and death, Rik can create it... and make full bloody use of it himself.

Pyromancer (Psyker):
Almost unsurprising, Rik's psyker abilities seem to naturally gravitate towards that of Pyromancy. Like any other weapon in his arsenal, Rik often makes use of it in order to invoke utter destruction on his foes. An interesting twist is his ability to infuse his flames with different kinds of radiation; While most enemies that Rik reduces to cinders might not have to worry about rad poisoning for long, destroying his target all the way down to the genetic level always seems to give Rik the best insight into the mysteries of the Omnissiah.


Appearance:
It is... difficult to describe Rik in a way that does him justice. At least not once he was fully grown and the full extent of his fusion with machinery began. To those who follow the teachings of the Omnissiah, to gaze upon the massive form of Primarch Uixien is to see the ideal fusion of machine and flesh in all its beautiful, powerful glory. The form itself changes on a semi-regular basis as machinery is swapped in and out in order to best deal with different situations, but the human skin that can be seen is a healthy looking Caucasian, his bewitching emerald eyes flickering with the sparks of psychic might that stirred up on occasion. His hair is... no longer there, but before he embraced the machine it was a lovely black color.

While all pieces of tech that makes up Rik's body can be changed around and different weapons equipped, two things remain consistant for the Primarch. The first is a rad furnace that is literally built itself his body, alongside the required shielding technologies to ensure that it doesn't affect the Primarch himself when he activates it in battle. The second is a pair of matching paragon blades that Rik personally wields into battle.

Concept:
The Emperor's Problem Solver. Because sometimes a wall of guns isn't enough to make sure a species or entity dies and stays dead and the Emperor cannot work on every such problem himself.

Legion Name:
The Lightbringers
The Eighth Legion

Associated Primach:
Rik Uixien

Concept:
The Emperor's Exterminators. While all of the Legions perform this task, the Lightbringers are meant to be sent in when more conventional methods of bringing death and destruction aren't quite cutting it... or in which something difficult has to be killed but the planet it is on cannot just be destroyed for whatever reason and thus a more creative solution needs to be found.

Without their Primarch, the Lightbringers are prone to defaulting to total and utter destruction of their target and the surrounding area. They're not stupid and can acknowledge that there are alternative methods to be employed as needed or when an objective needs to be taken that prevents total destruction of the area, but without the guidance of their Primarch they are simply prone to a more cautious 'Only way to make sure' kind of mindset that, while effective at dealing with whatever current threat they've been tasked to deal with, does tend to render the area worthless to the Imperium for the foreseeable future, if not longer.

Name: Suni Straov

Legion: II; Dragon’s Scales

Homeworld: Aqmateen

Aqmateen was flooded in the ancient past, leaving the only visible land the tops of old mountain ranges. There are eight major mountain ranges on Aqmateen. Some of them became completely isolated after the Great Flood, eventually losing knowledge of the existence of the others. Some of the people of Aqmateen reverted to a primitive lifestyle, living on the small amount of land available to them. Others learned to dig into and thrive within the mountains. All those who live in Aqmateen learn the same lesson: the ocean is their greatest boon and their deadliest bane. It is the source of all their resources, but is also home to a myriad of creatures, many of them capable of easily sinking a large ship on their own.

Psyker Grade: Gamma

Skills/Abilities:

Water Manipulation - Queen of the seas, Suni is able to manipulate water in all its forms, from the smallest drop to an entire ocean. Her mastery of the element is unmatched both in power and precision. Those who meet her in the battlefield on her domain can do little but pray for a quick and painless end.

Combat - Suni is physically the weakest among her siblings, but makes up for this with her speed, flexibility, and unpredictability. Her strange proportions give her a longer reach than one would expect and she is able to attack and defend from strange and unexpected positions. Her weapon of choice is a custom lightweight cross between a spear and fishing rod, carved from scales taken from Hessen's face.

Enhanced senses - Suni's vision is rather poor, only able to make out blurry shapes and she is sensitive to bright lights. Her hearing and smell, however, are excellent. She is able to identify individuals by their smell and can identify the size and types of armies based on sound.

Echolocation - in underwater and cave-like settings, Suni is able to use echolocation clicks to map out her surroundings and hunt her prey.

Size manipulation - it is debated whether the ability to turn Hessen into a smaller form is the god’s power or Suni’s

Appearance:

Suni is known for her uncanny, almost alien appearance. She stands at over ten feet tall and is awkwardly proportioned and has a large, scaled tail. She is skinny to the point of looking skeletal. This, coupled with her unnaturally long arms and legs make her appear taller than she actually is. Her skin is pale and has a green-blue undertone to it, contrasting with her extremely dark shoulder length hair. When not covered, her eyes are the same color as Hessen's, pale blue to the point of looking transparent or colorless.

Suni wears the simple white robes common to Aqmateen priests with a black sash. She has two sets of armor. The first is made of scales from Hessen's back. It is made to fit tightly against her body, allowing her to move quickly in the water up to 200 meters deep. Past that, she wears a more heavy duty armor made to withstand the higher pressures of the ocean. She can often be seen with a shrunken Hessen sitting on her shoulder.



Concept:
The emperor's beast. She was made to hunt and stalk her prey in even the harshest conditions. She is wild like an animal and can be difficult to control, but fierce and destructive on the battlefield.

Legion Name: II, Dragon's Scales

Associated Primarch: Suni Straov

Concept:

The second legion is specialized in covert missions through hazardous and difficult to navigate areas, such as the Radiation Wastes. Renowned for their cold efficiency and unpredictability, they have caught many armies off guard attacking from impossible positions or locations.

After finding her, their job extends to keeping their Primarch in check, who is unruly, willful, and prone to ignoring orders.

Name: Arnulf Wode

Legion: III Legion, The Pact of the Lance

Homeworld: Salient Tertius (Civilized World)

Psyker Grade: Thoroughly Kappa. It is something of a running joke that Wode’s grating personality is caused by lack of a soul, but in truth he merely possesses no psychic potential.

Skills/Abilities: Wode is much like other primarchs, a physical powerhouse coupled to a lightning-fast mind and indomitable charisma. Outside of these gifts, though, he is startlingly mundane, with no psychic powers, nor is he even really as gifted at single combat as the rest of his siblings, his own philosophy of combat relying on meeting the enemy with force so overwhelming that the vagaries of tactics and fighting forms become irrelevant.

If anything sets him apart, it is his determination, and his ability to inspire his men to fight with all they’ve got, to squeeze every last ounce of potential from the seemingly outmatched, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. It remains to be seen if this charisma extends to his siblings however.

Appearance: Arnulf gives the impression of being squat and solid. Short for a primarch, at just above nine feet in height, the demigod exudes a domineering, commanding presence, full of confidence and bravado. His face is craggy and gaunt, covered with scars and pock-mark wounds from past conflicts.

His musculature is, of course for one of his stature, defined, but no artistry was present when he was geneforged. He is bulky, with wide shoulders, big biceps and forearms, and a barrel chest propped on legs that seem to be two stout trunks.

At peace, he wears a no-frills service uniform resembling something from Imperial Army issue, though of course the decorations on it are Astartes, and the tailoring is far finer than anything procured from an Auxilia storehouse.

In wartime, on foot, he wears the bare-metal powered plate of the Pact, adjusted for his size and stature, sporting a powerful DAoT void shield generator that can shrug off firepower far in exces 8s of its diminutive size. Cruelly dismissive of melee combat, Arnulf’s favorite weapon is an oversized autocannon that fires discarding sabot shells, a lost relic of a weapon capable of toppling whole city blocks with a sustained burst of fire. Although he carries a power blade, a cruel, heavy, single-edged cleaver of a sword, he rarely uses it, preferring to obliterate his opponents from range.

More often, though, he rides in the cupola of his personal superheavy tank, a curious vehicle consisting of a Baneblade-pattern hull mated to a Fellblade turret.



Concept: The Emperor made Arnulf Wode to be a winner of wars, a conqueror, with no passions but the swift destruction of the enemy. His talents lie in his ability to lead warhosts of vast size, complexity, and demographics as seamlessly as he wears his clothes. It was with these parameters that Amar Astarte and the Emperor set out to create their perfect soldier, their eater of armies.

A veteran tanker of the Pact. Note the augmentic leg, many tank commanders survive their vehicles being shot out from under them, and leg injuries are common due to interior fires and explosions venting from open hatches as they climb out.

Legion Name: The Lightnings (Pre Unification)/ The Pact of the Lance (Post Unification)

Associated Primach: Arnulf Wode

Concept:The Pact inherited a lot from their Primarch and the fast moving, desert wars of Salient where he learned his trade. The trademark of the young Legion is its tank companies, vast ranks of Imperial armor that strike out at the foe in precise, unstoppable spearheads of steel and guns.

The Pact favors the aggressive war, using their tanks as battering rams to punch holes in the weakest parts of an enemy battle line, then encircling the cut-off foe and destroying them in detail with the less glamorous mechanized infantry of the Legion and its Imperial Army auxilia. It is not uncommon for the Pact to outpace its logistical elements, relying on prosecuting their conflicts with plunder from their opponents.

Culturally, the Pact is very pragmatic and results-oriented. What works, works, and what doesn’t is abandoned. Legionaries from Wode’s host are constantly honing their craft, running training exercises day and night until even the most complicated maneuvers are rote memory.

The unofficial unit emblem of Imperial Penal Assault Unit 31-3.

Faction Name: Imperial Penal Assault Unit 31-3 (Official Designation)
The Damned (Unofficial Designation)

Faction Overview/Concept: The Damned are a penal military unit, made up of the numerous dissidents, prisoners of war, political undesirables, degenerates, and criminals generated by the expanding Imperial rule on Terra. The Emperor’s forces, in great need of manpower, press even the unwilling, unable, and unfit to widen his sphere of influence, and to knock off a few future risk factors in the process.

Strategically, the Damned operate like no other force in the Imperial panoply. They make extensive use of combat drugs, most particularly the newly synthesized Frenzon, to whip the troops up into a bloodthirsty, but malleable, fervor. They make extensive use of exploding discipline collars to punish cowardice, and employ ‘discipline cadres’, regular Imperial Army veterans earmarked for their loyalty to the Imperial Cause, to execute any member of the 31-3rd found wanting.

While any one of these things is not unheard of in the technobarbaric wastelands of Unification Terra, using all of them at once is considered especially inhumane and heinous. However, these brutal methods are extremely effective in pressing untrained, unwilling penal soldiers into feats of suicidal bravery, which is what makes it useful to the Emperor.

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

The 31-3rd is organized along the same lines as a typical Imperial Army regiment of the time. It is on paper, approximately 10,000 - 20,000 fighting men and women. In practice, attrition makes this number far, far smaller. It is rare for the Damned to operate in small units - they are typically massed for wave attacks to probe defense lines, storm fortresses, assault across a wide front, and fight delaying actions for other Imperial forces.

They are armed with whatever they can get their hands on; the most common armament being solid slug autoguns and shotguns, with the occasional lasgun or crew served weapon. It is not unheard of for close combat weapons to be issued if firearms ever run short, which they often do, as the majority of issued arms are taken from captured enemy weapons, cast offs from other units, and weapons personally stolen by the individual soldier. Standardization is nonexistent, and not considered desirable by the Damned’s command cadre.

Key Characters:

Colonel Jonathan Stavin: The CO of the Damned is a former militia leader who’s organization had been swiftly crushed by Unification forces. As punishment for his dogged defense after being offered surrender, he is forced to lead what started as his old comrades into the meat grinder. Now, he sends the Damned to their doom with a callous cruelty, viewing himself as the ferryman across the river Styx.

Discipline Master Augusta Severina: The Discipline Master of the Damned, Severina was a trooper in the Emperor’s regular army. A hardbitten woman with a reputation for getting it done no matter the cost, Severina climbed the ranks on the deaths of her comrades. She cheerfully carries out her duties in the Damned, relishing the chance to send the Emperor’s dregs to their deaths.

Trooper Caleb Raum: A newly inducted penal trooper, Trooper Raum made the mistake of posting a leaflet that expressed skepticism of the Pax Imperialis. Picked up by the constabulary, they quickly pressed him into the Damned. Trooper Raum was formerly an academic, and possesses no relevant combat experience.

Sergeant Ernest Whitaker: A survivor of the militia unit that formed the initial core of the Damned, Whitaker is a hollow man, a killer of unparalleled skill and uncountable trauma. A mean man with a mean rep, Sergeant Whitaker takes no shit and doesn’t hesitate to lord his position over his lessers.

Name: Korvo Phobos

Alligence(?): Tzeentch

Homeworld: Malfesia
Malfesia is the Throne world of the Phobos family, those that had guided the people through the ages of darkness and ignorance. It is a Earth-Like world of roughly the same astronomical size class as Terra. It would qualify as both a Garden and Resource-rich world. It has two natural Oceans Seperated by one large branching continent, that when viewed from space at the right angle, looks like one great blue eye. It gave rise to the standing creed of the Malfesian Guard, 'Always Watchful' with such sayings as the nothing escapes the notice of the Great Eye. It is home to 4 seperate hive cities with populations pushing into the lower end of 100 Billions.

There are a total of 9 worlds in the Malfesia Home System, which rules over 8 other systems with a similar number of planets. It is nestled into the dark zone of the Priam System in Segmentum Ultima. The region is, from the outside, plagued with vicious Warp Storms prevent Warp Travel through the system for Imperial Ships.

Psyker Grade: Alpha - (Alpha Plus with Vissar)

Skills/Abilities:
All Tzeentchian Sorcereries
Mastery of Warp Fire and Immunity of all Flame Based Weaponry
Mastery of All Common Psyker Disciplines

Appearance:
A Man standing at 5'10, always seen in some form of a clean pressed suit of varying materials and shades of blue, red, or even pinks. His eyes are coal black with the sparks of illumination in their depths.

Concept:
The Eldest son of the Phobos Family in M39.999, born on the cusp of the Change of Milineia, he was a child that had been 'destined' and 'promised' that would bring salvation to the Phobos Family in its most dire time. Yet, what was not said was that the 'Dire Time' of the family had already passed, many millenia before. The Most dire time of the Phobos family was the near death of its would be founder in the Siege of Memphos, when the Emperor of Mankind was uniting Old Terra in order to launch his campaign into the stars. Korvo would master what humans call 'Time Travel' in his early years, and journy down the hidden paths of the Warp he could come to call 'The Clock Tower' which connected all points in time in the warp. He is someone that ventures through the warp in order to interfere with events in order to secure the future. The Butterfly must beat its wings in order to change the future, and he is the one that goes to ensure it happens.

Species: Greater Daemon of Tzeentch

Concept:
In Service to Korvo, this Greater Daemon of Tzeetch was played by a human child, all in part of a plan hatched by the said Child's future self, set in the past. It is a convoluted plan that required the manipulation of a being that was older than empires, through a web of time, all in order to play on the Bird Daemons own Curious Nature. Vissar, now enslaved, finds himself with more purpose than he ever had before and is more than willing to assist his Master in his plots.

All of which serves to Amuse Tzeentch to no end.

Faction Name: The Hollow Ones

Faction Overview/Concept: A very small, secretive order of pariahs, numbering no more than around 20 at a time, as well as a somewhat larger cohort of more typical agents acting at their behest. Created by the ruler of Albia and conqueror of the Panpacific Empire thousands of years ago, a Blank himself, his descendants have more recently lost the native holds of their ancestry; at around the same time, a man claiming to be this very same ruler has taken control of the group once more, and the faction has gone into deep cover, biding its time to reclaim what has been lost to them at the opportune moment... and, if their cards are played well, perhaps even more than they could have ever imagined.

Faction Assets: High concentration of Blanks, highly focused on subterfuge at present, with majority of influence effected through ensouled agents of the Hollow Ones. High council of Nulls numbering 3-5 (dependent on current Blank presence) act as the default leadership and administration beneath their liege, or under a Regent elected from their number in absentia.

Key Characters: The Unspeakable King - Founder, c. M27. Also known as Magna Albia and Archtyrant of Panpacifica.
The Unspeakable King (self-proclaimed?) - Current leader, having ousted Barrack Hawke as Regent in the absence of the defeated Magna Albia.
Barrack Hawke, Pwyll Dyved, Kia Rajon, Dolph Bens - High council, and most prominent Hollow Ones beneath The Unspeakable King.

Character Name: The Unspeakable King

Rank/Role: Leader of the Hollow Ones; Magna Albia, Archtyrant of Panpacifica (both self-proclaimed)

Appearance: The man who was The Unspeakable King has long since faded from mortal memory, his looks at the time forgotten in favour of his legacy of horror. The man who claims this title now, for all that it implies, is distressingly mundane. What stands out most is his height, at roughly 210 cm, and yet his physique implies none of the superhuman strength of the techno-barbarians of Terra, let alone the Emperor of Mankind's Legions, whether they be Astartes, Cataegis, or Custodes. Otherwise, his usual look is pale, with black hair and black eyes and an aspect that defies a definite age, and for the time being plain clothing that fails to impress for a would-be King.

Biography: It has never been clothing that has made The Unspeakable King who he is, but his effect on the world around him. In times past, tales were told of the nightmare of his empire, which was not merely himself and his Hollow Ones, but countless hordes of techno-barbarians cowed into working under him. And, of course, the legend himself, whose contra-psychic abilities brought many a sorcerer-king low in the age of his conquest and rule, before passing leadership to his firstborn and exiting the public eye.

Now? Either the failure of his descendants has stirred him, or an enterprising Blacksoul has taken the opportunity to claim the mantle for himself, or perhaps something yet stranger is occurring. In any case, the Hollow Ones outlived the empire they led, and with the death of their reigning monarch and the long-overdue collapse of control over the lands he ruled, one of their number was elected Regent in an effort to reclaim what they could. Instead, they drew the attention of this individual: with nothing more than his bare hands and an aura of unnerving soullessness, he invaded the Hollow Ones' fortress, slew several dozen armed soldiers, beat Barrack Hawke senseless both physically and psychologically, and threw him from the throne that, by the invader's own words, "had always belonged to me and mine; and mine, evidently, are indisposed".

Whoever the individual claiming to be The Unspeakable King was, he was extraordinarily potent in scope. No mere psyker he, but practically the opposite: an anti-psyker of sorts, whose aura of emotional oblivion was manipulated as both scalpel and sledgehammer, more than capable of bringing out the worst in people with souls or slaying them outright in ways that regular Blanks ought to be incapable of. Beyond this, his physical abilities were also exceptional, with speed, strength, durability, and endurance far exceeding the average gene-warrior. Most of all, he was cunning and intelligent both, with great forethought and a ruthlessness verging on amorality; and with that, he had the Hollow Ones select their most loyal subjects, before taking the chosen into hiding, in locations that none beyond himself had realised were so available to them. And after that...

They waited. Long enough to watch what had been built vanish into an entirely new set of states; in theory easily taken. But the Unspeakable King kept them hidden. The rumour was, so the King had learned, that a new empire was taking form. One which would claim all of Terra in a War of Unification. And after that? Beyond. At the very least, what was a few additional years to see if the rumours were true, when the prize was so easy to take whenever they wished?

Name: Nolrakh, the Veiled One.

Legion: Legio IX.

Homeworld:

Drifting through the cosmic graveyard of the Halo Stars, Laethem is a bleak, monochrome world of dark skies, desolate lands and icy starlight. Much of its surface is covered in barren rock wastes, broken only by sluggish inky seas wherein swim vast and somnolent things of curious and archaic appearance, the only form of life to stubbornly cling to existence under the open air. The thinness of Laethem’s atmosphere and the distance from its star, white-faced Achrum, cast upon it a perennial pall of chilly night, pierced more strongly by the sinister constellations that loom over it at all times than by the feeble sun. To venture out unprotected for longer than brief hours would spell death from cold and asphyxiation in the deepest valley as surely as on the highest peak.

Given the planet’s remote location and the poverty of its conditions, it is perhaps surprising that it should ever have been chosen by ancient humanity not merely as a site of habitation, but of massed settlement. Three great hive spires were built upon the world, though only one still stands to this day, and the already immense networks of caverns and tunnels in its crust were further expanded by gargantuan mining operations until they formed an interconnected web spanning Laethem’s full extension. These feats of engineering have given the modestly sized, inhospitable planet deceptively extensive space for its population to multiply, and in the havoc of Old Night it has grown unchecked, fracturing over the generations into three wide strata roughly distinguished by their proximity to the surface.

The people of the surviving Hive Koytos have deviated the least from base humanity, and still desperately fight to maintain the purity of their lineages. The severity of the struggle, and the harshness of life in the spire, have hardened them into a rigid, severely regimented martial society which brooks no dissent or scruple in the fight for survival. They are beset from below by the teeming hordes of the Pale Ones, the abhuman breeds that have mutated and grown in Laethem’s subterranean labyrinths. Strange and grotesque are their visages, with lean, spindly bodies and chalky hairless skin, their eyes vestigial or wholly absent; some even sport huge nostrils whose fine smell guides them as well as any other sense. While parts of the Pale Ones still cling to vestiges of civilization, many have devolved into barbarism or been swayed to the worship of cruel monster-gods, and seek the conquest of the spire above. The other two hives have already fallen at their hands, destroyed by their last defenders in final acts of defiance.

Deep in the lowermost levels of Laethem’s maze, where even the Pale Ones rarely tread, there lurks a third, seldom-seen strain of deviate humankind. Bred in the distant past for heavy labour in the mines, the ogryn-like colossi known as the Ghug roam vaults that no light has reached in millennia. Never gifted with developed minds, they are now little better than cannibal beasts, and the rare times when their voracious hunting packs ascend from their pits become days of storied dread for the world’s underdwellers.

Psyker Grade: Zeta. A telepath of notable strength, Nolrakh is nevertheless limited in the forms his talent can effectively manifest in, none of which are beyond the reach of most trained human psykers.

Skills and Abilities:

Haunter of the Dark: Born and grown under distant stars and in deepest shadow, Nolrakh shuns the light and takes to darkness as his home. The sight of his vitreous, atrophic eye is dim in the glow of day, but seizes upon shapes and motion with uncanny precision when immersed in penumbra, painting a colourless but stark world of outlines to his mind. Where the shadows grow too deep even for this gift, his psychic ability to perceive the minds of living things in his vicinity supplies, along with the strange senses of his mutated physiology - the taste of the wind, the tremors of the soil, the vibrations in the air all lead him to his quarry. Despite his imposing size, his deftness in moving unseen and unheard as long as darkness cloaks him is downright preternatural, even when armoured; no predator nor prey can match his nightly stalking.

Horror Made Flesh: Fear and revulsion are the mutant’s lot, and Nolrakh is no exception. As heavily as his ghastly appearance weighs on him, he knows it can be leveraged to inspire dread in his enemies, and is skilful in doing so should it be required. Misshapen claws and teeth flashing at the edge of one’s vision, or the apparition of a hideous visage, can break the staunchest spirits, but the Ninth Primarch’s potency of fear goes beyond mere physical intimidation. A hypnotic force dwells in his eye which can strike those who meet its gaze with paralyzing anguish, or plague them with hallucinations were they even to escape its grasp. Should all else fail, he summons forth raw psychic might to batter down the most stubborn mind with the force of Warp-induced emotion.

The Flawed Fortress: Nolrakh’s body is perpetually at war with itself, wracked by periodic surges of degeneration and reconstruction which preclude all attempts at an external cure for his deformity. His regenerative potential, truly stupendous by any standard, stubbornly rejects surgical or bionic alterations as well as the fruits of his mutation, which in turn never fail to reassert themselves in the same immutable forms. Grisly a fate as this may be, a hidden blessing lurks in it, for harm is likewise unable to leave a lasting mark on the Primarch. No matter how deep the wound or thorough the mutilation, he can recover from virtually any injury as long as he is not slain outright, and even regrow entire limbs with minimal medical assistance. This, together with his resilience to pain, enables him to fight in an uniquely lethal style, recklessly exposing himself to damage that he might strike with ferocious abandon.

Appearance:

Obscure flaws in the Ninth’s genes have conspired with the Warp to undermine the image of physical perfection that ought to have been his birthright as a Primarch. A germ of disfigurment forever gnaws at him from within, regularly rising to hiderously transfigure him before being forced back by his innate regeneration in an agonizing cycle that repeats every solar month.

At the peak of his health, Nolrakh could well pass for truly human were it not for his stature. Towering at some twelve feet in height, he has the robust frame of a warrior, though his pale skin belies his darkling habits. His firm, if subtly tense posture and unscarred bald head do not appear out of place among the Imperium’s gene-altered troops, and his stern statuesque features lend him an air fit for command. The only flaw marring them are his eyes, of whom one – which precisely is never constant – is a hollow socket, and the other murky, with no discernable iris.

This state, however, only endures for a matter of days, after which an unholy transformation begins. Skin frays and recedes, hard white growths part twisting flesh, and facial features drift almost fluidly overnight, until in about a week the decay is complete.



In this state, Nolrakh’s body is a horrific mass of knotted strands of muscle, ragged coils of pale skin and exposed plates of hardened bone extruding from a fantastically misshapen skeleton. Thin strips of purulent necrosis are nested between the ridges and chaotic contours of his frame. His hands are claws of sharpened bone, his head little more than a skull of exposed osseous exoskeleton, pitted and gouged like a lunar surface. His eye, now truly cyclopean, sits in its fractured center, surmounting the rictus death-grin of a lipless mouth, from which issues a voice at once guttural, crackling and sibilant – a mere ruin of the curt and acerbic, yet compelling tones of his apex. In time, the process of healing begins, and the horror is steadily swathed in healthy skin and flesh once more, but ever it remains skulking under the surface until it is ready to emerge anew.

Ashamed of his monstrous and unstable essence, the Ninth usually hides his features under heavy robes or armour, with a veil or hood that lends him his moniker.

Concept:

A living paradox, a loftiest pinnacle of humanity and a most vile of miscreations coexisting in a single tormented body, Nolrakh is a being haunted by his aberrant nature and forever goaded by the hope for salvation, or at least redemption. Burdened by what he sees as his innate sin, he at once abases himself before the Emperor he has failed and is driven to acts of tremendous hubris in his efforts to restore himself, be that atrocious carnage in a futile bid for glory or the blackest scientific inquests in search of an escape from the unnatural cycle that measures his existence; in the same breath, he yearns to serve humanity and immolates it on the altar of his desperation. Tragic spirit and loathsome butcher, champion and abomination, Primarch and mutant; such is the fate of the Ninth.

Legion Name: Legio IX, “the Reviled”; later known as the Star Reavers.

Associated Primach: Nolrakh.



Concept: Descendants of savage techno-nomads from the nighted Antarctic plains, the warriors of the Ninth Legion are harrowed by the curse inherited from their sire. Though stable enough on implantation, as if eager to infect healthy bodies, their gene-seed is fraught with the exsecratio corporis, the malediction of the flesh, a plague of cascading mutation that ravages them as they age. Some of them swell and bloat into faceless, spike-toothed unwieldy hulks the size of tactical dreadnought armour; others are twisted into hunched, predatory shapes, with exposed plates and ridges of bone matching those of their progenitor. In the vast majority, however, the exsecratio manifests as a gradual atrophy of limbs and organs, forcing its victims to seek bionic replacements.

The Reviled channel the pain and rancor of their affliction into a peculiarly vicious and gruesome form of warfare. Thirsting to mangle their foes’ bodies as well as shatter their spirits with abject terror, they often strike in darkness, bearing down in close combat with a fury of roaring metal and fearsome weapons from Terra’s past. Like their forebears, they are sworn to the chainblade and venerate the ice-flame, and like them they give no quarter.

Legion: The Chosen of Asaheim

Homeworld: Fenris

A planet of fire and ice, Fenris orbits its sun once every 3-4 Terran years. During the summer months volcanoes erupt, burning great areas with lava flows and churning the seas, spreading great floods and tidal waves. As the planet enters its long winter, the temperature drops so far that most of it actually ices over, giving the planet the appearance of a snowball from orbit.

Apart from a single area of the planet that is permanently land-locked, Fenris is a world of shifting geography and mostly oceans. Numerous asteroid strikes, mutable coastlines and even swiftly risen or sunk island masses have resulted in the population becoming one of largely nomadic barbarian tribes. The tribes constantly seek secure territory, and as a result skirmishes and feuds over land between rival tribes are common. The people are hardened to the changes in temperature and extremes, and so is the fauna. The only continent that remains constant is Asaheim.

The central sea of Fenris is the Savage Sea or Worldsea, home to most of the planet's wildlife, most of which are vicious sea creatures. Nonetheless the sea provides most of the planet's inhabitants with their food.

The people of Fenris fall into four groups, with three being notably larger than the fourth. The largest static populations of the land are on Asaheim, known as Lowlanders due to inhabiting the only permanently habitable valleys of Fenris' one stable continent. They have traditionally been seen as weaker by the other more nomadic populations, a generally unfair assessment as while the climate is more stable, this also draws greater predators to the same regions. As Eiralda's actions across Fenris come to fruition, the Lowlanders will hold increasing sway over Fenris, blessed as they are by more regular interactions with the Mountain-Born. Most of the rest of the population of Fenris falls into two nomadic groups, the Glacial Nomads and the Islanders. These two groups both live on the vast changing expanse of the Worldsea, although their means of surviving it vary greatly. Glacial Nomads follow the great shifting plains of ice across the world, Summering in Asaheim when the rest of the World is too unstable due to the rising heat. The Islanders, instead, roam from volcanic island to volcanic island on Dragonships. Both must deal with the ever-present danger of both hostile wildlife and the environment. The final, and smallest group, of the human population, are the Iron Islanders, a more technologically advanced society that dwells on the island chain of the same name, a set of islands that has proven as permanent, if far smaller, than Asaheim.

There is a further culture upon, or in this case, within, Fenris. Beneath the mountains, living among the abandoned shelters of Fenris first colonisation, are the Nightgangers, a sub-human mutant species in thrall to foul gods.

Psyker Gradient: Gamma (see hider below)

Skills/Abilities:

• A Warrior Born: Like all her siblings, Eiralda has a great capacity and ability for combat, although this ability has been honed even more greatly by the conditions of Fenris. To live on Fenris is to hunt or die, and there are beasts to challenge even a scion of the Emperor across the valleys of Asaheim or the ever-changing seas of the rest of the planet.
• Soul-Scryer: Eiralda is a being of great supernatural empathy, the most common manifestation of the psychic gifts present in her portion of the Emperor's being. With some deliberate focus, she can skein the thoughts of others, but more passively she can generally 'feel' the emotions of beings around her. She has been known to have visions of the past of others when meeting them, although this is unbidden. The exact veracity of all aspects of this ability can at times be questioned.
• War Shout: Taught to her by the Stormspeakers of Fenris, Eiralda is able to channel a combination of her physical might and psychic power into a disruptive warcry of force, one that can not only physically stun opponents, but also disrupts the energies of the Warp while doing so.

Appearance:

It is meant to be that all scions of the Emperor have an overworldly charisma, often possessing features which are at once fair and terrifying to mortal humans. It is not hard to understand why many might consider them divine, falling from the heavens to walk among mortals so clearly their lesser. Eiralda is all this and more, a stunning figure carved from the myths and legends of her homeworld. Her features are pristine to a manner that can unnerve as much as it can enrapture, rarely doing just one. Her hair is a golden blonde, traditionally worn in a great braid signifying her mastery of her people and homeworld, writ through with decorative bands. Her skin, pale as most Fenrisians, is often decorated with markings, but they rarely last long, returning as surely as the landscapes of her homeland to pristine snow.

Beauty belies the truth of strength, for any born of Fenris, let alone a scion of the Emperor. While perhaps it may be less obvious than some of her siblings, this power is still clear

Having been cast into the warp tainted sub-realm of the Underverse as a child, Eiralda did not return to the material realm without cost. Caught between arguing gods, her psyche, perhaps even her soul itself, has fragmented. Her seemingly weaker psychic presence is a lie, hidden from even the most observant eyes, perhaps even the Emperor himself.

Within Eiralda, is the murderous personality known as Revanant, a being of violent psycopathy and paranoia. Even latent, this destructive personality speaks to Eiralda, cautioning her from trust, all in the name of protecting her. Eiralda can, however, willingly (and in some cases unwillingly) allow Revanant to surface. Revanant is an alpha-level psychic being, capable of manipulating reality itself and moving within the shadows. As with all beings of the Underverse, Revanant craves the consumption of both human flesh and soul matter, a hunger which Eiralda has little control over once she has succumbed, no matter how true her care for humanity may be.

The 'pair' have a complicated relationship, both loathing and loving each other, as any tempestuous sisters might. It just so happens they share a body.

Legion Name: The Chosen of Asaheim / The Purifiers

Associated Primach: Eiralda Fjallborinn

Concept:

The Purifiers are one of the last legions to form during the Unification, drawn largely from the populations 'liberated' from the Maullan Sen Confederacy. Drawn from this savage stock, the Purifiers are a lesson in the righteousness of their master's cause, purged of the warp-taint of the region and trained as ardent, if violent, believers in the Imperial Turth. The Purifiers specializes in rooting out rebellion, particularly the tainted variety of wyrds and mutants that is so counter to the Emperor of Mankind. Despite their fervour, they are little trusted by their fellow astartes, so well known is the taint the Maullan Sen brought to Nordyc.

Following the discovery of Eiralda, the Purifiers will heavily adopt the cultural trappings of Fenris, taking the name the Chosen of Asaheim from the society Eiralda has forged on the death world. The empathetic senses they have inherited from their primarch are turned from activities more befitting secret police to conquerors that are just as likely to achieve victory through word as they are through boltgun. The Chosen are most ideally deployed into situations where greater portions of a world's population and industry are to be preserved, and the brutal wholesale tactics of other legions may be too destructive.

Hidden from prying eyes, however, a secretive element within the legion, the psychically able Ravenspeakers, quasi-exiles from the rest of the Legion, often remain behind on worlds the Chosen have conquered. They work in the shadows, rooting out dissent. While their work may be secret, their results are not, and many would-be-rebels are found murdered in a brutal manner before the nascent revolutions could come to fruition.

Name: Sekhmetara Khafre
Titles: Sol Invicta, The Pakhetera, Khonvoumaret, Aurelia,

Gender: Female

Homeworld: Mithra


The world of Mithra sits in an ideal position within the life zone of its star, Rahken, with a somewhat warmer climate than Terra during the early era of human history. Whether this entirely accounts for the world’s dangerous megafauna is another matter, with various theories revolving around the world’s settlement during the Dark Age of Technology. The majority of the world’s land surface is covered in rainforest and savannah, ranging to desert and cold-tundra at the extremes. No continent on Mithra is permanently covered in snow or ice. The most obvious hallmarks of the planet’s original settlement are the space elevators connecting the world to its two moons, Khonsu and Thotha. While neither moon naturally possessed life or a climate, both have been reshaped into paradise estates through extensive terraforming and palace facilities. Mithra is a Knight World, with noble houses having formed around the original pilots of the Technological Warsuits. Local understanding of the technology of the warsuits, moons and elevators is relatively high for an isolated Knight World, with a Caste of Engineers able to maintain all three to a high functioning degree, if not able to recreate them entirely.

Appearance:

Standing nearly twelve feet tall, Sekhmetara bears herself with an imperious stance even for her brother and sister primachs. Her skin is a dark nubile tone, and while her form is no doubt visibly powerful by any human measure, the strength in her form not obscuring her curvaceous build . Across her skin are various golden markings, unlike the traditional nobility of her home planet, these are formed from actual metal, so that her primach physiology does not remove the markings within the scope of days. Even still, they require rework every few years. Her long dark hair is often elegantly styled, although on occasion she will appear with shockingly white hair. How this is achieved is not immediately obvious, certainly not dye given the nature of Primachs.

As befitting of a Mithrasee noble, Sekhmetara takes great care with her appearance, especially when the occasion suits it and it is not difficult to understand, even visually, why the people of her homeworld considered her the likeness of their Goddess of the Hunt reborn.



Personality:

If one was being favorable, one might describe Sekhmetara as unwaveringly confident, a critic might call her arrogant. She likely falls somewhere in between. The product of success in both martial and political matters on a world where such things are prized with religious fanaticism. That is not to say she is abrasive, although likely some find her too self-aggrandizing. She is smooth of tongue in the extreme, a carefully presented character of whatever aspect of her pleasure or wrath she wishes to embody at the specific time. When she wishes to, she can appear the opposite of aloof, as invested in whoever she is conversing with as she could anyone else in the entire galaxy, but this can be replaced with cold fury in the next moment, genuine or acted. She is a being that has grown up with the pressure and benefits of divine rule and there is much in her behavior that is reminiscent of the divine beings of ancient myth.

While Sehkmetara is a being who appreciates art and beauty, what zhe truly craves is challenge and risk, ever pushing herself and her legion to greater feats of glory and valor.

Skills:

-Martial Skills: All Primachs are dangerous, but Sekhmetara is so in a way which seems to balance between refined nobility and wild aggression. Having been raised a noble in the Knightly society of Mithra, followed by exile to the untamed wilderness of her home planet, she has fought both ritually and for survival against monsters that could fell a Knight Lance. In battle as a part of the Crusade, she wields the Glaive Encarmine, a masterfully crafted power glaive, Alongside this, her gauntlets house twin-volkite weaponry and retractable power blades.

-Eye of the Huntress: Sekhmetara has a seemingly supernatural connection to both the natural world and the art of the Hunt, seemingly able to stalk prey where no other can find a trail, or implement the advantages of her surroundings with a capacity which exceeds even the greatest of mortal or astartes commanders.

-Refined Arts: As well as a simple observer of such things, Sekhmetara is well versed in the creation of artistry, be that art itself, dance, sculpture, song, the refined tactics of noble generals, she has delved deeply into them all, more than capable of impressing the greatest minds and performers of the worlds she encounters.

Assignment Grade: Delta: While not always immediately obvious, Sekhmetara has a strong connection to the Warp, her interactions with it often subtle. Her presence calls attention to her, or allows her to mask herself beyond what her form and presentation should allow. The most visually obvious use of her psychic power includes cosmetic changes to herself, hardly as obvious as those who can twist their whole forms, but using it often to change the colouration of her hair, to cause her golden markings and eyes to glow, and other such tricks which only add to the impact her presence can bring. As she has regained contact with the Emperor, her control of her psychic abilities have honed somewhat, and she has begun to be able to wield more directly damaging psychic abilities, however she still tends to avoid this.

Legion Name: The Tears of Dawn

Legion Number: XX

Armour Appearance:
Legionary:


First Company:


Warcry: “Sol Invicta.” “The Dawn Breaks.” “For The Light Encarmine!”

Concept:

The Tears of Dawn are a Legion that brings uncompromising force to bear in order to fulfill their duty, as a Legion they are not as specialised as many of their fellow legions, instead seeing their purpose in mastering the art of war itself. Often fighting alongside Imperial Army and Questoris allies, the Legion will more commonly spread itself among the other Imperial assets during both offensive and defensive actions, their mastery of combined arms warfare coming to bear upon the foes of mankind.

In the years prior to the discovery of Sekhmetara, the Tears of Dawn, known as the Night Talons, shared much of the direct and aggressive style of war that the Tears would embody, used to strike blows decisively before the enemy even knew they were at war. The key distinction is the cooperation with other aspects of the Imperium, having previously been a very secretive legion.

Name: Caine

Lord Primarch of the Red Architects, System Governor of Selys, Lord Commander of Cretecia, King of Balidarys, Archduke of the Illede Isles, Grand Duke of Veradania, Numedarnt, and the Tiber, Regent to the Urte Throne, Duke of Clemence, Royan, and Durne, Imperator Executor of the Order of the Thrice Lions, Arch Herald of the Order of St Selys

Legion: IV Legion, Red Architects
Homeworld: Cretecia

Classification: Gamma
Location: Selys System, Segmentum Obscurus
One of the many subjects for terraforming amid the Dark Age, it is practically impossible to know what this world was prior. Like the many other worlds of its solar system, the world grew to be a habitable one with only minor differences to a standard Terran atmospheric composition. With large amounts of arable land, world-spanning oceans, and a variety of biomes, Cretecia could be considered a near clone to the original model. This would all change with the rise of the Age of Strife.

The breakdown of intergalactic travel, and indeed the breakdown of interplanetary travel to a wide degree, would heavily cripple the economies of the Selys System. While it was not under widespread Daemonic threat, space travel appeared to attract a number of threats to include a species of alien which tended to feast on the drive systems. Such feeding would lead to the destruction of several vessels in Warp phenomena. As a result of the breakdown in trade, the system as a whole would be placed under immense stress. Planetary trade would break down as further off mining stations attempted to exert disproportionate pressure on the colonial centers while fabrication regions experiencing a lack of raw materials were forced into poor deals to maintain their operations. A number of reactor failures would only serve to accelerate this breakdown in relations.

Eventually, as the equipment broke down due to a lack of necessary materials, each of the settlements, fabrication hubs, and mining compounds in system reverted to more sustainable, lower technologies. Due to sporadic interfighting between each, the information itself to generate the old technologies would be lost. In time these would grow to be independent states, wary of neighbors as their cultures vastly diverged. By the time a certain habitation pod landed in Cretecia, the system itself had been embroiled in a war for twelve long years, crude warships ferrying troops between worlds or engaging in void combat, massive salvos of artillery shells flung from one world to another via gravity sling, and interplanetary assaults claiming hundreds of thousands in casualties.

Psyker Grade: Delta

While Caine lacks a vast array of skills and rarely is one to extort his capacity as a Psyker openly, he still remains a rather potent subject of the Emperor. Used passively in the Warp's tendencies to allow foresight and prediction, he is quite capable of naturally intuiting the results of battles currently in progress to a greater degree than a normal, mortal servant of the Emperor.

Skills/Abilities:

The Grand Game
A visionary for wide reaching warfare, Caine is comfortable and capable in conducting system campaigns down to the planetary level. His methods of achieving victory vary as the situation dictates, between the use of mass offensives, subtle flanking maneuvers, development of kill zones in defensive lines, or eliminating the enemy support Infrastructure. Caine remains quite light on his feet and responsive towards new developments and unexpected actions, flexible to adjust the details of his campaigns to better achieve victory.

In addition to this, as a notable architect who rebuilt his home system in the brutal, utilitarian method which has grown to characterize the Selys System, Caine places strong emphasis the restoration of worlds to a useful state following his conquests. He considers it to be an integral portion to the action of galactic conquest, something not to be shied away from in the name of speed. Despite this, Caine is not so inflexible as to place his forces at risk in the name of rebuilding a planet. A planet taken does not require immediate construction, save for the rapid placement of strongholds to which the Red Architects have become known for.


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Direct War
While Caine is rarely known to directly participate in personal combat, he remains a lethal implement of the Imperial will. Honed in training again and again, he prefers his fights to be brief, brutal, overwhelming. Utilizing a power blade and bolter, he applies force aggressively to shift enemy attentions, remove defenses, and if able quickly end combat with a bolter shell to the neck or a blade through the chest.

Appearance:

Standing at 11' 7", while one could claim the inheritors of the Emperor's gifts possess degrees of otherworldly beauty this is quickly proven false with Caine. With more mortal facial features, a smooth oval face, short black hair, and a bushy mustache extending past the corners of his mouth, if it weren't for his size one could potentially mistake the Primarch as an Imperial Army officer. His tanned musculature is notably lean, long limbed as he is, with calloused hands. Caine exudes a quiet confidence, capable and demanding of respect to all those about him.

While at peace, he wears a simple uniform in the Cretecian style with deep navy blue jacket, blue field kepi, trousers, and boots. The campaign ribbons are in a similar style, plain lines of muted colors against the blue sewen into the fabric. The quality of the uniform itself is relatively poor compared to what otherwise may be expected for a Primarch, drawn as it was from Selys stores. When in war zones, Caine dons a set of Mk III Powered Armor painted in the deep crimson of his Legion. Equipped with a number of shield generators intended to deflect incoming blows, he bears a single edged, curved power blade and a bolter into the close combat.

Concept:

The General. The Builder. As the hammer to break down the Imperium's many foes and the cement for which conquests would be integrated into that same Imperium, Caine is suitable towards the great many challenges for the future. Flexible, aggressive, and demanding, his way is that of total war, commitment to the victory no matter in which shape that might come. If a world can be taken with diplomacy only, that is his route. If a world must be taken by force, that is acceptable as well. Noncommittal to any singular way of war, he is perfectly comfortable whether his forces fly for leagues about a flank, land deep in the foe's rear to attack their leaders and supply lines, form long lines of defensive layers and fortresses, poison enemy supplies and arms, or all of the above. To worlds taken, Caine is exceedingly pragmatic, working on primary needs first with utilitarian, plain structures for power, water, housing, and transportation.

Legion Name: Red Architects
Associated Primarch: Caine
Concept:

A generalist Legion, the Fourth utilizes a wide range of tools to achieve its objectives in the Great Crusade. Aggressive in its actions and total in its measures, the Legion employs its full energy to move forces in offensive assaults, construct forward operating bases, build defensive lines, and to effectively destroy the enemy. Its tendencies to construct installations and strongholds extends far past the end of the planetary conquest, with Legion elements aiding in reconstruction efforts. In this degree, the Fourth is known to work exceptionally well with the Imperial Army to the degree that units permanently attached to the Legion tend to adopt many of the tendencies of Legionnaires.

Culturally, the Red Architects are highly pragmatic, holding that their tasks must be as perfect as can be practicably seen. Self-critical, they assess combat actions from low to high, often employing large numbers of observer servo-skulls to observe their actions and relay information back to the fleet. The Legion is highly insular to other Legions with only a few exceptions, eschewing the radical extremes of such.

Name: Charlotte Frunde

Legion: VIIth Solar Dragoons (Eventually Crimson Hammers)

Homeworld: Francia

Carefully modified and re-sculpted in the Dark Age to resemble not just the Terra of old, but Franc and its many environs, Francia’s environment is, in effect, Franc at its height, colonies and all, blown up to the size of an entire, Earth-sized planet. Temperate, Europan forests, plains, and frigid mountains dominate most of its landscape, interspersed with bands of desert the further south one moves, all the way into deep jungles and frigid and a frigid polar ice-continent over the southern pole.

In spite of a dominant architectural style closely resembling renaissance-era Franc, Francia, insofar as Dark Age human civilizations go, remained relatively advanced, though a far cry from the heights of human achievement. Though the precise reasons for its survival have been long-since muddled, the planet’s rulers claim that, some time before the revolt of the Men of Iron, the rulers suspicious of Abominable Intelligences and either intentionally destroyed or exiled those on Francia, safely maintaining the use of comparatively simple robotics. And so, when the storm washed over humanity, Francia and the nearby systems it controlled recalled the fleets stationed in their vicinity, drew together whatever resources, and hunkered down while they waited for the storm to pass. True psykers, likewise, were slaughtered en-masse, viewed as a serious liability outside of the few astropaths required to keep the small ‘Empire’ together.

Largely unchallenged, and able to prey upon the fears of their people, the government quickly centralized, banning elections for the sake of “maintaining security in a time of crisis”, and instituting martial law. Rapid expansion of the Francian military eventually allowed them to expand their borders even further, conquering the entirety of their home system; upon the eve of which a monarchy -- a Francian Empire -- was declared.

At the tail end of their victory, the Francians rapidly expanded outward, conquering most of the nearby systems connected by the few remaining safe warp routes. As the millenia dragged on, dissent slowly grew, revolts appearing and disappearing like flashes in the pan, yet never achieving anything more than momentary success, until the sudden, unexpected arrival of a child from the stars.

Psyker Grade: Gamma

Skills/Abilities:

Liberté: Though Charlotte, and nearly every one of her comrades, fought hard to bring the Francian revolution to a favourable end, most of them were merely human, growing tired in battle, and being wracked with fear. And yet, those who fought alongside Charlotte seemed to fight harder and for longer beyond what simply being inspirational could justify, as if being in the half-giant’s towering presence somehow filled their bodies with energy, allowing them to fight on when they would otherwise collapse.

Égalité: Charlotte’s psychic ability manifests exclusively as telepathic and divinatatory ability, alongside the ability to heal, with no direct damage capabilities. Most valuable, perhaps, is her ability to predict the moves of her enemies ahead of time, incoming bombardments, and so on. This ability alone was perhaps the most useful he possessed when it came to her role as one of the leaders of a revolution, though Charlotte distinctly lacks the strategic acumen to fully exploit her powers without a strategic mind to supplement her and shore up her weaknesses.

Fraternité: Though unable to assault the minds of her enemies, Charlotte’s telepathy nonetheless allows her to bind herself and those fighting alongside her together, acting as a ‘middleman’ between them. Aside from this ability to quickly and effectively convey messages, however, her telepathy is generally unremarkable.

Innovation by Necessity: Though not an academic genius herself, Charlotte is possessed of a distinctively supernatural ability to innately understand technology, or, through her divination, to see into a specific facet of the future of a collection of objects as a sort of reverse-psychometry, and thus understand how to assemble them into something useful, or repair them to working order. This ability is distinctly difficult to explain; frequently, Charlotte simply expresses an instinctual understanding of how an item is to be used, or how something might be made to accomplish a specific task, though absent the ritual understanding that typifies the Martian Mechanicum, or even a more typical academic expertise.

Eclectic Training: Unusually for a primarch, though highly skilled in close-quarters combat, Charlotte lacks any formal training, and the substantial experience she has is mostly with repurposed industrial equipment (massive power hammers, laser cutters, and so on), largely thanks to her life as a revolutionary. With these implements and a handful of heavy weapons, she is nonetheless capable at the demigod-like level expected of primarchs that favour direct combat, most often adapted for her use rather than being purpose-built. On a related note, she has not yet had the luxury of specializing into one weapon or another, nor are there any particularly emblematic of her (she simply picked up and used the best tool for the job at hand), rendering her a jack-of-all-trades.

Appearance: Standing at 11’4” tall, while taller than many of her primarch siblings, Charlotte isn’t the tallest of her siblings by any means -- but she’s large enough to strike an intimidating figure, and remains one of the more athletic, though not the strongest, among her siblings, built more for the endurance required for sixteen-hour backbreaking workdays of manual labour in Francia’s mines, pushed intentionally to her superhuman limits by the planet’s rulers. Her hair, betraying her inhumanity for its unusually pale colour, is roughly chopped rather than finely cut; fitting, for a woman who fights with industrial implements and with little actual training. Her emerald eyes, likewise, are just as unusual, far brighter and more distinctly green than would be naturally possible. Nonetheless, in spite of her rough upbringing and lack of care for her appearance, Charlotte remains beautiful and visibly voluptuous, if generally grimy, aided by her natural regenerative capabilities.



Personality: Though she possesses a mind just as belligerent toward her ideological enemies as the most violent of her siblings, Charlotte is, nonetheless, a deeply caring woman, able and willing to throw her life away for the sake of any one of her mortal comrades; no falsehood worn for the purpose of manipulation but a genuine belief in the inherent value of each working class life. Even the lowliest mine laborer is no less worthy of life than she.

Of course, her eternal crusade to uplift the proletariat is not the only thing that motivated Charlotte, even if it is a personal mission that touches practically every choice the Primarch makes. As might be expected for someone so belligerent, and who has lived most of her life in secret dens of like-minded freedom fighters, Charlotte is a near-consummate thrillseeker, always hunting for the thrill of battle, the company of a lover, or the rare sort of ludicrously potent narcotic that can briefly alter her senses.

Concept: Purely in terms of the Emperor’s intent, Charlotte was tailor-made in distant imitation of some of the most mythically successful generals of Old Terra, equally as charismatic as she was strategically capable and with just the right combination of psychic abilities to stay ahead of even the most capable mortal warriors. Like many of these heroic generals, too, she was in effect intended to behave as a celebrity, an ideological mouthpiece and master of propaganda.

Although, just like most of her siblings, the results of the Emperor’s experimentation were far less predictable than He intended. Charlotte did indeed naturally arrive at a conclusion similar to her father’s regarding what was to be done with religion, though in different ways, taking on a distinctly revolutionary view of religion as an opiate with which the ruling class kept the working person down. Unlike her progenitor, however, Charlotte lacks any particular stance on aliens and especially mutants beyond simply viewing them as another, stranger kind of people, neither inherently repulsive or admirable, though aliens are certainly to be viewed with extra caution.

Most notable, perhaps, are her distinctly proletarian view of politics and ingrained distrust of ruling classes, the latter of which the Emperor certainly meets the qualifications for, regardless of how capable he might be when contact is finally made. Indeed, so great is her fear of such power that Charlotte lives in terror of the possibility that she was created by someone of incredible power for far more oppressive purposes than she ended up living out, as, while Francian technology is highly advanced, none of their genetic science is so preternatural as to allow the creation of a being such as herself, nor is there any possibility in her mind that she was unaltered and naturally born.

Furthermore, Charlotte’s strategic acumen is relatively atrophied; however, her willingness to find people that are more capable than her and understand when to delegate is not. After all, the success of the revolution she took part in necessitated close cooperation between many people of wildly different skill-sets, and as one of its most prominent figureheads, she was often at the center of this process of cooperation and delegation. Indeed, it was often her voice that brought her fellow revolutionaries together. In this, she has fulfilled the Emperor’s intent for her as an orator, and even an unwitting propaganda piece, though the area in which she perhaps strayed closest to his design was the development of her psychic powers, her strong moral compass, narrow focus, and limited training having coincidentally led her to the same cautious profile that was intended for her.

Legion Name: VIIth Solar Dragoons

Associated Primach: Charlotte Frunde

Legion Appearance:

Concept: Drawn from an especially small, carefully-selected segment of Franc’s female population, the Solar Dragoons were constituted for an especially rapid, dangerous breed of mobile warfare. Virtually all of their equipment is air-deployable, restricting the Dragoons entirely from the use of battle tanks thanks to the Imperium’s lack of fully developed airlift capacity. As a consequence, the Legion primarily relies upon dreadnoughts, bikes, and landspeeders for on-the-ground fire support; by and large, however, its lack of heavy lift capacity is compensated for by an enormous volume of air power.

This extreme mobility allows the Dragoons to easily outmaneuver most of its foes, especially when supporting Imperial Army attacks, to such an extent that they are often able to appear at a battlefield well before an enemy can, or even outmaneuver armies entirely. This style of medium-level warfare, however, necessitated the adoption of a highly modular unit structure, favouring smaller formations with a larger emphasis on unit independence over the more hierarchical organizations typical of the largest Astartes legions.

Emblem: A golden Imperial Eagle emerging triumphantly from the surface of a darkened, blue sun.

Faction Name: Magh Meall

Faction Overview/Concept: A sanctuary for Felinid Abhumans carved out by a bloody slave uprising a generation ago. The Pan-Pacific Empire treated Felinids as a slave caste; visibly different, it was near-impossible to hide their status, and this made enforcement drastically easier. During a war with the Yndonesian Bloc, rations ran dangerously low, and the slaves were the first to have theirs cut--during a bread riot in the capitol, a spark ignited that threatened to cripple the economy of the Pan-Pacific.

At the height of the riots, a faction organised by Daira nic Leir snuck into their midst and inflamed the rioters to violent action; with much of the Empire's security forces pacifying occupied territories behind the front, the local defenses were quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers and violent desperation. That the Pan-Pacific forces were routed was less remarkable than that Daira nic Leir was able to organise a rapid looting campaign of the capitol's stores and guide countless survivors out of the city and into the wilds, where they were brought to the 'promised land'--Magh Meall.

In truth, Daira's ancestors had found the secluded grove with their fellow escapees entirely by accident; a verdant plot of fertile land in the midst of an archipelago near the edge of the Pan-Pacific Empire's territory. Originally, the small commune was a haven for escaped slaves, kept safe by being kept secret, but Daira and her co-conspirators were born there, and, hale and healthy by comparison, felt they had an obligation to create a home for their people. They planned their intervention for years--the bread riots were their chance, and they seized on them eagerly. Preparations had been in place for some time, and the mythical 'promised land' was an easy way to convince the survivors to make the trek into the unknown.

In time, Magh Meall's reputation grew, and it both became a haven for escaped slaves and a target for reprisals. A militia formed, which later became an army--and when the ancient military bunker was found beneath the mountain, Archaeotech tanks made that army unstoppable on their home territory. Raids were launched to free more slaves, and before long the thorn in their side was more like a blade.

But with success came greater danger, and more than once, Magh Meall's existence seemed to hang on the edge of a knife; their enemies were vastly more numerous, and only their qualitative superiority allowed them to survive and thrive.

Eventually, Daira nic Leir passed, and her daughter, Ainne Anirsech, inherited the title of nic Leir. A soldier through-and-through, she is keenly aware of the suffering her people are only a generation removed from, and of the necessity of a powerful and skilled military to maintain that separation. She continues the trend of raids to keep the army sharp, but she hears rumblings of a force from beyond the Empire's borders--one that might end her people's trials once and for all.

Faction Assets: Controls an unusually-fertile archipelago near the edge of the Great Ocean, bordered on all sides by high cliffs that make conventional assault almost impossible; retractable medieval-style bridges span between the islands, with winches and cranes providing dockyard access for fishing. Population is remarkably high for the geographical area(which is roughly comparable to, say, Ireland or Scotland) due to migration, with a high urban/rural split to maximise farmland. Military consists of comparatively small conventional forces equipped with domestically-manufactured flak-style armour and lasguns, with limited CBRN survival capability(for traversing hazardous zones) via masks and similar. Most valuable conventional assets are domestic artillery production, with the most valuable assets in general being a number of heavy archaeotech tanks that are closely-shepherded and reserved for local defense or particularly dire situations where the risk of their loss is considered worthwhile. Raids are largely carried out by smaller 'buggy'-style vehicles produced domestically. Small but skilled conventional archaeotech air force, and significant locally-produced anti-air defenses for fending off the primary method by which the Pan-Pacific could theoretically attack.

Key Characters:

Ainne Anirsech nic Leir

Character Name: Ainne Anirsech nic Leir

Rank/Role: The Nic Leir / Ruler of Magh Meall

Appearance: Red hair, pale skin, green eyes, and freckles; a Felinid, with furry tufted ears, a long furred tail, sharp teeth, and wide-irised slit-pupilled eyes. She often wears martial attire; even when not in combat, her appearance tends to resemble a celtic warlord from the iron age more than anything else. She's slight and not particularly tall, like most of her species, though she's ludicrously agile and has good resilience to make up for it.

Biography: Daughter of a hero to her people, Ainne was born with a lot to live up to. Raised somewhere between a noblewoman and a soldier, she took much of the best of both worlds, with a strong sense of noblesse oblige; her mother had left paradise to bring others back into it, after all. As an adult, she became an officer in the Meallan military, developing skills as a general and leader-of-men that would come in handy later. At the same time, she was witness to the creation of an upper class of pseudo-nobility in her mother's lifetime, as the original members of the commune felt they had been there first and deserved certain preferential treatments--a quasi-feudal caste system emerged, which Daira was either unable or unwilling to prevent.

When her mother died, she came into a nation that had relatively little land but outsized power, ability, and resources; even still, projection beyond their borders except to free slaves was functionally impossible, and the inability to meaningfully topple the Empire that had enslaved her people vexed her. With the rise of the Imperium, however, she sees an opportunity to throw her lot in with a faction that will not only help her to achieve that, but, perhaps, give her and her people an even greater purpose.

(note; this character won't be introduced until the Great Crusade, I'm just apping her now so it's done)

Character Name: Lygeia 'Jay' Goldfinch

Rank/Role: Navis Imperialis Commander, Second in Command of the Heavy Cruiser Scattered Grace

Appearance: Blonde-haired, freckle-faced, thin but well-built, Lygeia is a broadly unmodified Human from Iapetus, a moon of Saturn, she wears the blue-and-white of the Navis Imperialis, with a single golden pauldron as homage to her roots as a Voidsman-at-Arms.

Biography: Born on the Saturnyne moon of Iapetus, Jay was enamoured with the void from a young age. Raised by a family of Saturnyne Sailors, she enlisted as a Voidsman-at-Arms as soon as she was old enough, skipping the lengthier process of officerhood for a chance to get into the stars now. Quickly seeing action against first the Ringers and later Xenos, she gained significant combat experience--and a reputation for uncanny luck, surviving explosions and even decompression remarkably unscathed, and often being found in the midst of scenes of carnage unharmed. When she did take an injury fighting a Xenos raid on Titan, she was awarded a battlefield commission as a Lieutenant and given training in weapons systems; by the time she was thirty, she was a Lieutenant Commander in command of her own picket ship, and at fifty she is the second-in-command of the Heavy Cruiser Intruder, a Commander and the presumed next-in-line for the Captain's chair when her superior, Captain Thomas, retires.

Lygeia, however, craves more than a Captain's chair--one day she means to become an Admiral, and then...well. The stars are the limit.

Name: Leanna de Vries

Legion: XII

Homeworld: Verakracht

A feudal world originally occupied by Xenos, the young Primarch rapidly became identified as a divine figure by the locals, having quite literally fallen from the heavens; raised by guerillas in the forests and wilds outside of civilisation, she was groomed as a leader by her foster parents, themselves nobles deposed when the Xenos came from the stars. When the time came and the support of the people grew strong enough, Leanna was chosen to lead the rebellion--for it was the abduction and public executions of her parents that had galvanised the population. Leading a military revolt against the occupiers, she achieved military success, crowned empress of a new Empire--an Empire now tasked with the multiple responsibilities of defending against a returning invasion, squashing internal discontent, and conquering the rest of the world.

The only assistance came in the form of a decrepit space hulk, which crashed into the southern continent, flattened three villages with debris, and unleashed an archaeotech cache into the hands of Leanna's Empire--which they have put to very good use.

Psyker Grade: Iota

Skills/Abilities: A skilled orator with a supernatural aura of charismatic gravitas, Leanna is also a talented administrator, politico, artist, and warrior, though unlike many of her siblings, she prefers to fight in 'light' armour, trusting on superhuman speed and grace to carry her, rather than inhibiting heavy armour; that said, she remains a Primarch, and 'light' for her standards is still enough to take most smallarms and indirect impacts. In combat, she is primarily a fencer, favouring a 'small' Volkite pistol as a sidearm, and otherwise prioritising command and control over personal glory; she is a strategist and tactician before a warrior, though she is skilled with both.

Appearance: Tall and imposing like her siblings, Leanna is slimmer of frame than they. Hardly fragile by mortal standards, she remains less physically imposing than her peers, with a narrow face and almond-shaped eyes. Typically wearing a black headwrap with a jewelled tiara as a badge of office, she carries a thin, wickedly-curved power-sword and a volkite pistol with golden detailing. Her armour is golden and unsubtly ornamented, though she has a more subdued variant when the situation requires. With her veil down, her hair is raven-black, shoulder-length, and typically tied into a bun, plait, or tail, to keep it out of her eyes.

More notably, her time in the warp mutated her--her teeth are razor-sharp, her eyes slitted, with black sclera and pink pupils, and a lion-like tail with a black tuft lashes behind her.

Concept: Lady Fulgrim. Also; 'Light Primarch'. Duellist and Strategist instead of Warrior

Legion Name: Celestial Lions

Associated Primach: Leanna de Vries

Concept: 'Light' Legion, intended as scouts, special forces, probing attacks, assassinations, and, slightly anachronistically, melee duellists. Their unit culture and combat doctrine is distinctly that of a medieval force given firearms, with a higher priority on individual prowess and chivalric honour-codes than military professionalism and unit cohesion. An army of Gallants, they embody the platonic ideal of an Arthurian-style knight--emotional to the point of mania, fiercely passionate, skilled with blade and volkite alike, and with a unit-wide notion of noblesse oblige, they are determined that their geneseed gives them an obligation to care for the mortals of the Emperor's realm, and to shepherd them to eternal glory through camaraderie and force of arms. Often caught singing aloud when battle is joined, the Knights prize skills like art, music, and good management as much or more than skill at arms, giving them a reputation as somewhat decadent, and perhaps slightly mad, if lethally skilled. They prefer modified Astartes Scout-pattern armour, which allows greater mobility and agility in combat, with volkite pistols or rifles paired with power weapons for close-quarters combat. Most visually distinctive besides their equipment are their mutations; geneseed producing sympathetic changes to their lost Primarch, typically manifesting in sharpened teeth, black sclera and irises with colourful slitted pupils, and leonine tails, though not all members of the Legion receive every mutation--and some receive others entirely.