Identity: Kulgha the Crone, the Beast Hag, the Glutton, Mother of Toads, Charnel Witch, Tyrant of the Bone Ziggurat.
Potency: Kulgha is old, hard as her true age may be to discern from her bloated features, and with time comes wisdom, even to one as foul as her. Above all she is versed in the craft of all manner of portentous plants and other such growths, knowing with certainty which can poison and which can chase away illness, as well as how to mix and dry them so that their properties will be tempered or magnified. With a concoction, she may grant otherworldly visions rumoured to be the dreams of dead gods, wring one’s body and spirit through pain and ague to an exceedingly precise limit when she wishes to test rather than kill, or put one into a sleep so deep that not even being cut with a blade will rouse them. In more earthly terms, her knowledge of herbs and spices likewise makes her a superlative cook, capable of transforming nearly everything into a flavourful meal; though the ingredients she favours are so gruesome that only her most depraved minions willingly partake of such feasts.
Nor have the decades left her with nothing but knowing what to boil in a cauldron. Over a lifetime of guiding the brutish bands and hordes of her compatriots, she has grown cunning in some tricks of rulership. Though never an accomplished warleader, stateswoman or orator, preferring to leave such roles to her more skilful acolytes, she knows well how to inspire her underlings and menace her foes through hoarse omens or covetous promises. Fear and greed are her tools in this trade, and they are well-worn in her gnarled hands. If all else fails, she is not loath to resort to more tangible weapons - her spear-arm is ever as strong as it was in her prime, and her eye for the javelin remains deadly.
Yet her most dreaded power is her macabre and unnatural witchcraft. In her hands, human flesh, blood and bone become arcane ritualistic tools, and the feats she may accomplish by charring, cooking, curing and consuming them eclipse even the remarkable results of her herbal draughts. It is known that by feeding on babes and youths she has kept herself alive and sturdy for far longer than any of her savage people has ever reached, and that her warriors, glutted on the remains of their strongest enemies, grow to strength and proportions thought to be impossible in mankind. Her sanguinary brews, seasoned with cerebra crushed in a pestle and stirred with an etched bone, can drive men to bestial fury, poison the sky with bloody rain, the ground with gory morass and the rivers with charnel sludge, or call forth an infestation of venomous crimson toads, thought to be Kulgha’s familiars. Some even claim that by preparing a special offering she can invoke three horrifying beasts from a world long gone by to do her bidding, though no one has ever been known to glimpse these beings and lived to tell the tale.
Ambition: To feast, to amass wealth, to make merry. Devious as she may be in her gnarly age, Kulgha has never been of a more refined spirit than the rest of her people, and like them she wishes for little more than to enjoy the crass pleasures of life, indulging her bottomless hunger and idle avarice. That she cannot do so without taking from others is a testament to the ferocity and belligerence of the folk that birthed, forged and acclaimed her.
Homeworld: Carcinus. This tranquil ocean world has had, until recently, the dubious privilege of being all but entirely forgotten by the galaxy at large. Located in the inner rim of the Segmentum Obscurus, Carcinus had once been designated for conversion into an agri-world towards the end of the Dark Age of Technology. To that end, imposing complexes of machinery were established on its small, sparse landmasses, with the goal of seeding the planet’s waters with life to be farmed. However, the process was disrupted by the advent of the Age of Strife. Rampaging Men of Iron destroyed most of the installations before being decommissioned, and the surviving ones fell into disrepair as vast Warp storms sealed the system in a nigh-impregnable pocket, preventing technicians and replacement components from reaching them.
Over the millennia, the work already done has been eroded by Carcinus’ native life gradually reclaiming the oceans, alongside the bizarre chimerical beings spawned by the incomplete conversion. Of the latter, the most curious and dangerous are the crustaceans known as charybdes. Strongly resembling the crabs of old Terra by a quirk of evolution, if larger and with more numerous limbs, these creatures began at some point to grow tremendous in size and hunger, and have since been a scourge for the planet’s population, threatening the inhabitants of coastal areas and preventing them from feeding off the bounty of the seas.
What little of the failed agri-world’s people survived the uprising of the automata and the following isolation thus found themselves hemmed in the hearts of the largest islands. Fortunately, the mainland soil proved fertile, possibly as a result of the ancient seeding’s early stages. This, combined with their low and scattered numbers, largely prevented them from degenerating into barbarism, instead leading to most adopting a mostly peaceful agrarian lifestyle. While charybdes occasionally wander far enough inland to become a danger, such incidents are rare, and the creatures are easily slain or driven off.
Presently, Carcinus is the seat of the Abyssal Lurkers’ fortress-monastery, built in the oceanic depths.
Appearance:
Primarch Sarghaul Tartareus during the Conquest of Galaspar, ca. 850.M30. Note some exaggeration as to the amount of adornments on his armour.
A closer portrayal of the Tartarean Bastion's helmet. It is unclear who added the extraneous A symbol to the illustration.
At slightly below fourteen feet of height, Sarghaul is abnormally large and massively built even among his kind. A behemoth of a man, his proportions are perhaps the least similar of all Primarchs to those of a simple human, bearing a distinctly closer resemblance to the robust frame of an Astartes. With thick limbs, an almost nonexistent neck and a ponderous gait, there is nothing about him that can be described as graceful, but each of his movements radiates steady, implacable strength.
On the extremely rare occasions it is bared, Sarghaul’s face only adds to this uncanny impression. His skin, drained of colour by the darkness of the deep, is pale to the point of being almost diaphanous, though its thickness prevents it from being quite translucent. Stretched over his sharply angular features and unmarred save for a fleeting shadow of grey hair on the crown of his head, it gives his visage an altogether deathly appearance. The slightly protruding eyes with irises so dark they blend together with the pupils do nothing to alleviate this.
Perhaps fortunately, no part of the Primarch’s body is virtually ever exposed to sight. The vast majority of those who encounter him never see anything beyond the oversized suit of Cataphractii-pattern Terminator Armour he is perpetually encased in, painted in the dim colours of his Legion. Though as bare of ornamentation as that of his followers, it is nonetheless far more elaborate, being moulded with sharp ridges on its surface to resemble the texture of a charybdes carapace. So thorough is this decorative work that the entire helmet is shaped like the mandibles of the great marine beasts. In battle, and sometimes even outside of it, his hands are fitted with the Claws of Oblivion, a pair of enormous twin lightning talons where metal is joined to chitin from the pincers of the most ancient oceanic terrors of his homeworld.
Personality: If one word had to be chosen to best describe Sarghaul’s temperament, that word would be obstinate. Once he puts his mind to something, no obstacle in the universe, be that the most ferocious resistance of the foes of mankind or the pleas of those who by misfortune find themselves trampled underfoot by his advance, can so much as give him pause. Even the command of his father and liege, when opposed to a cause he has latched on to, cannot fully deter him. While this ironclad determination is often a source of strength, sustaining him in the face of dire adversity and granting him the firmness necessary for drastic action, it can just as well prove to be his undoing, causing him to expend his forces over worlds already devastated by his single-minded drive to claim them for the Imperium at all cost, or risk the censure of the Emperor himself. For all that, however, the Abyssal Primarch is not a mindless slave to his whims. The schemes he pursues to their bitter end are born of plodding deliberation, and, within their confines, he is certain to seek the path of least resistance.
Close behind his stubbornness comes his devotion. It is difficult to say to what exactly - the Emperor personally or the ideals he champions - and he is not fully certain of that himself, though the distinction is one he deems too frivolous to ponder. The whole could appear to be something of a paradox - he reveres the Emperor out of admiration for his decrees, and in turn fights for the latter because that is the Emperor’s desire. In truth, his loyalty is founded on but a portion of the Imperium’s creed; the vision of a cleansed galaxy dominated by an ideal, unbreakable order is what stokes his faith in his progenitor. Other facets of its dogma, such as the Imperial Truth, he is largely apathetic toward, and his seemingly fanatical adherence to them is motivated solely by the command of the Highest among Mankind. That said, loath as he is to admit it, his veneration of the Emperor is not entirely pure; the castigation of his work on Carcinus has bred within him a rankling resentment, and a terrible doubt that his father may not always know what is necessary to ensure the victory all aspire to.
Yet, deep as they may run, these cracks do not for now show on the surface of his spirit. Matching his terse demeanour, Sarghaul’s mind is as cold and sluggish as the abyssal waters he so loves. There is no place in it for pride, nor for compassion; nor for any pleasure beyond those of duty and the plying of his visceral craft. The only spot of warmth he permits himself, besides basking in the Emperor’s light, is the affection he holds for his legionaries, faint, but almost paternal in tone. Outside their ranks, the best one may hope to obtain is his respect, and that is something he reserves for those fellow Primarchs he considers worthy comrades in arms. The masses of humanity he is supposedly sworn to protect earn nothing but his indifference and sometimes outright contempt for their weakness and fallibility. For xeno, mutant and dissenter there is naught but a dull, insatiable loathing that will never die until the last abomination draws breath.
Skills:
Deep Dweller: As a result of mutation, Sarghaul prefers being submerged over walking on dry land. His body is perhaps less than subtly warped to favour underwater conditions, finding it more comfortable to breathe saltwater, being capable of seeing keenly in the pitch darkness of the abyss, and so shaped as to most efficiently bear the crushing pressure of water. These traits make him, and those implanted with his gene-seed, capable of operating below the surface better than any human or even other Astartes could aspire to. At the same time, however, they are cause for discomfort in dry environments, requiring him to wear armour modified with additional eye protection and internal humidifiers.
Fortitude: The powerful build of Sarghaul’s frame is a boon for more than his subaqueous activity. While making his movements slow and ponderous, his body is, through a combination of innate resilience, colossal armour, regenerative psychic powers and sheer determination, capable of withstanding truly astounding amounts of harm and surviving to deliver a crushing counterattack.
Savant of Flesh: Through a quirk which may be attributed to either the exceptional mental acumen of a Primarch or his psychic potential, Sarghaul is able to gain a surprisingly deep intuitive understanding of most living creatures’ anatomy after but a cursory examination. Further, if he is given time to fully dissect and study something, the bodies of its kind will hold no secrets for him, giving him the insight to strike at their weak points, concoct viral weapons most effective against them or reshape their forms as he desires.
Annihilator: A combination of thoroughness and analytical acumen is a great asset for a commander, and Sarghaul lacks neither. Given enough information about a foe, he is quick to devise plans resulting in its utter destruction. Between a sharp eye for vulnerable spots to exploit to inflict maximal damage and a keen sense for the most improbable routes a defeated enemy may use to escape, his gifts make him skilful in directing sieges and decisive assaults whose goal is to wipe the opposition from the face of the galaxy. He tends, however, to fare noticeably worse when on the defensive and at a wider strategic level.
Chilling Presence: Though he lacks any measure of the charisma that distinguishes some of his siblings, Sarghaul is not entirely ineffectual in terms of diplomacy. His imposing size, silent demeanour and speech broken by the gurgling of moisturizers give him a sinister mien he is all too glad to use to intimidate his lessers into compliance. His unyielding advance and cold brutality stagger the morale of those who face him on the battlefield, while, conversely, emboldening his legionaries to emulate and follow him as an unbreakable tide.
Assignment Grade: Epsilon. Sarghaul may not be among humanity’s most powerful psykers, but he is a proficient wielder of the discipline of biomancy. Calling upon it, he can perform a number of unnatural feats, including mending the wounds of himself and others, smiting enemies with currents of bio-lightning and, most prominently, transmuting and enhancing the bodies of living beings. Beyond this, there is little he is capable of, even his precognitive potential being comparatively atrophied; the only exception is his ability to influence and even direct the minds of the simplest beasts, though he himself considers it an extension of his biomantic powers.
Biography:
At the turn of the Age of Strife, the Warp tempests raging around the system wherein lay the world of Carcinus were only beginning to fade, and still stood as an impenetrable barrier shrouding the star from the rest of the sector. While this barrier served as incidental protection from the ravages of the Old Night, it likewise left those surrounded by it trapped and unable to either explore or contact the outside galaxy. This led to the planet’s few spaceports being abandoned as useless, and its population, constrained to small territories by the menace of feral charybdes, never truly recovering from the losses suffered during its downfall. Without external stimulation and with the memory of the old planetary order fading as its infrastructure crumbled, the people devolved into quasi-medieval farming communes, working for sustenance with primitive tools and only occasionally clashing with each other in territorial disputes.
Such was the state of the world when the capsule containing one of the lost Primarchs was transported there by the agency of the Ruinous Powers. As luck would have it, it did not strike down upon one of the sparse islands that formed the sum of the planet’s dry land, as it would effectively have been improbable, but in the shallows of the global ocean that covered most of its surface. Coming to rest on the seabed, it soon attracted the attention of a curious charybdes, which evidently believed it to be potential prey. With its powerful pincers, the creature pried open the container’s hatch and revealed the infant within. It would surely have consumed him, but something, likely his burgeoning psychic influence, deterred the beast and caused it to withdraw.
Left to fend for himself, the newborn Primarch, who was able to survive underwater without ill effects thanks to his powerful physiology and unique mutations, abandoned his capsule and began to crawl his way over the seabed, feeding on algae and small marine life. His psychic presence did not falter, turning away predators who sought to devour him. Though guided solely by his unconscious intuition, in but a few days he reached one of the planet’s small landmasses and was able to ascend it through a smooth coastal cline.
When he emerged from the waters and made his way into the inhabited heartland, the locals were aghast. Made superstitious by their descent into an archaic lifestyle, they had taken the sight of the capsule’s fall as a dire omen, and viewed the strange child who had emerged unharmed from the sea as a preternatural being. Some went so far as to believe him to be an oceanic spirit whom they feared by the name of Sarghaul. After some debate as to what was to be done with the newcomer, since most were too afraid to even approach him and there was great concern as to what would happen were he left unchecked, he was taken in by one Ahwal Drann. This somewhat eccentric, even, some said, lunatic personage, almost a hermit, dwelt near the closest of the damaged control facilities which had stood abandoned since the Dark Age, and would occasionally venture there to rummage through the debris despite the fearful folklore surrounding the place - a man of recklessness, curiosity and taste for the bizarre, which no doubt weighed upon his decision to claim tutelage of the foundling.
These traits did not, at the same time, make him much of a capable educator, and it was fortunate that the young Primarch could count on his rapid maturation and sharp intellect to keep pace with his erratic education. Seeing his charge’s unnatural growth, Drann, who had his own, more optimistic views on the common superstitions, humorously continued to call him Sarghaul, and the name stuck. Soon, the odd stranger began to accompany his surrogate father on his expeditions, though no one knew what, if anything, they found, as well as venture on journeys of his own. Feeding into the mystical cloud of rumour that had formed around him, he was seen heading off to sea and returning only days later, sometimes carrying some piece of scrap that had clearly lain under the waves for a long time. His reputation was further swelled by his strange ability to ward off the dreaded charybdes, which would pass him by indifferently or even scuttle off where he pointed.
Years passed, then decades. Sarghaul, who had become a man faster than it could have seemed possible, grew to tower over anyone ever seen on Carcinus, being full as tall as smaller huts and seen with almost reverential terror by the simple-island people. Then, some time after Drann had passed from age, leaving his pupil to continue their searches alone, calamity struck. The weakening Warp storms finally dispersed, clearing the path to the planet. Yet it was not any benign force that discovered it first. The Scions of Writhing Marrow, a minor, yet ambitious Haemonculi Coven of the Dark Eldar, chanced upon its system while marauding about the newly cleared sector in search of prey to abduct for their vile experiments. Seeing that the ocean world was inhabited, however thinly, they decided to stop for a swift raid before continuing on their path, and dispatched a light force to sweep over it, a part of which landed on the island where Sarghaul resided.
The locals, scarcely armed with ill-maintained archaic weaponry and unaccustomed to anything more than small skirmishes, were thrown into a panic, becoming easy prey for the xenos. However, the latter encountered unexpected resistance in the person of the Primarch himself, who used his psychic abilities and formidable physical might to combat them. Unprepared for such a confrontation, they were forced to retreat; a second attempt, uniting a few other raiding parties, was once more narrowly beaten back, as by then Sarghaul had been able to organise the population, made obedient by fear, into a rough order of battle which made the best of what equipment they had. The Eldar, unwilling to commit to protracted combat, rounded up the captives they had already taken and withdrew to inform their masters of this strange find.
For his own part, Sarghaul strongly suspected he had not seen the last of the strange invaders, and was not optimistic about his chances of eluding death or capture at their hands a second time with his makeshift forces decimated by the first encounter (already then, he was noted as showing little concern for their own fates). He went to delve into the ruins he had been fond of haunting with Drann, this time with a clear goal in mind. The precise nature of what he did is unknown, but it is now believed, with a basis of strong evidence, that he had been able to find and activate a still functional archaeotech device from the days of Carcinus’ planned conversion, and presently put it to use in conjunction with Sarghaul’s powers. The giant was seen making his usual rounds between land and sea far more often than usual over those days.
Soon afterwards, his suspicions were confirmed. The Scions were enticed by the thought of such an abnormal human specimen, which promised to be a stupendous asset if seized, and one of their lesser Haemonculi personally led the next expedition with an entourage of hideous wracks. Their surprise was great, however, when they found a similarly inhuman adversary expecting them. Upon landing, they were ambushed by a swarm of large charybdes, lured to a favourable spot, some of which had bizarre features such as too many limbs or unusually tough carapaces - the fruit of Sarghaul’s preparations. Surrounded, the Dark Eldar and their creations were either slain or routed, with the Haemonculus felled in combat by the Primarch himself.
Ransacking the bodies of the fallen, Sarghaul was, though his fine senses and intuitive insight into anatomy, able to draw a connection between some of the substances and instruments carried by the Haemonculus and the horrid nature of the wracks. Fascinated rather than disgusted, he reasoned that by striving to replicate that process he could spawn some truly incredible beings, much like the mysterious forebears of Carcinus’ inhabitants, as well as create a fighting force with better chances of repelling future incursions. Without wasting time, Sarghaul, who had by then cemented his reputation as an almost supernatural being, sent out a call to the people of his island and those nearby, promising that those who came to him would be transformed into something beyond human imagination at a small cost. What neither he nor those hapless pilgrims who answered his summons knew was how torturous the procedure would be, but he did not let that deter him, reasoning that what he did was both bold and necessary.
Thus, on the Scions’ inevitable return, they were met by both charybdes and the no longer human grotesqueries into which Sarghaul had mutated his unfortunate subjects. In truth, had the Cabal been able to commit any significant portion of its forces, there would have been little contest, and their quarry would himself have been forced to flee; however, between the power struggles of their kind and their involvement with more reliable raiding targets, they had comparatively little strength to spare. Thanks to this circumstance, Sarghaul was able to continue avoiding capture, while searching the bodies of slain wracks and grotesques - as, after the first incident, the Haemonculi themselves preferred not to risk descending to the surface - for elements to further his more and more ambitious flesh-grafting practices. To make himself a more difficult target, he began to move from one island to another.
It is unclear for how long this could have continued before the Scions tired of the pursuit and either deployed to Carcinus in full battle order or abandoned the venture altogether, but at a certain moment in 844 Imperial scouts charting the sector noticed the unusual Dark Eldar activity over a seemingly unimportant world. Progressively higher ranks were informed of this, until word reached Terra itself, and the Emperor of Mankind, no doubt suspecting the work of one of his scattered offspring, arrived to personally investigate the anomaly. Once on place, he easily tracked the sizeable Warp presence on the surface. Appearing before Sarghaul, the Emperor rebuked him for his careless experimentation on the human form, before expounding his vision of a galaxy united under the Imperium. Though demoralised by the condemnation of something he had come to enjoy besides being convinced of its necessity, the Primarch was drawn by the thought of a great quiescent order being imposed on the universe, and pledged himself to his father without hesitation.
While Imperial forces broke the Scions’ presence in the sector once and for all, Sarghaul journeyed to Terra for instruction, and soon afterwards assumed command of the IX Legio Astartes, which under him was named the Abyssal Lurkers.
Entering the fray of the Grim Crusade, Sarghaul and his Legion soon earned a reputation for thoroughness and brutality. Despite his liege’s admonition, the Primarch was loath to abandon the pursuits of splicing and flesh-crafting, and, indeed, persuaded the Lurkers’ Apothecarion and psykers to follow in his footsteps in the name of strength and efficiency. He augmented his forces with beasts and abhuman brutes of his creation, which, while proving effective terror weapons, did him no favours with the allies and liberated civilians who sometimes were caught in their indiscriminate rampages. It was perhaps shame for his misgivings and disobedience that drove him to avoid returning to the Emperor’s presence more often than strictly necessary, preferring instead to skulk and campaign in remote corners of the four Segmenta.
Over his tenure as Legion Master, Sarghaul has thus far taken part in a number of engagements of note.
An early action saw him besieging and subjugating the hive world of Galaspar, which had rejected Imperial rule. Eager to prove his zeal to the Emperor, Sarghaul was inflexible in his assault. He unleashed his troops on the planet, supporting their assault with widespread orbital bombardment and use of Phosphex weaponry. Though the hive world’s inhabitants sought to escape into subterranean tunnels and fortifications, the Lurker marines, excelling in fighting in murky depths, pursued them with ease and slew or captured them to swell their auxiliary ranks. Only a small fraction of the planet’s population survived the conquest; the forces of the Imperial Army who later reached the system were appalled by the spectacle, starting the long history of the distaste regular troops still hold for the Abyssal Lurkers. Nonetheless, the fear sown by this conflict proved a strong motivator in reducing other nearby worlds to obedience.
In the 865th year of the millennium, the Lurkers fought their first major battle against the Ork menace as they participated in the conflict of Rennimar. Sarghaul was said to have described the Orks as admirable in their ingenuity and simplicity of spirit, but repugnant for their chaotic nature, and ordered extensive Phosphex and viral bombardments to wipe them out on his front of the struggle, heedless of what state this would leave the vacated planets in.
Not long afterwards, while transiting through the Segmentum Obscurus on the way to join combat in the Rangdan Xenocides, the IX Legion clashed with a force of the enigmatic creatures known as the Slaugth, which had ventured out of their hidden territory to raid Imperial supply routes. The Lurkers under their Primarch’s command successfully repelled the incursion and retrieved samples of the Slaugth’s outlandish biomechanical constructs, though they could make little sense of them. This was the first reported instance of the Legion pillaging biological xenotech from defeated enemies other than Dark Eldar, which they have always done without fail, for their own uses.
Up until the late 890s, Sarghaul and the Lurkers followingly took part in the Xenocides proper, their numbers being ground down all throughout by the redoubtable enemy, but managing never to plummet too far thanks to their vigorous recruitment practices. After the conclusion of the bulk of the conflict, they played a major part in the meticulous eradication of the hostile species’ remaining numbers. The Legion gained a certain infamy throughout the Imperium for the ruthlessness with which they took to the task, as well as a not wholly deserved reputation of vicious sadists who relished to ravage a helpless foe. Nor did the aggressive nature of the practice of near-conscription they had begun to adopt to replenish their ranks earn them any benevolence with the people at large.
In the early years of the 10th century, Sarghaul led another purge, against a species whose name has since been lost. The known details of the campaign are imprecise and sometimes contradictory, but on their whole they paint an image of tremendously bloody war of annihilation, with no effort being spared to destroy the offending species to the last. An anecdote of the time claims that a Remembrancer attached to the Lurkers had penned a comprehensive description of these events, but the Primarch became irate and ordered the work to be destroyed, as he wished to condemn his enemy to oblivion as an example for those who would oppose the Imperium. Some suspect, however, that he may have done this to conceal the defeats suffered by the Legion itself during the conflict.
Later, in the year 927, a Lurker exploratory force encountered the xenos that became known as the Keylekid. When Sarghaul rejoined his vanguard, he found that their civilisation practiced a highly ritualised form of warfare, only engaging their adversaries is specially designated conditions. Unwilling to humour the customs of reviled non-humans, he decided to instead exploit them to his advantage, ordering bombardments on the massed Keylek troops when they gathered in their traditional battlefields and subsequently having all their non-combatants put to the sword.
Around the midpoint of the century, the Lurkers were deployed alongside a sizable Imperial Army detachment to reduce the Carinae Sodality, a human confederacy that inhabited massive orbital installations, to compliance. During the siege, the Sodality’s leaders activated a weapon which drove unaugmented humans, both their own subjects and Imperial soldiers, into a berserk fury. Undaunted, Sarghaul turned his Legion’s weapons and warbeasts against his former allies, slaughtering them before continuing the pacification of the void-city at the cost of significant losses. According to some accounts, he eventually claimed the weapon for himself, though others maintain it was destroyed in the fighting. While he had little choice in his actions, his readiness in attacking those by whose side he had fought but hours before only further stoked the Army’s disgust towards him when the details became known.
The last major recorded campaign fought by the Lurkers to date took place in 990, when they did battle in the Segmentum Obscurus against a force of the xenos known as the Khrave, who had the ability to psychically enthrall humans and feed off their vital strength. As these beings had been empowering themselves by leeching off the enslaved population of a contested world, Sarghaul decreed he would cut off their source of nourishment, initiating the massacre of the thralls as he believed their lives to be forfeit in any case. Having deprived the Khrave of their prey and thus weakened them, he proceeded to wipe them out, completing the somewhat hollow annexation of the now lifeless planet to Imperial rule.
The Meeting:
Rusted chain links clattered against the grimy floor as the thing stirred awake. It dragged its gnarled fingers over the ancient concrete, overgrown nails piling up mounds of dust. The scraping must have alerted it that something was wrong, for it lifted its head and slowly, almost fearfully raised its hands to its face. They hesitated for a moment, then went further, feeling the jagged plate of protruding bone that covered most of its features, the clumps of sickly muscle around its neck, the sharp ridges where its ears had been. Its mouth gaped, revealing, instead of an uneven row of rounded yellow teeth, dozens of sharp, pristine fangs.
Then it screamed, and despite its visage its voice was still chillingly human. It leapt up, tugging at its bonds, but the chains held fast. It screamed again, and again, before breaking into a raucous growl.
From the other side of the wide, dim chamber, a towering figure watched it impassively. A massive hand motioned downwards, and the thing slumped to the floor, but did not stop its mournful groaning. The hand tensed, and bright sparks coursed along it for a moment, then crackled and faded as the giant relaxed his arm. He reached for a pouch in the makeshift tunic stretched over his bulk, barely holding together despite being stitched from several cloaks and robes, and produced a fragment of chalk that was almost a pebble between his fingers. Without taking his unblinking eyes off the beastly creature, he traced a crude symbol on the wall to his side, wincing at the screech of friction. One in a line of many.
Barely turning his head, Sarghaul threw a glance at the pale row, only faintly visible in the dusty evening rays that filtered from the door behind his back. That was, to anyone but him. He could see as no one else could, in the darkness, and walk in it without fear while they, these small things that only distantly looked like him, huddled around their lights. He, who came from the sea, was not of their kind; he knew that as he admired the wretched thing chained before him, the latest fruit of his labour. Who of them could have made anything like that? None had the wisdom, the skill to work the old machines, to use the lifeblood of the black wraiths that came down from the sky, none had that power which he felt inside himself. This was why he was the craftsman, and they the clay in his hands. If things were this way, clearly it was meant to be so.
“Can you truly be sure it is?”
The giant gave a start. Lost in his thoughts, he had not heard anyone approach, in spite of his sharp senses. That alone gave him a chill deeper than any he had found in the ocean - nothing had ever caught him unawares like this. He did not show it, however, as he heavily turned to face the intruder.
The man before him did not seem unusual in the least. A minuscule thing, draped in a grey cloak that concealed his face. He was insignificant at Sarghaul’s feet, but something about his presence gave the colossus pause. It was as if he only saw the calm surface of the waves, but knew that underneath it there moved something vast, terrible and old. Very old.
“It’s obvious,” he answered in a cutting tone, as if speaking down to any of the islanders. In his urge to raise his bravado in the face of that uncanny feeling, it had slipped him by that the stranger had addressed something he did not speak aloud. “Look upon me. I am Sarghaul, the abyssal one. I’m greater than any of you, in anything you will ever do. You know I am not of man.”
“But do you know it?”
Sarghaul opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated. The question had struck at something he had nursed over the decades, a void he had never been able to fill. He had never known where he truly came from. The islanders had said he was of the sea, and he let them believe it, for it gave his voice weight. Ahwal, his mentor, had always shrugged and said some things lay deeper than others. Yet, delve far as he might, he had never found the answer to that, and the uncertainty had festered.
“You do not,” the stranger continued, after letting his thoughts run for a moment, “Because you cannot know that which is false. You say you are of the sea, but you cannot remember. Yet you see that your face is of a man, and not a thing of water.”
“How-?!” This time, the faceless one’s impossible knowledge was obvious enough that he saw it immediately. “I might have the face,” he tried to force through the dread that was creeping up his throat, “But not the body. What man can do what I do, walk where I walk?”
A sound as if a low smirk came from under the grey hood. “There are many.”
“What?!” the dread struggled with the mounting irritation at the stranger’s cryptic demeanour. He could know what he wanted, but he was small and weak like all the rest! Why should he, Sarghaul, who never fled from anything, fear him? “How do you say this?! Tell me! How do you know?!” He began to raise a hand, larger than three times the smaller man’s head.
The stranger did not budge. “I know, for I know all.”
He threw back his hood.
Golden light erupted in a torrent, as if the dawn had risen in that very room. It swept away all shadows, burning, blinding, brighter than the sun had ever been. In its corner, the chained thing howled in anguish. Sarghaul fell to one knee, shielding his face from the radiance. It cut at his eyes, used to the soft darkness, so painfully that he thought his head would split apart. Nothing availed him, for through his closed eyelids, through his very hands, he saw its fearsome source.
The stranger was taller now, much taller, more even than himself. His grey cloak was no more, and his mighty body shone in a carapace of gold. His face the giant could scarcely glimpse, as what drew his gaze were the eyes, eyes that were like stars come to the earth, to burn away all things in a river of wrath.
“I know, for it was I who made you, Tartarean one,” his voice was so potent that the ground shook under their feet, and heavy like a thunderstorm, “Made you to serve that which I love above all things, all mankind. To be its sword and its bulwark against the decay within and the horrors without. I gave you gifts beyond what mortalkind could imagine, that you may serve it best. And yet, what have you done with them?”
He pointed at the wretched, warped creature, and Sarghaul shrank under the weight of his scorn.
“You turned them on those who were to be your wards! You made a mockery of my creation of you and your brethren, defiling the sacrament of birth with alien poisons! These people are your charges, not your tools or your shields!”
The giant’s whole body had clenched so hard he could barely breathe. “Lord… I…” he managed to rasp, but no further sound would leave him.
“But you are not lost.” The wrath in the Radiant One’s eyes faded, and its crushing grip withdrew. “You were led astray in your exile, but you can find the true path again. That is what I offer you. Come with me, and you will be the one who always bears my word. There are many worlds, and storms come over them when they deny my rule, or they are ravaged by foul things like the black wraiths. I shall show you your strength, and give you more to wield than you ever desired, and with it you cleanse the stars of havoc and disorder, bringing blessed stillness. Come, and take your place as my avenging hand - as my son.”
Sarghaul had let his hands fall down his sides, and stared ahead, enraptured. Tears of ecstasy ran down his face. This being, this man - he saw all there was to see in him, and looked down on him with benevolence. With mercy. He knew the peace of darkness and silence, and did not revile him for seeking it. And he would let him be part of his work, indeed, to lead it, guide it as he saw best. Always, for as he knew all, he knew to forgive.
“I will,” he whispered, as hoarse as the groans of the chained monster, “For you, my lord, I will.”
The Radiant One frowned, but said nothing.
Legion Name: Formerly known as the Tempest Wardens, the Legion was renamed to the Abyssal Lurkers when Sarghaul assumed command.
Legion Number: IX.
Legion Strength: ca. 150,000 Astartes. Indeterminate number of enhanced charybdes and Infestus-strain abhumans.
Armour Appearance:
Legionary in Mk II armour, standard tactical armament.
Veteran in Mk IV armour.
Aestus Breacher in Mk III armour with powered shield.
Legion Terminator in Cataphractii armour.
Orcus Lictor in Tartaros armour.
Given the size of the IX Legion, it is perhaps no wonder that the assortment of armour worn by its members be varied to the point of being almost eclectic. Both the II and IV Marks of power armour are plentiful among its ranks and scattered apparently at random, though a closer look reveals that the more advanced pattern is distributed prevalently to veteran squads. Mark III is similarly widespread, and, being optimally suited for the sort of operations the Lurkers excel in, employed in far greater quantity than by most other Legions, though rarely ever in frontal surface combat.
An even greater diversity is found in the equipment of the IX’s numerous Terminator units, which include both Cataphractii and Tartaros models The Legion even possesses its own distinctive design, the Scylla pattern, a variant of the Cataphractii designed for underwater combat - even more heavily fortified and stable on its feet, at the cost of being so hefty as to be nearly unusable on land. As it is the case with power armour, the Legion's tendency to appropriate whatever happens to be available in order to arm its swelling ranks has led to other various unusual designs being sighted among its members, including reportedly the rare Saturnine-pattern suit.
The Lurkers’ Dreadnoughts, meanwhile, are entirely a class unto themselves. Unlike the more humanoid common patterns, they are mounted on several spider-like segmented legs for greater stability and wider distribution of weight - adapting to this alien design is the ultimate test for the Legion’s ancients. Two varieties presently exist: the four-legged Flegias pattern, equivalent to the Castraferrum in size, and the six-legged Asphodel, which surpasses even the Leviathan in bulk.
The Abyssal Lurkers’ symbol, marked on ever legionary’s left pauldron, is a stylized figure of a charybdes, a jagged, many-legged shape with menacing claws painted in the same dull green as the armour’s joints.
Warcry: The Lurkers have been known to utter a number of war cries, including “To blessed oblivion!”, “Silence be made!” and “To battle we rise!”. However, between their predilection for underwater combat and many of their numbers renouncing the use of speech, they have largely fallen into disuse. Nowadays, the Legion usually attacks in deathly silence.
Organisation: Unlike most Astartes Legions, the Abyssal Lurkers are divided not into a multitude of Chapters, but a smaller number of dramatically larger strategic formations. While this decreases their flexibility and limits their simultaneous presence to fewer theatres at once, it ensures that wherever the Ninth engages in battle, it does so in force.
The largest unit of subdivision in the Legion is the Tempest, led by an Imbrifex. Their composition does not follow any formalised consistent number, but their strength is usually above twenty thousand Astartes. By extension, additional assets such as fleets and their servitor crews are considered part of a Tempest, and not of any lower unit. There are at all times seven Tempests in existence.
A Tempest is formed by a variable number of Vortices, each led by a Skotarch. Designed to be a well-rounded unit capable of autonomous action, a Vortex is roughly equivalent to a Company, numbering two hundred legionaries plus specialist support complements. War charybdes and Infestus thrall auxilia are considered part of a Vortex.
The lowest tactical unit in the Ninth is the Gale, led by an Aurarch. Standard Gales, of which each Vortex contains ten, number twenty legionaries each. Specialist Gales vary in their strength and equipment depending on their role.
Dramatis Personae:
Elder Fleshweaver Terech Ormis, Master of the Apothecarion: Apothecaries in the IX Legion, known as Fleshweavers, serve a more prominent role than in most others. In addition to elevating new recruits to Astartes proper, they are responsible for the creation of the mutated beings the Lurkers employ in battle. Terech Ormis, eldest of the Apothecarion and overseer of the Infestus Project, takes to this role with a glee uncharacteristic for his colder brethren. Outright delighting in the creation of new tools of war, he is all the same indifferent to attaining any standard of perfection, being more interested in sheer variety and efficiency of production. He has for some time been aspiring to blend his two duties together and undertake experimentation on fellow Marines and their gene-seed, but has thus far been restrained by his Primarch’s hesitation before such an extreme.
Grand Herald of Silence Veryan, Keeper of the Swarm: Working in close collaboration with the Fleshweavers, the Heralds of Silence, the psyker division of the Abyssal Lurkers, more than maintaining any body of knowledge, lend their abilities to augment and control the bestial charybdes that accompany the Legion. Their leader Veryan lives almost as a hermit, watching over the breeding grounds of Carcinus with but a few acolytes and only rarely coming forth at his Primarch’s personal bidding. Misanthropic even by the Lurkers’ standards, he claims to prefer the company of such simple animals to the disorderly and inconstant world of men. Nevertheless, possibly thanks to this lifestyle, he has achieved a singular mastery of the consensus, being unshakable in spirit despite the weight of the Warp on his mind, and is revered as an illuminated sage by his adepts.
Issnos Traal, Equerry to the Primarch: Veteran of the Third Tempest, First Vortex, Second Gale, and personal advisor to Sarghaul, Issnos has, uniquely for someone in his position, taken a vow of silence like many of his Legion-brothers. His inability to speak, however, makes him all the more prized as a depositary of the Primarch’s closest-kept secrets, and though none other can divine what he says in his personal signed code, his counsel has apparently served his master well so far. On occasion, Issnos acts as Sarghaul’s liaison and lieutenant during recruitment, which has earned him the ill fame of “the one who points” among those who have witnessed him select candidates for induction.
Expergefactor Summus Svatil, Primus of the Dronemaw Brotherhood: Given the Lurkers’ almost nonexistent use of armoured vehicles, the greatest responsibility of their Techmarines is the preparation and maintenance of their hallowed Dreadnoughts. As the highest-ranking among them, Svatil is effectively the one answering for the ancients’ deployment, and subsequently their slumber and awakening. Considering himself a spiritual guide of sorts, he takes the ritualistic nature of his duties to an extreme, holding solemn ceremonies for every occasion and, what is most irritating for force commanders, insisting on a rigid schedule dictating who can be woken and when. In this, he has ever been impervious to any strategic considerations, refusing to depart from his idiosyncratic scheme unless ordered to by Sarghaul himself.
Venerable Rethius: In spite, or perhaps because, of the Expergefactors’ rites, the Lurkers’ Dreadnoughts have an infamously tenuous connection to living reality, owing to a combination of their inhuman structure and the interaction between the practices of the consensus and their oft-slumbering state. None, however, are as far gone as Rethius, eldest surviving member of the Legion and among the first to be entombed in a Flegias-pattern sarcophagus. Though his skill in combat has not degraded over time, the state of his mind leaves something to be desired, speaking as he does entirely in unnerving mantras and cryptic aphorismal pronouncements. To the Lurkers, this is but a sign of supreme enlightenment, and Rethius is considered something of an oracle, his supposed intuitions dutifully compiled by his Expergefactor handlers.
Herminia Tarsica: The Lurkers’ fondness of secrecy has resulted in their attitude towards Remembrancers among their ranks never being particularly positive. Nonetheless, this has not stopped the more adventurous historiographers from seeking fame in the trail of the elusive Legion, and thus far Tarsica has been the most successful. A scion of a minor Terran noble family, her adaptable, opportunistic character has led her to find the optimal position for her goal - not ingratiating herself to the indifferent Primarch, but rather remaining below his notice as she follows the Lurkers on their campaigns. Her historiographic prose is generally held to be mediocre, though she is noted for her lurid descriptions of ravaged battlefields, which have occasionally even drawn the Legion Commanders’ grudging amusement.
Favored Tactics/Battlefield Role: Across the battlefields of the galaxy, the Lurkers are best known, and often feared, for their thoroughly unconventional order of combat. Eschewing the use of artillery and combat vehicles altogether, they instead rely on their large numbers, ample and varied use of specialist marine squads, unusually high proportion of Terminators and Dreadnoughts, abundant deployment of weapons of mass destruction and, most famously, bio-modified beasts of war. The most iconic of those are charybdes from the seas of their homeworld, altered to grow to immense size and be encased in shells as hard as metal, and equipped with specially fitted armour, chainfists and even artillery platforms on their backs. Even more dreaded, perhaps, are the Infestus abhumans created by the Legion’s Apothecarion; mostly human and ogryn in origin, they are spliced and injected with exotic concoctions to become freakish carapace-bound brutes, tremendously strong but mindlessly feral.
This unorthodox arsenal, combined with the genetic traits inherited from their Primarch, makes the Lurkers uniquely suited for amphibious warfare. Whether it be engaging aquatic xenos in their habitat, ambushing and sabotaging naval fleets or marching across the seafloor to attack an enemy from an unexpected angle, the IX Legion is unrivalled among the Imperium’s forces in its ability to bring its full might to bear just as effectively underwater as on dry land. Indeed, all of its Marines always carry a reserve of gas-propelled ammunition for their bolters, ready to switch between one environment and another at a moment’s notice. In addition, their deployment fleets are ever prepared to field specially-equipped troops wholly dedicated to subaqueous action.
Be it above or below the surface, the Lurkers favour aggressive tactics, preferring to launch sustained assaults from multiple fronts; when that proves impossible, however, they do not hesitate to mount a frontal attack. In combat, they perform at their best in close quarters, as evidenced by their signature weapon, the Chelicerae-pattern two-pronged lightning claw. Nevertheless, they are fully capable of maintaining pressure on the enemy at all distances in order to allow the plodding bulk of their troops to advance, be it through sustained suppressing fire from Maelstrom Devastator squads, or Assault Marines supported by Tartaros Terminators sowing havoc with a vanguard charge. Lines of heavy shield-bearing Aestus Breachers spearhead the attack, covering their fellows, while Destroyer Marines, known as Despersors, more numerous and indeed respected than in most other Legions and especially adept in the use of Phosphex weaponry, work to drive their foes into a panic.
A further aspect of the Legion’s tactics that makes them particularly notorious is their predilection for weakening enemies before meeting them in battle. Most often, this is accomplished through orbital bombardment, typically using viral and chemical ordnance, in which the Lurkers have grown skilled, followed by waves of rabid Infestus aberrations being unleashed against the enemy’s positions - methods that are prone to causing considerable collateral damage and incidental civilian casualties. Just as callously, the Lurkers will not hesitate to use contingents of the Imperial Army operating alongside them to wear down the opposition and absorb the first wave of defenses, later gathering up the wounded as they advance to bolster the packs of their living weapons.
Legion Characteristics/Ideology: The main traits by which the Abyssal Lurkers define themselves in their livelihoods are austerity, discipline and quiescence. Shunning almost all pursuits of leisure, they opt to spend their time off the battlefield in isolation, withdrawing from the eyes of mortals to dwell solely among their own kind. Owing to their proclivity for water-breathing, they build their strongholds exclusively in oceanic abysses, with the sole company of their charybdes beasts, and only emerge to collect supplies from the surface. Due to this, they have come to rely on none but themselves for the maintenance of their equipment and the preparation of their meals, which are thus usually of a Spartan simplicity. Furthermore, between their rare contacts with the rest of humanity, the uselessness of speech in the depths, and their striving for greater self-control, most of their numbers take on vows of silence, only broken to utter the most solemn of oaths, and communicate through an extended form of the Legio Astartes battle-sign even when at rest.
Such efforts to achieve personal discipline lie at the core of the Lurkers’ philosophy of life. It is their belief that, just as human history at large alternates between phases of war and peacetime, so must the days of an Astartes be divided between battle and repose. As the foremost exemplars of mankind, they are called to embody this dichotomy in the sharpest of ways: to the fearsome brutality for which they are known in combat corresponds a search for perfect inner balance and purity. Every Lurker is a practitioner of the via consensus, a discipline of meditation whose principles are inscribed on ceremonial tablets etched by Primarch Sarghaul himself and treasured by the Legion. Through its practices, the Astartes seek to cast off the trappings of their identity, be they distractions of the body or encumbrances of the mind, and achieve perfect unity with their duty and abnegation - an experience which has been alternatively described as liberating and terrifying. While novices are trained in the ways of the consensus in groups, more experienced legionaries typically withdraw to secluded places to contemplate in solitude.
The journey to becoming a Lurker paradoxically both reflects and is at odds with their impersonality. Like most Legions, they allow willing aspirants from their garrisoned worlds to contend for ascension by undergoing a series of trials, which include resisting prolonged immersion in the sea, spending days or even weeks alone in total darkness and silence, and confronting the monstrous creatures the Ninth breeds for battle. However, this is not the source of most of their recruits. The way by which the Lurkers manage to maintain their unusually numerous ranks, even in the face of heavy attrition, consists of selecting all remotely suitable-looking candidates from the populations of every planet they spend any amount of time on, and effectively drafting them into undergoing the trials of accession, willingly or not. Those who survive have all memories of their previous lives erased during the indoctrination that accompanies conversion into a Marine, and become from that moment onwards an "Unborn" son of the Legion, loyal solely to their brothers and Primarch, and through his mediation the Emperor.
This combination of distance, aloofness, ironclad focus and cavalier practices towards the general Imperial populace makes the IX Legion one of the most removed from simple humanity, and it is perhaps no wonder its members have come to follow their progenitor in considering their lessers as tools at best and nuisances at worst. This attitude finds its acutest expression in the ever-ongoing Infestus Project, the Lurkers’ darkest open secret: not content with breeding crustacean instruments of destruction, they have taken to doing the same with human and abhuman prisoners, no matter of which allegiance. Drawing upon the Transfigurationes Corporum, a collection of research notes compiled by the Primarch and his foremost Apothecaries, they employ a variety of techniques to this end, including rumouredly fragments of archaeotech from Carcinus and technologies taken from slain xeno foes. The constant improvement and perfectioning of this grim process is one of the few activities the Lurkers draw enjoyment from, and the whole Legion makes it almost a sport to support its Apothecarion’s research in whatever ways its individual ranks allow.
Unique Ranks and Organisations of Note:
Mancipes: Unusual tactics require unusual expertise, and the Mancipes are Lurkers' response to the challenge of doing battle with a majority of forces uncontrollable by conventional means. Though charybdes and Infestus auxilia operate most efficiently under telepathic direction, the logistical difficulty of fielding large numbers of psykers renders such an approach inefficient. Most bestial and abhuman elements are therefore commanded by Mancipes, specialist handler operators wielding nonlethal electroshock weaponry and pheromone dispersion equipment. While they likewise carry bolt pistols and chain weapons, personally engaging in combat is dispreferred, as the loss of a Manceps bears the risk of his charges losing cohesion.
Heralds of Silence: As the doctrine, traditions and accomplishments of the Lurkers are compiled in freely accessible codices of knowledge - the tablets of the via consensus, which all initiates are mandated to familiarise themselves with, and the Transfigurationes Corporum, which is an essential reference for all those tied to the Infestus Project - the role of Librarians adopted by certain other Legions is to all effects redundant. Thus, it is little wonder the Ninth's psykers dedicate themselves to other pursuits altogether. Collaboration with Fleshweavers and Mancipes in biomantically augmenting and telepathically controlling the Lurkers' monstrous creations is their foremost duty. The Heralds have perfected a technique of psychic emanation which enables them to subsume the will of those beasts on the battlefield, commanding them wordlessly and with perfect obedience, all while afflicting and assaulting the minds of the enemy; however, the effort of maintaining this state leaves them unable to manifest their abilities in more direct ways. In order to ward their minds from the disturbances of the Warp, the Heralds practise an especially stringent variation of consensus discipline and asceticism; while this greatly reinforces their mental fortitude, it also dulls their supernatural perception and makes them peculiarly inept at astropathic communication with anyone outside their order.
Dronemaw Brotherhood: Acting in the stead of the Legion's Techmarines, the Expergefactors of the Dronemaw Brotherhood are in truth the last remnant of the former Tempest Wardens' Terran origins. While formally members of the Mechanicum, it is no secret that the Brotherhood practise a deviant doctrine which is only superficially related to the dogma of Mars. Rooted in the rituals of a pre-Unification tribe of barbaric techno-shamans, from whom it is believed the Lurkers' genetic ancestors were first recruited and whose name they preserve as a relic, their beliefs place little importance on the Universal Law or the role of the Omnissiah, and instead consider the deepest mystery and supreme illumination of knowledge to reside in communion with machine spirits. It is the Brotherhood's belief that the mechanical anima holds secrets that empowered mankind during the Dark Age of Technology, and that by exerting dominion over the spirits or merging one's consciousness with them one may regain a fraction of the power and wisdom possessed by the ancients. Its litanies are almost tribal incantations of binding and conjuration, and the Legion's Dreadnoughts, whose minds are often warped by the inhuman shape they are forced to inhabit, are venerated as idols of hallowed biomechanical fusion. The Brotherhood's strange practices and the fact that, uniquely, it only inducts initiates recruited on Terra among the Dronemaw tribals' descendants make it the target of mistrust and suspicion among the majority of Carcinian and Unborn Lurkers, and many are leery of the influence they wield through their control of the armies of servitors that crew the Ninth's fleets instead of mortal personnel. A notable exception are the Despersors, whose familiarity with the ancient and terrible weapons of the Age of Strife makes them receptive to the old Dronemaw lore and traditions.
Hecatombion: Even among the grisly ranks of the Despersors, few names inspire such dread and grim awe as the Hecatombion. While their brethren scourge the Legion's foes with phosphex, rad-weapons, synthetic plagues and other such horrific instruments, it is the duty of these bearers of desolation to not merely slay the enemy, but to enact Sarghaul's mandate of damnatio memoriae against those who oppose the Imperium. Armed with balefire launchers, the Hecatombion scorch all trace of those who have been censured, dead or alive, from the face of the galaxy, ensuring that nothing will ever grow where they once dwelt and even their final resting places will be forever shunned and forgotten. While the summoning of the bearers of irradiated flame is thus often a solemn occasion, they are sometimes called upon with the more prosaic aim of eradicating particularly resilient and infestive xeno species, such as Orks, who would be difficult to be rid of by less drastic means.
Orcus Lictors: Although technically designated as Sarghaul's honour guard, the stupendous resilience of the Primarch of the Ninth reduces the role of his bodyguards to a mere formality. The Lictors have therefore taken on a different function altogether. Clad in dark suits of Tartaros Terminator armour, lighter and more agile than one may expect from their station, they complement their lord's preference for frontline combat by supporting him on the battlefield. Rather than stand around him as a bulwark, they are adept at heralding his arrival with a mighty charge, throwing the enemy into disarray and preventing them from eluding the approach of their ponderous master. The Lictors are armed with power claws and wrist-mounted bolters loaded with corrosive acidic ammunition, and are renowned as the most ferocious close-range fighters in the Ninth Legion.
Relationships:
The Emperor Himself: The apex of mankind, the culmination of all duty. The Lurkers are, at first glance, among the most devoted of the Emperor’s servants of all the Legions. Beneath the surface, however, all is not so simple: this devotion is largely the fruit of Sarghaul’s instruction to his sons, and without him would be severely staggered. Just as he venerates the Emperor in person more than His teachings, so are the Lurkers more loyal to their Primarch and his command than to any force beyond him. For the Emperor’s part, while his own stance is, as in many things, inscrutable, it is unlikely that this order of priorities and the continued horrors of the Infestus Project would lead to an entirely positive attitude.
Adeptus Administratum: Throughout its campaigns, the IX Legion has been a source of constant aggravation for the Administratum. While often effective, its methods have invariably left tremendous devastation in their wake, which ensued in a nightmare for efforts of reconstruction and annexation. It is thus common practice among the Imperium’s clerks to unflatteringly refer to the Lurkers as blunt instruments best kept busy far on the frontier, battling xenos and other enemies that will not be missed. The Lurkers themselves, on the contrary, have as positive a view of the Administratum as of any non-Astartes, prizing its impersonal efficiency and usefulness for logistic endeavours.
Imperial Army: Few, if any, Legions are as reviled by the Imperial Army as the Abyssal Lurkers. This animosity spans over entire generations, finding its roots in the disregard for civilian life displayed by the Lurkers at Galaspar, and only exacerbated by every latter conflict in which the two bodies have fought together. The Legion’s practices of indiscriminate destruction, using its Army allies as human shields, and collecting their wounded to transform into Infestus beasts, along with especially grievous cases such as the Carinae incident, have brought their relationship to a hair’s breadth away from overt enmity. Far from being considered an honour, being deployed alongside the Lurkers is broadly viewed as a punishment, and usually reserved for penal and disgraced units.
Cult Mechanicum: Although one might assume relations between the Lurkers and the Mechanicus to be strained at best, considering the former’s habit of employing unsanctioned captured xenotech for its ends, the truth is that the Legion is well aware of its reliance on the Order and its supply of specialised equipment. As such, it does its best to at least maintain appearances, concealing its use of forbidden technology and occasionally registering its artificial abhuman patterns for compliance. The Mechanicum itself, while inevitably suspicious, has thus far not deemed them worth of a thorough investigation, despite the calls of some more intransigent groups.
The Imperium at large: Distant as most Imperial worlds may be from each other, news will eventually travel through a good number of them. Word of the Lurkers’ ferocious practices, disdain for most of humanity, and intrusive recruitment has by now spread wide enough, and wherever they may go, there are good chances their arrival will be far from celebrated.
Xenos:Suffer not the alien to live. The Lurkers are all too glad to enforce the Emperor’s mandate, eradicating any non-human life they encounter without misgivings.
Alright, Primarch sheet is done. The Legion will follow within the week.
All finished and ready for review.
Name: Sarghaul Tartareus.
Gender: Male.
Homeworld: Carcinus. This tranquil ocean world has had, until recently, the dubious privilege of being all but entirely forgotten by the galaxy at large. Located in the inner rim of the Segmentum Tempestus, Carcinus had once been designated for conversion into an agri-world towards the end of the Dark Age of Technology. To that end, imposing complexes of machinery were established on its small, sparse landmasses, with the goal of seeding the planet’s waters with life to be farmed. However, the process was disrupted by the advent of the Age of Strife. Rampaging Men of Iron destroyed most of the installations before being decommissioned, and the surviving ones fell into disrepair as vast Warp storms sealed the system in a nigh-impregnable pocket, preventing technicians and replacement components from reaching them.
Over the millennia, the work already done has been eroded by Carcinus’ native life gradually reclaiming the oceans, alongside the bizarre chimerical beings spawned by the incomplete conversion. Of the latter, the most curious and dangerous are the crustaceans known as charybdes. Strongly resembling the crabs of old Terra by a quirk of evolution, if larger and with more numerous limbs, these creatures began at some point to grow tremendous in size and hunger, and have since been a scourge for the planet’s population, threatening the inhabitants of coastal areas and preventing them from feeding off the bounty of the seas.
What little of the failed agri-world’s people survived the uprising of the automata and the following isolation thus found themselves hemmed in the hearts of the largest islands. Fortunately, the mainland soil proved fertile, possibly as a result of the ancient seeding’s early stages. This, combined with their low and scattered numbers, largely prevented them from degenerating into barbarism, instead leading to most adopting a mostly peaceful agrarian lifestyle. While charybdes occasionally wander far enough inland to become a danger, such incidents are rare, and the creatures are easily slain or driven off.
Presently, Carcinus is the seat of the Abyssal Lurkers’ fortress-monastery, built in the oceanic depths.
Appearance:
Primarch Sarghaul Tartareus during the Conquest of Galaspar, ca. 850.M30. Note some exaggeration as to the amount of adornments on his armour.
At slightly below fourteen feet of height, Sarghaul is abnormally large and massively built even among his kind. A behemoth of a man, his proportions are perhaps the least similar of all Primarchs to those of a simple human, bearing a distinctly closer resemblance to the robust frame of an Astartes. With thick limbs, an almost nonexistent neck and a ponderous gait, there is nothing about him that can be described as graceful, but each of his movements radiates steady, implacable strength.
On the extremely rare occasions it is bared, Sarghaul’s face only adds to this uncanny impression. His skin, drained of colour by the darkness of the deep, is pale to the point of being almost diaphanous, though its thickness prevents it from being quite translucent. Stretched over his sharply angular features and unmarred save for a fleeting shadow of grey hair on the crown of his head, it gives his visage an altogether deathly appearance. The slightly protruding eyes with irises so dark they blend together with the pupils do nothing to alleviate this.
Perhaps fortunately, no part of the Primarch’s body is virtually ever exposed to sight. The vast majority of those who encounter him never see anything beyond the oversized suit of Cataphractii-pattern Terminator Armour he is perpetually encased in, painted in the dim colours of his Legion. Though as bare of ornamentation as that of his followers, it is nonetheless far more elaborate, being moulded with sharp ridges on its surface to resemble the texture of a charybdes carapace. So thorough is this decorative work that the entire helmet is shaped like the mandibles of the great marine beasts. In battle, and sometimes even outside of it, his hands are fitted with the Claws of Oblivion, a pair of enormous twin lightning talons where metal is joined to chitin from the pincers of the most ancient oceanic terrors of his homeworld.
Personality: If one word had to be chosen to best describe Sarghaul’s temperament, that word would be obstinate. Once he puts his mind to something, no obstacle in the universe, be that the most ferocious resistance of the foes of mankind or the pleas of those who by misfortune find themselves trampled underfoot by his advance, can so much as give him pause. Even the command of his father and liege, when opposed to a cause he has latched on to, cannot fully deter him. While this ironclad determination is often a source of strength, sustaining him in the face of dire adversity and granting him the firmness necessary for drastic action, it can just as well prove to be his undoing, causing him to expend his forces over worlds already devastated by his single-minded drive to claim them for the Imperium at all cost, or risk the censure of the Emperor himself. For all that, however, the Abyssal Primarch is not a mindless slave to his whims. The schemes he pursues to their bitter end are born of plodding deliberation, and, within their confines, he is certain to seek the path of least resistance.
Close behind his stubbornness comes his devotion. It is difficult to say to what exactly - the Emperor personally or the ideals he champions - and he is not fully certain of that himself, though the distinction is one he deems too frivolous to ponder. The whole could appear to be something of a paradox - he reveres the Emperor out of admiration for his decrees, and in turn fights for the latter because that is the Emperor’s desire. In truth, his loyalty is founded on but a portion of the Imperium’s creed; the vision of a cleansed galaxy dominated by an ideal, unbreakable order is what stokes his faith in his progenitor. Other facets of its dogma, such as the Imperial Truth, he is largely apathetic toward, and his seemingly fanatical adherence to them is motivated solely by the command of the Highest among Mankind. That said, loath as he is to admit it, his veneration of the Emperor is not entirely pure; the castigation of his work on Carcinus has bred within him a rankling resentment, and a terrible doubt that his father may not always know what is necessary to ensure the victory all aspire to.
Yet, deep as they may run, these cracks do not for now show on the surface of his spirit. Matching his terse demeanour, Sarghaul’s mind is as cold and sluggish as the abyssal waters he so loves. There is no place in it for pride, nor for compassion; nor for any pleasure beyond those of duty and the plying of his visceral craft. The only spot of warmth he permits himself, besides basking in the Emperor’s light, is the affection he holds for his legionaries, faint, but almost paternal in tone. Outside their ranks, the best one may hope to obtain is his respect, and that is something he reserves for those fellow Primarchs he considers worthy comrades in arms. The masses of humanity he is supposedly sworn to protect earn nothing but his indifference and sometimes outright contempt for their weakness and fallibility. For xeno, mutant and dissenter there is naught but a dull, insatiable loathing that will never die until the last abomination draws breath.
Skills:
Deep Dweller: As a result of mutation, Sarghaul prefers being submerged over walking on dry land. His body is perhaps less than subtly warped to favour underwater conditions, finding it more comfortable to breathe saltwater, being capable of seeing keenly in the pitch darkness of the abyss, and so shaped as to most efficiently bear the crushing pressure of water. These traits make him, and those implanted with his gene-seed, capable of operating below the surface better than any human or even other Astartes could aspire to. At the same time, however, they are cause for discomfort in dry environments, requiring him to wear armour modified with additional eye protection and internal humidifiers.
Fortitude: The powerful build of Sarghaul’s frame is a boon for more than his subaqueous activity. While making his movements slow and ponderous, his body is, through a combination of innate resilience, colossal armour, regenerative psychic powers and sheer determination, capable of withstanding truly astounding amounts of harm and surviving to deliver a crushing counterattack.
Savant of Flesh: Through a quirk which may be attributed to either the exceptional mental acumen of a Primarch or his psychic potential, Sarghaul is able to gain a surprisingly deep intuitive understanding of most living creatures’ anatomy after but a cursory examination. Further, if he is given time to fully dissect and study something, the bodies of its kind will hold no secrets for him, giving him the insight to strike at their weak points, concoct viral weapons most effective against them or reshape their forms as he desires.
Annihilator: A combination of thoroughness and analytical acumen is a great asset for a commander, and Sarghaul lacks neither. Given enough information about a foe, he is quick to devise plans resulting in its utter destruction. Between a sharp eye for vulnerable spots to exploit to inflict maximal damage and a keen sense for the most improbable routes a defeated enemy may use to escape, his gifts make him skilful in directing sieges and decisive assaults whose goal is to wipe the opposition from the face of the galaxy. He tends, however, to fare noticeably worse when on the defensive and at a wider strategic level.
Chilling Presence: Though he lacks any measure of the charisma that distinguishes some of his siblings, Sarghaul is not entirely ineffectual in terms of diplomacy. His imposing size, silent demeanour and speech broken by the gurgling of moisturizers give him a sinister mien he is all too glad to use to intimidate his lessers into compliance. His unyielding advance and cold brutality stagger the morale of those who face him on the battlefield, while, conversely, emboldening his legionaries to emulate and follow him as an unbreakable tide.
Assignment Grade: Epsilon. Sarghaul may not be among humanity’s most powerful psykers, but he is a proficient wielder of the discipline of biomancy. Calling upon it, he can perform a number of unnatural feats, including mending the wounds of himself and others, smiting enemies with currents of bio-lightning and, most prominently, transmuting and enhancing the bodies of living beings. Beyond this, there is little he is capable of, even his precognitive potential being comparatively atrophied; the only exception is his ability to influence and even direct the minds of the simplest beasts, though he himself considers it an extension of his biomantic powers.
Biography:
At the turn of the Age of Strife, the Warp tempests raging around the system wherein lay the world of Carcinus were only beginning to fade, and still stood as an impenetrable barrier shrouding the star from the rest of the sector. While this barrier served as incidental protection from the ravages of the Old Night, it likewise left those surrounded by it trapped and unable to either explore or contact the outside galaxy. This led to the planet’s few spaceports being abandoned as useless, and its population, constrained to small territories by the menace of feral charybdes, never truly recovering from the losses suffered during its downfall. Without external stimulation and with the memory of the old planetary order fading as its infrastructure crumbled, the people devolved into quasi-medieval farming communes, working for sustenance with primitive tools and only occasionally clashing with each other in territorial disputes.
Such was the state of the world when the capsule containing one of the lost Primarchs was transported there by the agency of the Ruinous Powers. As luck would have it, it did not strike down upon one of the sparse islands that formed the sum of the planet’s dry land, as it would effectively have been improbable, but in the shallows of the global ocean that covered most of its surface. Coming to rest on the seabed, it soon attracted the attention of a curious charybdes, which evidently believed it to be potential prey. With its powerful pincers, the creature pried open the container’s hatch and revealed the infant within. It would surely have consumed him, but something, likely his burgeoning psychic influence, deterred the beast and caused it to withdraw.
Left to fend for himself, the newborn Primarch, who was able to survive underwater without ill effects thanks to his powerful physiology and unique mutations, abandoned his capsule and began to crawl his way over the seabed, feeding on algae and small marine life. His psychic presence did not falter, turning away predators who sought to devour him. Though guided solely by his unconscious intuition, in but a few days he reached one of the planet’s small landmasses and was able to ascend it through a smooth coastal cline.
When he emerged from the waters and made his way into the inhabited heartland, the locals were aghast. Made superstitious by their descent into an archaic lifestyle, they had taken the sight of the capsule’s fall as a dire omen, and viewed the strange child who had emerged unharmed from the sea as a preternatural being. Some went so far as to believe him to be an oceanic spirit whom they feared by the name of Sarghaul. After some debate as to what was to be done with the newcomer, since most were too afraid to even approach him and there was great concern as to what would happen were he left unchecked, he was taken in by one Ahwal Drann. This somewhat eccentric, even, some said, lunatic personage, almost a hermit, dwelt near the closest of the damaged control facilities which had stood abandoned since the Dark Age, and would occasionally venture there to rummage through the debris despite the fearful folklore surrounding the place - a man of recklessness, curiosity and taste for the bizarre, which no doubt weighed upon his decision to claim tutelage of the foundling.
These traits did not, at the same time, make him much of a capable educator, and it was fortunate that the young Primarch could count on his rapid maturation and sharp intellect to keep pace with his erratic education. Seeing his charge’s unnatural growth, Drann, who had his own, more optimistic views on the common superstitions, humorously continued to call him Sarghaul, and the name stuck. Soon, the odd stranger began to accompany his surrogate father on his expeditions, though no one knew what, if anything, they found, as well as venture on journeys of his own. Feeding into the mystical cloud of rumour that had formed around him, he was seen heading off to sea and returning only days later, sometimes carrying some piece of scrap that had clearly lain under the waves for a long time. His reputation was further swelled by his strange ability to ward off the dreaded charybdes, which would pass him by indifferently or even scuttle off where he pointed.
Years passed, then decades. Sarghaul, who had become a man faster than it could have seemed possible, grew to tower over anyone ever seen on Carcinus, being full as tall as smaller huts and seen with almost reverential terror by the simple-island people. Then, some time after Drann had passed from age, leaving his pupil to continue their searches alone, calamity struck. The weakening Warp storms finally dispersed, clearing the path to the planet. Yet it was not any benign force that discovered it first. The Scions of Writhing Marrow, a minor, yet ambitious Haemonculi Coven of the Dark Eldar, chanced upon its system while marauding about the newly cleared sector in search of prey to abduct for their vile experiments. Seeing that the ocean world was inhabited, however thinly, they decided to stop for a swift raid before continuing on their path, and dispatched a light force to sweep over it, a part of which landed on the island where Sarghaul resided.
The locals, scarcely armed with ill-maintained archaic weaponry and unaccustomed to anything more than small skirmishes, were thrown into a panic, becoming easy prey for the xenos. However, the latter encountered unexpected resistance in the person of the Primarch himself, who used his psychic abilities and formidable physical might to combat them. Unprepared for such a confrontation, they were forced to retreat; a second attempt, uniting a few other raiding parties, was once more narrowly beaten back, as by then Sarghaul had been able to organise the population, made obedient by fear, into a rough order of battle which made the best of what equipment they had. The Eldar, unwilling to commit to protracted combat, rounded up the captives they had already taken and withdrew to inform their masters of this strange find.
For his own part, Sarghaul strongly suspected he had not seen the last of the strange invaders, and was not optimistic about his chances of eluding death or capture at their hands a second time with his makeshift forces decimated by the first encounter (already then, he was noted as showing little concern for their own fates). He went to delve into the ruins he had been fond of haunting with Drann, this time with a clear goal in mind. The precise nature of what he did is unknown, but it is now believed, with a basis of strong evidence, that he had been able to find and activate a still functional archaeotech device from the days of Carcinus’ planned conversion, and presently put it to use in conjunction with Sarghaul’s powers. The giant was seen making his usual rounds between land and sea far more often than usual over those days.
Soon afterwards, his suspicions were confirmed. The Scions were enticed by the thought of such an abnormal human specimen, which promised to be a stupendous asset if seized, and one of their lesser Haemonculi personally led the next expedition with an entourage of hideous wracks. Their surprise was great, however, when they found a similarly inhuman adversary expecting them. Upon landing, they were ambushed by a swarm of large charybdes, lured to a favourable spot, some of which had bizarre features such as too many limbs or unusually tough carapaces - the fruit of Sarghaul’s preparations. Surrounded, the Dark Eldar and their creations were either slain or routed, with the Haemonculus felled in combat by the Primarch himself.
Ransacking the bodies of the fallen, Sarghaul was, though his fine senses and intuitive insight into anatomy, able to draw a connection between some of the substances and instruments carried by the Haemonculus and the horrid nature of the wracks. Fascinated rather than disgusted, he reasoned that by striving to replicate that process he could spawn some truly incredible beings, much like the mysterious forebears of Carcinus’ inhabitants, as well as create a fighting force with better chances of repelling future incursions. Without wasting time, Sarghaul, who had by then cemented his reputation as an almost supernatural being, sent out a call to the people of his island and those nearby, promising that those who came to him would be transformed into something beyond human imagination at a small cost. What neither he nor those hapless pilgrims who answered his summons knew was how torturous the procedure would be, but he did not let that deter him, reasoning that what he did was both bold and necessary.
Thus, on the Scions’ inevitable return, they were met by both charybdes and the no longer human grotesqueries into which Sarghaul had mutated his unfortunate subjects. In truth, had the Cabal been able to commit any significant portion of its forces, there would have been little contest, and their quarry would himself have been forced to flee; however, between the power struggles of their kind and their involvement with more reliable raiding targets, they had comparatively little strength to spare. Thanks to this circumstance, Sarghaul was able to continue avoiding capture, while searching the bodies of slain wracks and grotesques - as, after the first incident, the Haemonculi themselves preferred not to risk descending to the surface - for elements to further his more and more ambitious flesh-grafting practices. To make himself a more difficult target, he began to move from one island to another.
It is unclear for how long this could have continued before the Scions tired of the pursuit and either deployed to Carcinus in full battle order or abandoned the venture altogether, but at a certain moment in 844 Imperial scouts charting the sector noticed the unusual Dark Eldar activity over a seemingly unimportant world. Progressively higher ranks were informed of this, until word reached Terra itself, and the Emperor of Mankind, no doubt suspecting the work of one of his scattered offspring, arrived to personally investigate the anomaly. Once on place, he easily tracked the sizeable Warp presence on the surface. Appearing before Sarghaul, the Emperor rebuked him for his careless experimentation on the human form, before expounding his vision of a galaxy united under the Imperium. Though demoralised by the condemnation of something he had come to enjoy besides being convinced of its necessity, the Primarch was drawn by the thought of a great quiescent order being imposed on the universe, and pledged himself to his father without hesitation.
While Imperial forces broke the Scions’ presence in the sector once and for all, Sarghaul journeyed to Terra for instruction, and soon afterwards assumed command of the IX Legio Astartes, which under him was named the Abyssal Lurkers.
Entering the fray of the Grim Crusade, Sarghaul and his Legion soon earned a reputation for thoroughness and brutality. Despite his liege’s admonition, the Primarch was loath to abandon the pursuits of splicing and flesh-crafting, and, indeed, persuaded the Lurkers’ Apothecarion and Librarians to follow in his footsteps in the name of strength and efficiency. He augmented his forces with beasts and abhuman brutes of his creation, which, while proving effective terror weapons, did him no favours with the allies and liberated civilians who sometimes were caught in their indiscriminate rampages. It was perhaps shame for his misgivings and disobedience that drove him to avoid returning to the Emperor’s presence more often than strictly necessary, preferring instead to skulk and campaign in remote corners of the four Segmenta.
Over his tenure as Legion Master, Sarghaul has thus far taken part in a number of engagements of note.
An early action saw him besieging and subjugating the hive world of Galaspar, which had rejected Imperial rule. Eager to prove his zeal to the Emperor, Sarghaul was inflexible in his assault. He unleashed his troops on the planet, supporting their assault with widespread orbital bombardment and use of Phosphex weaponry. Though the hive world’s inhabitants sought to escape into subterranean tunnels and fortifications, the Lurker marines, excelling in fighting in murky depths, pursued them with ease and slew or captured them to swell their auxiliary ranks. Only a small fraction of the planet’s population survived the conquest; the forces of the Imperial Army who later reached the system were appalled by the spectacle, starting the long history of the distaste regular troops still hold for the Abyssal Lurkers. Nonetheless, the fear sown by this conflict proved a strong motivator in reducing other nearby worlds to obedience.
In the 865th year of the millennium, the Lurkers fought their first major battle against the Ork menace as they participated in the conflict of Rennimar. Sarghaul was said to have described the Orks as admirable in their ingenuity and simplicity of spirit, but repugnant for their chaotic nature, and ordered extensive Phosphex and viral bombardments to wipe them out on his front of the struggle, heedless of what state this would leave the vacated planets in.
Not long afterwards, while transiting through the Segmentum Obscurus on the way to join combat in the Rangdan Xenocides, the IX Legion clashed with a force of the enigmatic creatures known as the Slaugth, which had ventured out of their hidden territory to raid Imperial supply routes. The Lurkers under their Primarch’s command successfully repelled the incursion and retrieved samples of the Slaugth’s outlandish biomechanical constructs, though they could make little sense of them. This was the first reported instance of the Legion pillaging biological xenotech from defeated enemies other than Dark Eldar, which they have always done without fail, for their own uses.
Up until the late 890s, Sarghaul and the Lurkers followingly took part in the Xenocides proper, their numbers being ground down all throughout by the redoubtable enemy, but managing never to plummet too far thanks to their vigorous recruitment practices. After the conclusion of the bulk of the conflict, they played a major part in the meticulous eradication of the hostile species’ remaining numbers. The Legion gained a certain infamy throughout the Imperium for the ruthlessness with which they took to the task, as well as a not wholly deserved reputation of vicious sadists who relished to ravage a helpless foe. Nor did the aggressive nature of the practice of near-conscription they had begun to adopt to replenish their ranks earn them any benevolence with the people at large.
In the early years of the 10th century, Sarghaul led another purge, against a species whose name has since been lost. The known details of the campaign are imprecise and sometimes contradictory, but on their whole they paint an image of tremendously bloody war of annihilation, with no effort being spared to destroy the offending species to the last. An anecdote of the time claims that a Remembrancer attached to the Lurkers had penned a comprehensive description of these events, but the Primarch became irate and ordered the work to be destroyed, as he wished to condemn his enemy to oblivion as an example for those who would oppose the Imperium. Some suspect, however, that he may have done this to conceal the defeats suffered by the Legion itself during the conflict.
Later, in the year 927, a Lurker exploratory force encountered the xenos that became known as the Keylekid. When Sarghaul rejoined his vanguard, he found that their civilisation practiced a highly ritualised form of warfare, only engaging their adversaries is specially designated conditions. Unwilling to humour the customs of reviled non-humans, he decided to instead exploit them to his advantage, ordering bombardments on the massed Keylek troops when they gathered in their traditional battlefields and subsequently having all their non-combatants put to the sword.
Around the midpoint of the century, the Lurkers were deployed alongside a sizable Imperial Army detachment to reduce the Carinae Sodality, a human confederacy that inhabited massive orbital installations, to compliance. During the siege, the Sodality’s leaders activated a weapon which drove unaugmented humans, both their own subjects and Imperial soldiers, into a berserk fury. Undaunted, Sarghaul turned his Legion’s weapons and warbeasts against his former allies, slaughtering them before continuing the pacification of the void-city at the cost of significant losses. According to some accounts, he eventually claimed the weapon for himself, though others maintain it was destroyed in the fighting. While he had little choice in his actions, his readiness in attacking those by whose side he had fought but hours before only further stoked the Army’s disgust towards him when the details became known.
The last major recorded campaign fought by the Lurkers to date took place in 990, when they did battle in the Segmentum Obscurus against a force of the xenos known as the Khrave, who had the ability to psychically enthrall humans and feed off their vital strength. As these beings had been empowering themselves by leeching off the enslaved population of a contested world, Sarghaul decreed he would cut off their source of nourishment, initiating the massacre of the thralls as he believed their lives to be forfeit in any case. Having deprived the Khrave of their prey and thus weakened them, he proceeded to wipe them out, completing the somewhat hollow annexation of the now lifeless planet to Imperial rule.
The Meeting:
Rusted chain links clattered against the grimy floor as the thing stirred awake. It dragged its gnarled fingers over the ancient concrete, overgrown nails piling up mounds of dust. The scraping must have alerted it that something was wrong, for it lifted its head and slowly, almost fearfully raised its hands to its face. They hesitated for a moment, then went further, feeling the jagged plate of protruding bone that covered most of its features, the clumps of sickly muscle around its neck, the sharp ridges where its ears had been. Its mouth gaped, revealing, instead of an uneven row of rounded yellow teeth, dozens of sharp, pristine fangs.
Then it screamed, and despite its visage its voice was still chillingly human. It leapt up, tugging at its bonds, but the chains held fast. It screamed again, and again, before breaking into a raucous growl.
From the other side of the wide, dim chamber, a towering figure watched it impassively. A massive hand motioned downwards, and the thing slumped to the floor, but did not stop its mournful groaning. The hand tensed, and bright sparks coursed along it for a moment, then crackled and faded as the giant relaxed his arm. He reached for a pouch in the makeshift tunic stretched over his bulk, barely holding together despite being stitched from several cloaks and robes, and produced a fragment of chalk that was almost a pebble between his fingers. Without taking his unblinking eyes off the beastly creature, he traced a crude symbol on the wall to his side, wincing at the screech of friction. One in a line of many.
Barely turning his head, Sarghaul threw a glance at the pale row, only faintly visible in the dusty evening rays that filtered from the door behind his back. That was, to anyone but him. He could see as no one else could, in the darkness, and walk in it without fear while they, these small things that only distantly looked like him, huddled around their lights. He, who came from the sea, was not of their kind; he knew that as he admired the wretched thing chained before him, the latest fruit of his labour. Who of them could have made anything like that? None had the wisdom, the skill to work the old machines, to use the lifeblood of the black wraiths that came down from the sky, none had that power which he felt inside himself. This was why he was the craftsman, and they the clay in his hands. If things were this way, clearly it was meant to be so.
“Can you truly be sure it is?”
The giant gave a start. Lost in his thoughts, he had not heard anyone approach, in spite of his sharp senses. That alone gave him a chill deeper than any he had found in the ocean - nothing had ever caught him unawares like this. He did not show it, however, as he heavily turned to face the intruder.
The man before him did not seem unusual in the least. A minuscule thing, draped in a grey cloak that concealed his face. He was insignificant at Sarghaul’s feet, but something about his presence gave the colossus pause. It was as if he only saw the calm surface of the waves, but knew that underneath it there moved something vast, terrible and old. Very old.
“It’s obvious,” he answered in a cutting tone, as if speaking down to any of the islanders. In his urge to raise his bravado in the face of that uncanny feeling, it had slipped him by that the stranger had addressed something he did not speak aloud. “Look upon me. I am Sarghaul, the abyssal one. I’m greater than any of you, in anything you will ever do. You know I am not of man.”
“But do you know it?”
Sarghaul opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated. The question had struck at something he had nursed over the decades, a void he had never been able to fill. He had never known where he truly came from. The islanders had said he was of the sea, and he let them believe it, for it gave his voice weight. Ahwal, his mentor, had always shrugged and said some things lay deeper than others. Yet, delve far as he might, he had never found the answer to that, and the uncertainty had festered.
“You do not,” the stranger continued, after letting his thoughts run for a moment, “Because you cannot know that which is false. You say you are of the sea, but you cannot remember. Yet you see that your face is of a man, and not a thing of water.”
“How-?!” This time, the faceless one’s impossible knowledge was obvious enough that he saw it immediately. “I might have the face,” he tried to force through the dread that was creeping up his throat, “But not the body. What man can do what I do, walk where I walk?”
A sound as if a low smirk came from under the grey hood. “There are many.”
“What?!” the dread struggled with the mounting irritation at the stranger’s cryptic demeanour. He could know what he wanted, but he was small and weak like all the rest! Why should he, Sarghaul, who never fled from anything, fear him? “How do you say this?! Tell me! How do you know?!” He began to raise a hand, larger than three times the smaller man’s head.
The stranger did not budge. “I know, for I know all.”
He threw back his hood.
Golden light erupted in a torrent, as if the dawn had risen in that very room. It swept away all shadows, burning, blinding, brighter than the sun had ever been. In its corner, the chained thing howled in anguish. Sarghaul fell to one knee, shielding his face from the radiance. It cut at his eyes, used to the soft darkness, so painfully that he thought his head would split apart. Nothing availed him, for through his closed eyelids, through his very hands, he saw its fearsome source.
The stranger was taller now, much taller, more even than himself. His grey cloak was no more, and his mighty body shone in a carapace of gold. His face the giant could scarcely glimpse, as what drew his gaze were the eyes, eyes that were like stars come to the earth, to burn away all things in a river of wrath.
“I know, for it was I who made you, Tartarean one,” his voice was so potent that the ground shook under their feet, and heavy like a thunderstorm, “Made you to serve that which I love above all things, all mankind. To be its sword and its bulwark against the decay within and the horrors without. I gave you gifts beyond what mortalkind could imagine, that you may serve it best. And yet, what have you done with them?”
He pointed at the wretched, warped creature, and Sarghaul shrank under the weight of his scorn.
“You turned them on those who were to be your wards! You made a mockery of my creation of you and your brethren, defiling the sacrament of birth with alien poisons! These people are your charges, not your tools or your shields!”
The giant’s whole body had clenched so hard he could barely breathe. “Lord… I…” he managed to rasp, but no further sound would leave him.
“But you are not lost.” The wrath in the Radiant One’s eyes faded, and its crushing grip withdrew. “You were led astray in your exile, but you can find the true path again. That is what I offer you. Come with me, and you will be the one who always bears my word. There are many worlds, and storms come over them when they deny my rule, or they are ravaged by foul things like the black wraiths. I shall show you your strength, and give you more to wield than you ever desired, and with it you cleanse the stars of havoc and disorder, bringing blessed stillness. Come, and take your place as my avenging hand - as my son.”
Sarghaul had let his hands fall down his sides, and stared ahead, enraptured. Tears of ecstasy ran down his face. This being, this man - he saw all there was to see in him, and looked down on him with benevolence. With mercy. He knew the peace of darkness and silence, and did not revile him for seeking it. And he would let him be part of his work, indeed, to lead it, guide it as he saw best. Always, for as he knew all, he knew to forgive.
“I will,” he whispered, as hoarse as the groans of the chained monster, “For you, my lord, I will.”
The Radiant One frowned, but said nothing.
Legion Name: Formerly known as the Tempest Wardens, the Legion was renamed to the Abyssal Lurkers when Sarghaul assumed command..
Legion Number: IX.
Legion Strength: ca. 150,000 Astartes. Indeterminate number of enhanced charybdes and Infestus-strain abhumans.
Armour Appearance:
Left to right:
Legionary in Mk II armour, standard tactical armament Legionary in Mk III armour, aquatic combat armament Field Apothecary in Mk IV armour
Given the size of the IX Legion, it is perhaps no wonder that the assortment of armour worn by its members be varied to the point of being almost eclectic. Both the II and IV Marks of power armour are plentiful among its ranks and distributed apparently at random, though a closer look reveals that the more advanced pattern is distributed prevalently to veteran squads. Mark III is similarly widespread, and, being optimally suited for the sort of operations the Lurkers excel in, employed in far greater quantity than by most other Legions, though rarely ever in frontal surface combat.
An even greater diversity is found in the equipment of the IX’s numerous Terminator units. Being the simplest to mass-produce, the Indomitus armour pattern has come to outpace all others by a significant margin, while its Cataphractii and Tartaros counterparts are mostly donned by the equivalents of specialist squads. The Legion even possesses its own distinctive design, the Scylla pattern, a variant of the Cataphractii designed for underwater combat - even more heavily fortified and stable on its feet, at the cost of being so hefty as to be nearly unusable on land.
The Lurkers’ Dreadnoughts, meanwhile, are entirely a class unto themselves. Unlike the more humanoid common patterns, they are mounted on several spider-like segmented legs for greater stability and wider distribution of weight - adapting to this alien design is the ultimate test for the Legion’s ancients. Two varieties presently exist: the four-legged Flegias pattern, equivalent to the Castraferrum in size, and the six-legged Asphodel, which surpasses even the Leviathan in bulk.
The Abyssal Lurkers’ symbol, marked on ever legionary’s left pauldron, is a stylized figure of a charybdes, a jagged, many-legged shape with menacing claws painted in the same dull green as the armour’s joints.
Warcry: The Lurkers have been known to utter a number of war cries, including “To blessed oblivion!”, “Silence be made!” and “To battle we rise!”. However, between their predilection for underwater combat and many of their numbers renouncing the use of speech, they have largely fallen into disuse. Nowadays, the Legion usually attacks in deathly silence.
Dramatis Personae:
Elder Fleshweaver Terech Ormis, Master of the Apothecarion: Apothecaries in the IX Legion, known as Fleshweavers, serve a more prominent role than in most others. In addition to elevating new recruits to Astartes proper, they are responsible for the creation of the mutated beings the Lurkers employ in battle. Terech Ormis, eldest of the Apothecarion and overseer of the Infestus Project, takes to this role with a glee uncharacteristic for his colder brethren. Outright delighting in the creation of new tools of war, he is all the same indifferent to attaining any standard of perfection, being more interested in sheer variety and efficiency of production. He has for some time been aspiring to blend his two duties together and undertake experimentation on fellow Marines and their gene-seed, but has thus far been restrained by his Primarch’s hesitation before such an extreme.
Chief Librarian Veryan, Keeper of the Swarm: Working in close collaboration with the Apothecarion, the Librarians of the Abyssal Lurkers, more than maintaining any body of knowledge, lend their abilities to augment and control the bestial charybdes that accompany the Legion. Their leader Veryan lives almost as a hermit, watching over the breeding grounds of Carcinus with but a few acolytes and only rarely coming forth at his Primarch’s personal bidding. Misanthropic even by the Lurkers’ standards, he claims to prefer the company of such simple animals to the disorderly and inconstant world of men. Nevertheless, possibly thanks to this lifestyle, he has achieved a singular mastery of the consensus, being unshakable in spirit despite the weight of the Warp on his mind, and is revered as an illuminated sage by his adepts.
Issnos Traal, Equerry to the Primarch: Veteran of the Third Tempest, First Vortex, Second Gale, and personal advisor to Sarghaul, Issnos has, uniquely for someone in his position, taken a vow of silence like many of his Legion-brothers. His inability to speak, however, makes him all the more prized as a depositary of the Primarch’s closest-kept secrets, and though none other can divine what he says in his personal signed code, his counsel has apparently served his master well so far. On occasion, Issnos acts as Sarghaul’s liaison and lieutenant during recruitment, which has earned his the ill fame of “the one who points” among those who have witnessed him select candidates for induction.
Expergefactor Summus Esvatil, Master of the Forge: Given the Lurkers’ almost nonexistent use of armoured vehicles, the greatest responsibility of their Techmarines is the preparation and maintenance of their hallowed Dreadnoughts. As the highest-ranking among them, Esvatil is effectively the one answering for the ancients’ deployment, and subsequently their slumber and awakening. Considering himself a spiritual guide of sorts, he takes the ritualistic nature of his duties to an extreme, holding solemn ceremonies for every occasion and, what is most irritating for force commanders, insisting on a rigid schedule dictating who can be woken and when. In this, he has ever been impervious to any strategic considerations, refusing to depart from his idiosyncratic scheme unless ordered to by Sarghaul himself.
Venerable Rethius: In spite, or perhaps because, of the Expergefactors’ rites, the Lurkers’ Dreadnoughts have an infamously tenuous connection to living reality, owing to a combination of their inhuman structure and the interaction between the practices of the consensus and their oft-slumbering state. None, however, are as far gone as Rethius, eldest surviving member of the Legion and among the first to be entombed in a Flegias-pattern sarcophagus. Though his skill in combat has not degraded over time, the state of his mind leaves something to be desired, speaking as he does entirely in unnerving mantras and cryptic aphorismal pronouncements. To the Lurkers, this is but a sign of supreme enlightenment, and Rethius is considered something of an oracle, his supposed intuitions dutifully compiled by his Expergefactor handlers.
Herminia Tarsica: The Lurkers’ fondness of secrecy has resulted in their attitude towards Remembrancers among their ranks never being particularly positive. Nonetheless, this has not stopped the more adventurous historiographers from seeking fame in the trail of the elusive Legion, and thus far Tarsica has been the most successful. A scion of a minor Terran noble family, her adaptable, opportunistic character has led her to find the optimal position for her goal - not ingratiating herself to the indifferent Primarch, but rather remaining below his notice as she follows the Lurkers on their campaigns. Her historiographic prose is generally held to be mediocre, though she is noted for her lurid descriptions of ravaged battlefields, which have occasionally even drawn the Legion Commanders’ grudging amusement.
Favored Tactics/Battlefield Role: Across the battlefields of the galaxy, the Lurkers are best known, and often feared, for their thoroughly unconventional order of combat. Eschewing the use of artillery and combat vehicles altogether, they instead rely on their large numbers, ample and varied use of specialist marine squads, unusually high proportion of Terminators and Dreadnoughts, abundant deployment of weapons of mass destruction and, most famously, bio-modified beasts of war. The most iconic of those are charybdes from the seas of their homeworld, altered to grow to immense size and be encased in shells as hard as metal, and equipped with specially fitted armour, chainfists and even autocannon platforms on their backs. Even more dreaded, perhaps, are the Infestus abhumans created by the Legion’s Apothecarion; mostly human and ogryn in origin, they are spliced and injected with exotic concoctions to become freakish carapace-bound brutes, tremendously strong but mindlessly feral.
This unorthodox arsenal, combined with the genetic traits inherited from their Primarch, makes the Lurkers uniquely suited for amphibious warfare. Whether it be engaging aquatic xenos in their habitat, ambushing and sabotaging naval fleets or marching across the seafloor to attack an enemy from an unexpected angle, the IX Legion is unrivalled among the Imperium’s forces in its ability to bring its full might to bear just as effectively underwater as on dry land. Indeed, all of its Marines always carry a reserve of hydro-combustible ammunition for their bolters, ready to switch between one environment and another at a moment’s notice. In addition, their deployment fleets are ever prepared to field specially-equipped troops wholly dedicated to subaqueous action.
Be it above or below the surface, the Lurkers favour aggressive tactics, preferring to launch sustained assaults from multiple fronts; when that proves impossible, however, they do not hesitate to mount a frontal attack. In combat, they perform at their best in close quarters, as evidenced by their signature weapon, the Chelicerae-pattern two-pronged lightning claw. Nevertheless, they are fully capable of maintaining pressure on the enemy at all distances in order to allow the plodding bulk of their troops to advance, be it through sustained suppressing fire from Devastator squads, or Assault Marines supported by Tartaros Terminators sowing havoc with a vanguard charge.
A further aspect of the Legion’s tactics that makes them particularly notorious is their predilection for weakening enemies before meeting them in battle. Most often, this is accomplished through orbital bombardment, in which the Lurkers have grown skilled, followed by waves of rabid Infestus aberrations being unleashed against the enemy’s positions - methods that are prone to causing considerable collateral damage and incidental civilian casualties. Just as callously, the Lurkers will not hesitate to use contingents of the Imperial Army operating alongside them to wear down the opposition and absorb the first wave of defenses, later gathering up the wounded as they advance to bolster the packs of their living weapons.
Legion Characteristics/Ideology: The main traits by which the Abyssal Lurkers define themselves in their livelihoods are austerity, discipline and quiescence. Shunning almost all pursuits of leisure, they opt to spend their time off the battlefield in isolation, withdrawing from the eyes of mortals to dwell solely among their own kind. Owing to their proclivity for water-breathing, they build their strongholds exclusively in oceanic abysses, with the sole company of their charybdes beasts, and only emerge to collect supplies from the surface. Due to this, they have come to rely on none but themselves for the maintenance of their equipment and the preparation of their meals, which are thus usually of a Spartan simplicity. Furthermore, between their rare contacts with the rest of humanity, the uselessness of speech in the depths, and their striving for greater self-control, most of their numbers take on vows of silence, only broken to utter the most solemn of oaths, and communicate through an extended form of the Legio Astartes battle-sign even when at rest.
Such efforts to achieve personal discipline lie at the core of the Lurkers’ philosophy of life. It is their belief that, just as human history at large alternates between phases of war and peacetime, so must the days of an Astartes be divided between battle and repose. As the foremost exemplars of mankind, they are called to embody this dichotomy in the sharpest of ways: to the fearsome brutality for which they are known in combat corresponds a search for perfect inner balance and purity. Every Lurker is a practitioner of the via consensus, a discipline of meditation whose principles are inscribed on ceremonial tablets etched by Primarch Sarghaul himself and treasured by the Legion. Through its practices, the Astartes seek to cast off the trappings of their identity, be they distractions of the body or encumbrances of the mind, and achieve perfect unity with their duty and abnegation - an experience which has been alternatively described as liberating and terrifying. While novices are trained in the ways of the consensus in groups, more experienced legionaries typically withdraw to secluded places to contemplate in solitude.
The journey to becoming a Lurker paradoxically both reflects and is at odds with their impersonality. Like most Legions, they allow willing aspirants from their garrisoned worlds to contend for ascension by undergoing a series of trials, which include resisting prolonged immersion in the sea, spending days or even weeks alone in total darkness and silence, and confronting the monstrous creatures the Ninth breeds for battle. However, this is not the source of most of their recruits. The way by which the Lurkers manage to maintain their unusually numerous ranks, even in the face of heavy attrition, consists of selecting all remotely suitable-looking candidates from the populations of every planet they spend any amount of time on, and effectively drafting them into undergoing the trials of accession, willingly or not. Those who survive have all memories of their previous lives erased during the indoctrination that accompanies conversion into a Marine, and become from that moment onwards a son of the Legion, loyal solely to their brothers and Primarch, and through his mediation the Emperor.
This combination of distance, aloofness, ironclad focus and cavalier practices towards the general Imperial populace makes the IX Legion one of the most removed from simple humanity, and it is perhaps no wonder its members have come to follow their progenitor in considering their lessers as tools at best and nuisances at worst. This attitude finds its acutest expression in the ever-ongoing Infestus Project, the Lurkers’ darkest open secret: not content with breeding crustacean instruments of destruction, they have taken to doing the same with human and abhuman prisoners, no matter of which allegiance. Drawing upon the Transfigurationes Corporum, a collection of research notes compiled by the Primarch and his foremost Apothecaries, they employ a variety of techniques to this end, including rumouredly fragments of archaeotech from Carcinus and technologies taken from slain xeno foes. The constant improvement and perfectioning of this grim process is one of the few activities the Lurkers draw enjoyment from, and the whole Legion makes it almost a sport to support its Apothecarion’s research in whatever ways its individual ranks allow.
Relationships:
The Emperor Himself: The apex of mankind, the culmination of all duty. The Lurkers are, at first glance, among the most devoted of the Emperor’s servants of all the Legions. Beneath the surface, however, all is not so simple: this devotion is largely the fruit of Sarghaul’s instruction to his sons, and without him would be severely staggered. Just as he venerates the Emperor in person more than His teachings, so are the Lurkers more loyal to their Primarch and his command than to any force beyond him. For the Emperor’s part, while his own stance is, as in many things, inscrutable, it is unlikely that this order of priorities and the continued horrors of the Infestus Project would lead to an entirely positive attitude.
Adeptus Administratum: Throughout its campaigns, the IX Legion has been a source of constant aggravation for the Administratum. While often effective, its methods have invariably left tremendous devastation in their wake, which ensued in a nightmare for efforts of reconstruction and annexation. It is thus common practice among the Imperium’s clerks to unflatteringly refer to the Lurkers as blunt instruments best kept busy far on the frontier, battling xenos and other enemies that will not be missed. The Lurkers themselves, on the contrary, have as positive a view of the Administratum as of any non-Astartes, prizing its impersonal efficiency and usefulness for logistic endeavours.
Imperial Army: Few, if any, Legions are as reviled by the Imperial Army as the Abyssal Lurkers. This animosity spans over entire generations, finding its roots in the disregard for civilian life displayed by the Lurkers at Galaspar, and only exacerbated by every latter conflict in which the two bodies have fought together. The Legion’s practices of indiscriminate destruction, using its Army allies as human shields, and collecting their wounded to transform into Infestus beasts, along with especially grievous cases such as the Carinae incident, have brought their relationship to a hair’s breadth away from overt enmity. Far from being considered an honour, being deployed alongside the Lurkers is broadly viewed as a punishment, and usually reserved for penal and disgraced units.
Adeptus Mechanicus: Although one might assume relations between the Lurkers and the Mechanicus to be strained at best, considering the former’s habit of employing unsanctioned captured xenotech for its ends, the truth is that the Legion is well aware of its reliance on the Order and its supply of specialised equipment. As such, it does its best to at least maintain appearances, concealing its use of forbidden technology and occasionally registering its artificial abhuman patterns for compliance. The Mechanicus itself, while inevitably suspicious, has thus far not deemed them worth of a thorough investigation, despite the calls of some more intransigent groups.
The Imperium at large: Distant as most Imperial worlds may be from each other, news will eventually travel through a good number of them. Word of the Lurkers’ ferocious practices, disdain for most of humanity, and intrusive recruitment has by now spread wide enough, and wherever they may go, there are good chances their arrival will be far from celebrated.
Xenos:Suffer not the alien to live. The Lurkers are all too glad to enforce the Emperor’s mandate, eradicating any non-human life they encounter without misgivings.
Beyond the crest of the nearest hills, smoke rose like a waterfall from where one of the thundering streaks of flame had struck the ground. The blow had almost thrown Enka and her companions off their feet, though they could not have been less than half a day of walking away from the spot. The heat had followed as a gale of summer wind, passing quickly but leaving a storm of withered leaves and fleeing insects as it went. Now, the acrid, stifling smell of burning wood came to their fine noses in distant wafts, not strong enough to choke them, but steadily growing stronger.
From the upper branches of the old tree she had climbed to better see over the ridge, she watched as the fiery roots of the smoke grew wider, spilling over leafy crowns in a spreading circle. When the wind turned her way, she could smell the dead ash and hear the faint crackling of the flames. Every time, it was a little louder. The fire wasted no time feeding. If they did not move, it would catch up to them soon.
In a few motions, agile with a lifetime of practice, Enka vaulted down the coarse trunk and onto the ground where the rest of her hunting party waited for her - her brother Woram, Jorre and Aalve of old Harro and Ruard of Obel. The strongest of their tribe’s young trackers, they had struck out eastward two days before in search of rich hunting grounds rumoured to have sprung up there since the deer had last travelled, yet still they had found none of that bounty, and now the sky itself seemed to be shattering over them. Hopping down from the lowest thick branch, she fell to the ground on all fours and sat up at Woram’s side. Her brother was pointing overhead, where more shining streaks cut through the dim heavens. He greeted her with a nod and addressed the others in a voice that struggled to stay firm in spite of the incredible sight just above.
“We’ve got to keep moving. It’s falling all around-” as if to confirm his words, another distant impact rumbled through the soil under them, “the next one could come down right on us.”
“If it’s everywhere, it’s no difference,” Ruard dissented, his face drawn and tense, “Even if we move, it could get us, and they’re too big to just avoid.”
Aalve nodded. “Maybe it’s like lightning. We shouldn’t get in the open.”
“We can’t stay here, though,” Enka pointed to the north, where she could still see the smoke towering if she craned her neck, “The one that fell there, it’s made a wild fire. It could be there before dawn.”
“I’ve heard the beasts moving, that must be right.” Jorre tapped the ground with his fist. “I say we go back. They’ll need every hand back at home, if…”
He did not finish, but the grim possibility was clear to everyone. Without further discussion, they stood up in silence and began to walk back west, not spread out like on a hunt, but with the swift, purposeful steps of anxious travellers. They tread lightly on the dry, cool ground, as if fearing that a careless motion would bring a fragment of the sky down right over them, and glanced up at fiery deluge. As luck would have it, the streaks fell wide around them, though more and more struck down with every passing moment.
At length, their luck ran out.
Something large cut the air with a roar and a gleam, and the earth sang like thunder under their feet. Enka tried to fall to her knees and hands to withstand the blow, but the air struck her like a whip of damp hide, snapping her over the face and sending her sprawling. She saw a fading black shape that could have been Woram be flung against a tree, before a flash of light blinded her like a dozen midday glares at once. Dazed, with distorted spots swimming before her eyes, she grasped for something to hold on and pull herself up, but her fingers only slipped on and tore up thin stems in the undergrowth. Someone shouted, or perhaps it was a branch snapping.
The din in her head only kept growing, but she had no time to lie there. The falling thing could have brought the fire closer, or snapped the tree that loomed over her. Her hands grasped again, sharp nails digging into the soil, and this time she rose, propping herself up on her hands. Her eyes saw as if underwater. There was no light or fire, but something enormous and dark fell down from above - and rose up again, buffeting her with a stiff breath of wind. No, she still could not see clearly. Focus! She had to force her eyes to be clear again.
She squinted hard and pressed her fingers against the eyelids. The din continued and her ears could hear nothing but a drone, but some light returned into her look. She could see the vast shapes that were trees, and the small ones that were her companions, and smaller ones still, moving among them…
The smell hit her. A beastly, yet rotten thing was close. Very close, she felt, as one of the small shapes approached her and she glimpsed a leering snout with hungry eyes level with her face. She felt for her spear, but could not find it with her fingers, and her hand felt heavy, too heavy even to rise and push away the creature.
A shout to the side. Someone - Jorre? - was on his feet, his spear held ready. The impish being turned to face him, with a grunt she heard worse than the scream, and more appeared from the shadows at the edge of her vision, closing in.
They did not have time. There was another roar of a falling bulk, a strike and a crack, and suddenly Jorre was not there anymore. In his place, a shape like she had never seen. It stood tall on two legs, but it was broader than a tree, and its arms were gnarled like dead and cankerous branches. The stench became unbearable. The thing pointed at her with a finger longer than forearm and made a gurgling, swampy noise. At its call, the little monsters turned to her again.
The closest one loudly huffed and raised an arm to strike, but Enka had found her spear. She was still shaken, but her arm was strong and trained, and lashed without thinking. The creature was itself fast, and brought down its hand to beat it away, but not enough. She felt the spear’s tip hitting something soft, and heard the squeal of a struck animal. Her assailant staggered back, and that was the opening she needed. Her legs, strengthened by fear and the rush of the fight, flung her upright and threw her away, further among the trees, heedless of the falling sky. Behind her came sounds of strikes and grunts, hooves hitting the ground in pursuit, and the churning voice of the massive thing, on and off in regular surges, like water running off a stone. It was laughing.
She ran, and did not look back.
Back when I chronologically left off, a band of Vallamir on a hunting expedition in central Kalgrun are surprised by Abraxas’s meteoric bombardment. As they make their way back home, for lack of safer places to go, they are ambushed by Vrog, who lands his porcine gang on the continent. Pigguts have arrived on Kalgrun.
A dozen mouths stretched wide in a fetid yawn. Buzzing things rose in a small cloud from the shifting body, which had until then been coated in them like a swarming black shroud.
“Thhe moshht… Guts, my head.”
Vrog’s hand groped around, digging ruts in the soil, until it finally found its way up to his head. Or, at least, a head that he thought was his.
“Getta yer paw off, mudsnout! Head’s crackin’ bad ‘nuff without that!”
”Nrrgh. Shut it!”
He spun his wrist, sending the foreign head and everything attached to it flying a few feet away with a thud and a squeal. Groaning and grumbling in a few voices at once, he pulled his swollen bulk to its feet and let out an exploratory tongue, which was conspicuously missing its tip. As he rose, the tree he had been leaning against, deprived of its last support, careened down and fell by his side in a crash. Its trunk, corroded to a thin blackened husk full of rotted sludge, snapped open, releasing a swarm of thrumming pests. More crawled out from the grimy quagmire the top of wilted leaves had landed in. The land clearly had not gained much from having been his resting place.
By comparison, the figure that approached the beheaded stump on wooden steps was incongruously clean, in a way that irked Vrog’s painfully sharpened senses. He snapped a pointing finger towards it, flicking a thin spray of corrupt sludge that was, however, carefully eluded. The attendant’s glowing head flickered and it shook a vise-hand, jangling the pocket-watch it had been holding for what must have been a long time.
Vrog's tongue whipped towards the heap he had tossed away. “You there,” he motioned with a finger, “open that up.”
The piggut sat up, chewing on a maggot picked up from the ground, and grunted "Do it yerself."
“Like spit I'm going to.” The tipless tongue cracked like a lash, and the piggut rose to its hooves with a reluctant grunt. It trotted over to the watch-bearer, indifference to everything and everyone shining through its beady eyes, and tipped the cover aside.
A moment later it jumped away with a shriek, shaking off the mouth that had taken a liking to its paw. "Rutter, y'knew it'd do that!"
“Worth a shot.” Vrog's gurgling laugh turned to another groan. With a flick, a flask was in his hand, and a grey liquid poured from it into the watch as the mannequin held it flat. When it was empty, it went flying over its considerably more cheerful owner's shoulder. Free to stop holding his head as though it might come split apart any moment, he probed the air with more tongues. “How'd you get here anyway?”
The piggut shrugged and belched. "If ye don't know that," it snatched a fat buzzing thing out of the air and noisily licked it up, "Came out with the water if I'd to guess. One thing I'm sure is the others ain't far behind."
“Others? What d'you mean not far-” something rumbled inside him. “Spit.”
The rumble moved up into his throat and was overtaken by a distant metallic banging. He stretched a mouth open, and a trio of swine-faced goblins clothed in coarse rags tumbled out of it. They sniffed around, gaining their bearings, then ran off into the thick of the woods, squealing and brandishing their cleavers.
“Gut it, it's starting now!” Another wave of rumbling began to rise. Vrog shoved a hand into the mouth and pushed something down. “Grab the watch and get up here!”
"That thing? Forget it." A metal wrist clicked, and the piggut went rolling. It picked itself up with an indignant noise, but snagged the watch in its teeth and latched onto Vrog's shoulders. Another couple of newcomers went trundling by.
“Strap on back there. You drop the thing, you're dead!”
The pair leapt off like a burdened frog, leaving a puddle of filth and a hovering cloud of gnats behind. The lantern-head head followed them with a blank stare, then wound up its eye and strode off towards the temple.
A path of putrid tracks wound through the forest, now and then widening into shallow mires where the feet that left them had paused to disgorge some more visitors. Trees had been toppled at nearly every step with tell-tale impatience.
The trail ended on a cliffside. Steam drifted skyward from the sea below, and enormous luminous bodies oscillated along with the waves.
Vrog crouched near the edge, holding his middle mouth closed with both hands as something rumbled inside. The piggut on his back looked at the sea with unease.
"Ghak? Ghe're gheing ghere?" To its credit, it still had not dropped the watch.
“Yes, now keghaghhhh-” Opening another mouth to answer had been a mistake. The rumbling receded, then suddenly surged up again and erupted from the new exit point.
A torrent of rugged pink hide, specked with gleams of rusted metal and patches of discoloured grey rags, tore its way out of the maw, stretching and pushing it apart to fit its clusters of tangled shapes. They popped to pieces as they struck the ground, suine faces grunting and snarling at each other as each sought the rest of their packs. Vrog’s head was pulled apart to an alarming point as several bodies as large as himself emerged. The massive, bloated pigguts smelled their rivals as soon as they plopped out onto the ground, and their beady eyes flashed at each other full of beastly aggression, but only a few came to blows. The best part fell upon the mob of their lessers, itself about to erupt into one huge brawl. The chorus of angry squeals ad club strikes that followed was by no means quieter, but a fraction more orderly, and before long the gaggle split into groups that chased each other inland with a litany of grunted curses. If there had been any corpses, none were left behind - one could not fault the impish mob with being wasteful in this.
Vrog leaned back, wheezing from the brutalized mouth and the ones around it. He rubbed the skinless gangrene under a limply hanging jaw. The piggut hanging from his shoulders took the chance to loosen a hand and pick its nostrils with a finger.
“Gut it, feel way lighter now. You still there?” A crack and a curse followed as the jaw finally snapped back into relative shape.
“Others wosn’t there yet.” It took the watch in its hand to answer, then bit it again and went back to its snout.
“Spitting lot more of you that’s still inside,” Vrog grumbled and pushed himself upright with a hand, “But should keep them in till I’m over the sea now.”
“Bet ya y’can’t.”
“Bet ya I can! Loser keeps the watch.”
“Told you. Should’ve fattened up ‘fore throwing me a bet.”
“Ghuh-hah - ghu ghoht - lost some on them glowrocks.”
“Some don’t count. Weren’t any of yours anyway.”
The piggut tried to retort, but a reckless jump made it bite down on the chain. Vrog and his passenger dropped down the face of a mountain, caught a rocky outcropping with a crash, tumbled dangerously over a steep slope and slid to a halt at its foot. A cut-off tongue bent out in a hooked shape and probed the air.
“Almost there. Couple more climbs left.”
“Engh ghen?”
“Then I kick your spit face to a place you can stop at. You can make more of you?”
After a shrug went unnoticed, a grunt came by way of reply.
“You do that, and we’ll all have the time of our spitting life.” The last words were rejoindered by a low, distant drumming. “Guts, they’re coming again.”
As luck would have it, the heap of filth, metal and swineskin had landed in sight of a pass. The piggut banged on the left side of Vrog’s helmet, and the blind monster heavily turned that way. Their path up the dry rock, crossed in a jagged line of leaps, was accompanied by the mounting and ebbing of the rumble, louder than ever before. It reached a thunderous peak as Vrog vaulted over the crest of the pass, and, finding an unexpectedly steep cliff on the other side, began to half-roll, half-skid downwards.
He rattled and clanked for a good stretch, leaving behind a trail of slimy stone worthy of a gigantic slug, before catching an inconveniently smooth rocky spur. The clattering mess drifted through the air with the grace of a displaced avalanche, scattering some low-flying kites, and for a moment it looked as though it might remain suspended up there for good.
The illusion was soon dispelled by a resounding crash and a plume of salt that obscured Heliopolis and smothered a vibrant blue kite’s fabric in white.
A snout emerged from a nearby puddle, covered in strands of pink weed. It stared as Vrog disentangled himself from the bundle he had landed in, staggered a couple of steps forward, leaned back and split apart. A jagged rift burst open around his midsection, and metal plates slid to the sides, baring an enormous pair of jaws over where his stomach should have been. The horrid maw gnawed, spat, awned wide, revealing a cavernous pit of pools of nauseating filth and pillarlike strands of mucus -
With a tearing retching sound like the churning of an apocalyptic whirlpool, dozens, hundreds of squat pink bodies poured out between the sparse yellow spines and iron scraps of its teeth. The crowd of pigguts rolled as if punted by a gigantic foot. A few collided with each other and stopped within sight, or fell into mires and sat up, spitting saltwater. Most, however, continued to roll, spinning away towards the flat horizon with small white clouds over their trails. Curious kites followed in the drafts from their motion.
The piggut with the watch crawled out of its puddle, licking algae from its face. Vrog pulled himself back up, wiped a small cascade of spittle from his abdominal mouth and dragged it closed with a brief, yet intense bout of muttered cursing.
“What’s doing with this?” It shook the watch on its chain.
“Throw something good in there sometimes,” Vrog distended a mouth in a stretched-out flat trumpet and breathed out a cloud of grey mist between its jutting teeth. The acrid fog swept over the piggut, triggering a spell of grunting wheezes. “You’ll find ‘em that way. Long as you do, you won’t regret it.” He snapped the outturned teeth into place with a finger one by one. “And if you don’t, you will.”
As watch and piggut trotted away towards where some leftover newcomers were picking themselves up, Vrog’s shadow began to stretch past its contours, despite the glare from the sky staying as still as always. Though he could not have seen it, his tongue hovered it with unease while it grew, stretching out like an oily puddle and indeed seeming almost as bulgingly solid.
Any doubt anyone might have had about that solidity was dispelled when the shadow stood up, towering a good few heads above its caster, and glared at him with four burning eyes.
”You thought I wouldn’t know?” it reached with a claw that gained dimensions as it moved and clenched Vrog’s head in a merciless vise. Smoke rose from his putrid flesh where the pitch-black fingers touched it. ”I felt that, rothead. Someone took my guts and cleared them out. You know how long it took me to fill them? What scrap did you do this time?”
“Ow, spit, the head!” Vrog squirmed, or, more accurately, wobbled under the brutal grip, “Let u-” the grip only tightened, “Fine, fine, here’s the thing. I got good news, and I got bad news...”
Hruf picked up a fistful of coarse white grains from the ground, licked them and threw them away over her shoulder. Most landed on Kniff, who phlegmatically wiped them off his face, stood up and hit Hruf under her left ear with his club. Hruf answered by punching Kniff straight in the still salty snout. The two traded a few more lazy blows before wheezing and collapsing on their backsides. Off to the side, Nahf kicked up sprays from a puddle with a hoof.
“Salt, salt, more sodding salt,” Hruf grumbled, “Only things moving’s them wood crows.” The kites overhead hovered on unperturbed. “Why the rut’d Oruff get us ‘ere? Ain’t no feed, no snatch, nothin’.”
“Dunno it was her that did,” Kniff huffed, “But the place’s mud rutstraight.”
“Gotta be her,” Hruf insisted, “Went off somewhere, stays disappeared days long, then we’re here.”
“Ask her yerserlves, ‘ere she is.” Nahf pointed at a squat approaching figure.
Oruff was quick to waddle close up, munching on something. In one hand she carried a bundle of pink weeds from a marsh, and in the other a round metallic object kept oscillating at the length of a slender chain.
“‘Ere!” Hruf waved her cleaver at the newcomer, “What kinda mudflat’s this? What got in yer head dragging us here?”
“And what’s that stuff?” Kniff added, eyeing the strange trinket.
“Place’s good,” Oruff smacked Hruf over the forehead with the shiny circle, swinging it on its chain like a miniature flail. It clicked open from the blow and bit the closest ear, eliciting an angry squeal. Oruff continued unperturbed. “Ya try this?” She waved the pink strands before the others’ snouts.
Nahf shook his head. “What good’s eating leaves?”
“No good just so, but I got an idea,” Oruff eyed a stray piggut poking through the ground a fair distance behind them and nodded at it with an expressive snarl. “Lots of ideas. Me, ya three and this lil’ thing,” she jangled the watch, which Hruf had extricated from her ear, “we’re going to have the time of our rutting life. Just ya watch.”
This post takes place pre-timeskip.
Vrog wakes up with a terrible headache and an equally hungover piggut rooting around. The piggut tells him that more are on their way, and, sure enough, they start to appear in a way familiar to those who drink beyond their weight. Vrog takes it as a watch-holder and sets off for the Dragon’s Foot, dropping a few swine-goblins on the way. A rather large group materializes just before they cross the Saluran Mendidh.
The duo with the watch make it to and through the northwest of the Foot, but can’t reach the Steppes in time, and the bulk of the newcomers is conjured in the Pan. Vrog tells the piggut to carry the watch around and feed it things, and he’ll make it worth its while, before Narzhak appears to take him to task for squandering Might godly power.
The piggut watch-watcher, whose name is Oruff, rejoins her friends and reassures them that they’re going to enjoy themselves in this world.
Narzhak
Starting: 12 MP, 9 FP
4 MP spent creating pigguts, a simple sapient species. More to come in the wiki, but, in short, they're small, gregarious, violent and voracious, generally short-lived but prolific. They have little to no drive to work or innovate and prefer to steal. Pigguts live in packs, led by warlords bloated by hormone overloads. They have a propensity for snatching and eating other species' children.
Pigguts come with some things from their dreamworld, those being: 1 FP (enhanced with War portfolio) for a number of crude metal weapons 1 FP for the knowledge to start fires 1 FP for rudimentary cooking 0 FP (discounted with War port.) for a knack for salvaging and improvising weapons 0 FP (discounted with War port.) for a similar aptitude with armour and body protection
In addition: 2 FP spent on forming a holy order, the Keepers of the Maw 0 FP (discounted with Cannibalism port.) on giving the Keepers the title Fleshgorgers. For them, eating people is a mystical art.
The world was a flat grey. On either side of Vrog, the rocky crag they found themselves on seemed to suddenly drop into an unknown abyss. Behind him, the finger of rock stretched beyond sight, not that he had as much, and in front of him -- the very same. He was not alone, however, and stacked impatiently close was a single file line of strange and various monstrosities. The queue was so dense that each sweaty back and achy shoulder pressed against each other, digging into Vrog as he stood in the same line.
He rubbed his head, trying to puzzle together how he had gotten there. Something in his hand clinked against his helmet, and a darting tongue verified that he was still holding the bong. Which was, as all evidence suggested, not quite loaded with tobacco. What the spit has he put in it at all? Not even drinking himself blinder than usual had ever ended with him waking up in a line. As if he would ever wait in one, and for an occasion like this!
Vrog's fingers fumbled around the cracks of his armour and produced his new pocket watch. Good thing it had not been picked yet in this mash. He snapped it open, listened to the mouth's clattering, closed it again. Scumgut, he was going to be late at this pace, and those idiots ahead did not seem to be moving at all.
With a growl of “Get outta the way, spitface” he shoved back an unnaturally contorted limb that was protruding into his armpit and began a ruthless work of claw and elbow, trying to push himself ahead among the tightly packed miscreations.
Pushing and clawing, Vrog managed to force himself further in the line, only to find the end stil out of sight. There was a resounding ‘ding’ and all the members of the queue suddenly took a single synchronized step forward. The motion all around him pushed him forward in the middle of a precariously long step. Spitting and swearing, he stumbled forward, hooked fingers digging into someone's back as he reached for the nearest point of support. Bits of flesh seemed to easily fall from the victim’s back, letting loose a sickly smell.
His prop coming apart under his hands, Vrog found himself tumbling to the ground. A few inches from the ground, the concerted action of a dozen tongues stopped the fall of his head, though not before his much broader body hit the rock with a clang. He picked himself up with foam at a few mouths, hissing ghastly blasphemies under his breath, and gave the watch another listen. This just could not be right! It was this late, and now was the first time he remembered someone being called up ahead. There had to be somebody managing things, or else, and he did not like the thought, he really would be arriving that much over time.
Vrog spat a seed into someone's supernumerary ear, aimed a spiteful kick at the unfortunate back before him and began to shove his way forward again. No way a bunch of slaggers like this was going to keep him from making it in time, or almost.
There was a tug on the muscles responsible for Vrog’s hearing, and just as his mind suggested a ding was coming, a terrible droning melody followed instead. It had no real ups or downs, nor real hook or impact -- it was just a repetitive pattern of bland notes. As if to compliment the grey sounds, a snotty sniffle sounded somewhere in the line followed by a single wet cough.
His fingers went to his temples, or what passed for them, and his teeth grit against each other. To his horror, they quickly turned out to settle along with the tune, if it could even be called that. He tried to make another push, but found that he was a hair away from letting loose and starting to tear his neighbours up, which, he knew almost for sure, it was better not to do right here. But if that music went on much longer-
No, cut that. He had to take his mind off it, anything would do. Not finding any better stimuli, Vrog's tongue stretched out and slipped through the crowd like an oversized earthworm, snaking its way towards the source of the sickly sounds. It went, and it went, and it went.
DING!
The line shuffled forward an abrupt step, the mossy armpit of some creature with at least eight somehow clipping the tongue into a loose grip. Another of Vrog's mouths spewed a “Gutted scrapass” as he tugged to pull his limb free. No use - the hold was not strong, but the armpit seemed to go an absurdly long way in both directions. That had to be flat arms, ridiculous. Without a warning, pointed teeth sprang out over the tongue's length, cutting into its captor. Fibrous and stringy flesh with the hue of rot shredded from the being as it dumbly shuffled away from the tongue.
There was another ‘ding’ and suddenly the line moved one massive step that seemed to disorient reality. As the greyscale world shifted and fuzzed away from Vrog’s senses, an entertained cackle filled his head -- and slowly as the world came back, he knew he was elsewhere.
Sitting on her throne, Diana was cackling madly, one arm wrapped around her stomach and a single tear on her cheek. Vrog's tongue, or what remained of it - a sizeable part was lost somewhere in the transition - whipped back into his mouth, in time for an annoyed scowl.
“Sure, it's all a laugh until somebody gets-” he stopped, at a loss for what somebody was going to get, while his cut-off tongue emerged again at the familiar smell. “Hey, it's you. Explains why nobody got a spitting moving proper fast.”
“Oh you,” Diana stifled her cackle, “Still as ugly as ever. I have to say, I’m liking what you did with your tongue, very creative.”
“No point not doing my best,” claw-tips self-satisfiedly scraped the ghastly amalgam of grime and iron that passed for a belly as the mangled tongue snapped and drooled about, “Can't say the same for you. Still the rottenest bitter around. You blasted up anyone else lately?”
“Only if you count their minds,” Diana hummed, “But that’s just as well.” She held out a hand and a teacup appeared between her fingers. Taking a hot sip, a sulfuric smell livening the room, she gasped at the taste.
“Wouldn't be much different in here either way.” Vrog's musing was interrupted by the waft of sharp stench. His tongue tipped dangerously close to the cup, then coiled back in disgust. “That's what you wanted that lake for?! You're sure as scrap wasting it, and yourself drinking this scumbroth.”
He tossed up the bong he was somehow still carrying, and it landed back in his hand as a battered metallic flask, smelling unbearably foul despite the lid. “Think you were in a run last time, but we're not late for a thing now, so-” with a deft twirl of his wrist, he tossed the flask over to Diana, “-this one's on me.”
A dark tendril caught the flask and gingerly placed it into Diana’s waiting fingers. She unscrewed the cap (her teacup floating on its own) and took a whiff under a wiggling nose. She bounced her eyebrows once and took a sip. With an appraising hum she slowly poured the contents into her sulfuric tea and handed the flask back to the tendril.
“Thank you,” She mentioned idly before taking a renewed sip, a gentle smirk on her face (with jagged teeth poking out through her lips). Gulping once she let her eyes flicker across Vrog once more, “So what, oh what, brings you here out of all places, hm?”
Several of his tongues clicked in a mix of surprise, disappointment and approval as he drank from a second identical flask that had appeared from some unclear corner. “This,” he held up the bong, whose steam was not of the colour it probably should have been, “And whatever scrap I put in there, can't have been tobacco. But I was coming by anyway, got something from my main piece to yours.” A spat seed buried itself in the floor. “He can put it where nothing don't shine for all I care, but you know how bosses get. Your stunt with the screaming at night made a cry all right.”
“How silly,” Diana squinted with a smile, “But go on, I want to hear this.”
“Wasn't there when it went down,” Vrog took another swig, “But picture yourself this. He's got himself these slaves - gutted packs of muscle and scab, all of them. Millions. All they know is obey, work, kill, bunch of spitting killer machines, that's what he wanted. And suddenly,” he snapped his fingers with a metallic screech to illustrate just how suddenly, “he gets the lot of them wailing like a bunch'a snivelly runts! Hah!” The gurgling guffaw was drowned in another sip. “Can you imagine his face at that if he got one?”
“Ha!” Diana nearly spat out her drink, “That is too funny. I don’t know if irony is really the correct word, but having a supposed army of might turned to grovel at their first nightmare really is a pinch on the cheek.”
“Spitting right.” A few of Vrog's mouths continued to chuckle even as the central one sobered down after the flask left it. “But, whatever you're calling it, the one who's got to shovel this slagheap now's yours truly. He wants to yell at the scrapper in charge here, and I'm the only mouth he's got.” The mouth in question went through a few pensive chewing motions. “Truth, though, that really your boss who did it? Thought the whole thing stank sorta like you.”
“Oh well, who can really say?” Diana curled a bashful smile, “As for your boss, I don’t know what he is expecting to accomplish, but I suppose you can just say you did ‘accomplish’ whatever that may be.” She wiggled her nose, “Would you care for a blistering steam?”
“Know what, let's go with that. Not like the gutface can peep in here.” The central mouth twisted back upwards in a filthy grin. “Bring it on.”
“Very good!” Diana smiled. With little else a rope uncoiled from an unseen ceiling and with a hearty tug, a pillar of screaming steam blasted over Vrog.
A sound like psscha followed the watery howl, and a damper, hotter Vrog hobbled out from the cloud. He poked disappointedly at the rivulets of dirt running down his person. “You didn't say this thing'd clean me,” he grumbled, “but I'm feeling a bit lighter now. What'd you think?”
He opened his mouth, and a burbling sound like a boiling swamp burst out of it, followed by a cloud of noxious vapours that roiled over Diana and her throne. Vrog scratched his jaw in wonderment.
Diana blinked through the cloud of gas, “Terribly sorry, I hadn’t a clue it would clean you.” Her smile indicated that she was clearly lying, “So what do you intend to do now that you’re here and have finished your hard wrought quest?”
“Now? Tell you what, I'm in no rush to get back out.” Vrog scraped his finger-hooks against each other as if cleaning fingernails, though the latter were a notion as foreign to him as cleanliness. “You going to tell me you've got nothing fun to do in here? Places to live up, stuff to drink, people to hurt?” His grin became visibly hungrier with the last words.
“Oh! I know just the thing,” Diana beamed, “We could have a nice long chat about our feelings.” Her sickly eyes washed over Vrog, a wobbly stool appearing next to him, “Doesn’t that sound grand?”
He tapped the beaten seat with a finger, a mouth over his shoulder humming an annoyingly uneven tune. “You want that, you got to give me something better than tea. I'vet no scrapped near drunk enough for it yet.”
Diana cackled, “I’m surprised you even considered it. I have half a mind to call your bluff now.”
“You haven't seen me when I've had enough. Can't say I have either.” Claws pensively clinked against each other. “Be nice to find out if there's enough breakables around to last me till I hit it.”
“Hm,” Diana tapped a finger to her chin, “Would you like to find out?”
“Damn right.” Wary as he might have been of being given the exact opposite again, Vrog could not but produce a large grimy keg in expectation.
“Why don’t you lie down,” Diana suggested, and pointed a finger to where a ceiling should be. In the endless expanse above, a single rusty nozzle poked down, a drip of alcohol forming on its edge. Diana arched a brow, “And let’s just hope we get most of it into one of your many maws.”
“Don’t worry about that,” the keg was tossed away as Vrog took position under the nozzle, laboriously angling his head upwards in spite of his lack of a neck, “I can accommodate.” His largest mouth stretched even wider, far beyond what should have been possible, while the body underneath flattened itself with rubbery ease. The toothy edges seemed to span from wall to unseen wall, or such was the oppressive feeling inspired by their incredible breadth.
“Now if only some more fleshpods were beyond that nozzle,” Diana mused to herself with a wink. She sat forward in her chair, eager to watch the show and with a snap of her slender fingers, a torrent of burning alcohol flooded out from the nozzle at rapid speeds.
“Rather have it fla-” was all Vrog could manage before the stream drowned out his voice, the mouth it came from and the throat behind it in a go. For a moment, it seemed that the fiery-smelling flood would spill over the brink of his maw, no matter how wide, and something like a fountain appeared in the center where the jet rebounded. But, unaccountably, the tide of spirits inside him abruptly began to ebb, funneling down through unknown passages into a bottomless well. His body began to bloat horizontally, and iron plates drifted apart, letting pieces of the fluid abomination underneath drip to the floor. The rush of the updraft in the middle gave way to the satisfied gargle of a whirlpool.
It kept pouring down. The mouth and everything underneath were stretched so far as to disappear into the distant corners of the surrounding space, but still the flow gave no sign of thinning. The enormous pool that still retained some broad similarities with Vrog twitched faintly around its circle, then again, more determinedly. With a monstrous effort, the ring of the mouth lifted itself up and shrank, tapering up around the stream like a rotting cone of flesh. Something creaked, churned, snapped, and the enormity twisted and folded itself in a kaleidoscope of mutilation, rust and putrescence. A chaos of organic forms reigned for a moment, and then it was over, a noticeably swollen, but otherwise not greatly changed Vrog standing where he had been before. One of his mouths was stretched out in a broad-ended tube over his head, like some grotesque proboscidal umbrella, while the rest grinned stunnedly, but contentedly. Not a single drop had gone lost.
“Thhat’ss-” he tried a few mouths, checking if any were not drawing out sounds, then pulled and stretched something inside one with a hand before continuing, “-gutsdamned amazing, never once had this good a chug- you, really-” he jabbed a finger with some hesitation, but surprising accuracy in Diana’s direction, “'re the worst- best- whatever, the most,” he gave a meaningful pause, as if about to carry on, but slipped off from the line of reasoning and continued less fragmentedly, “Guts’ luck there’s someone in a spithole of a place as this-”
He sliced off the proboscis with a neat swipe, and the severed mouth remained hovering in the air, catching the downpour into a now invisible throat. His figure continued to bloat at a slight pace notwithstanding.
Diana clapped her hands with glee, “I’m glad to be of service, now if only you were a mortal so I could make this mindset stick to you in the waking world.” She bit a jagged fingernail, “I can only imagine the fun little scenarios you would end up in.” A wide smile formed on her face, “Do you want to do it again?”
A spell of thoughtfulness, such as it was, came over Vrog. “Mortal, no mortal, I'm sure as guts going to feel this up here when I wake up,” he tapped the side of his helm, “The best cure for that is to have some more, so,” he concluded, once again beatifically, “sure as the slagged pit I do!”
Diana smirked and waved a hand, the floor under Vrog suddenly dropping. Vrog dropped into a dark pit, the fall seemed to last forever, until finally there was a loud splash that he knew all too well. Diana called down from the top floor, her voice a hollow echo, “There you are!”
His tongues darted into the fluid, drinking it in hungrily with leech-like maws. Beatitude became toxic fervour. “Said it - the most!” he bellowed upwards from an unclear number of mouths, “You're a real-”
He launched into such an atrocious, innominable invective that the dank walls scrunched up into simulacra of horrified faces that wept bloody streams. The most hideous words of every language between Barrier and Core, and a few that could not quite be placed, mingled with blasphemies against every divinity that came to mind. Between the euphoric voices in which they were shouted, the various speaking organs growing steadily more discordant, and the rebounding echoes, the cacophony was such as to permanently deafen any ear of less than godly strength.
When he finally ran out of breath, Vrog spat out something stuck in one of his throats. A splash was followed by a squeal, and a porcine snout joined the gurgling chorus followed by a mad cackling from above.
“By the way,” he followed his apocalyptic tirade with a familiarly matter-of-fact tone, “I got these funny little people you dropped. Want me to put them anywhere particular?”
“Oh, I can think of a few places,” Diana mused out of sight.
“Tell you what,” he briefly went under as the piggut tried to clamber over him, then shoved the creature away and bobbed up again, a fair bit more swollen, “I'll think of some too, then you tell me how close I got.”
“Oh, this ought to be a delight,” Diana cackled, “Name your first!”
Some meditative gargling, then “How 'bout - a place where they got whelps to snatch? Can't name any now, but I'll sure find at least one.”
“See, I was thinking about something a bit more... disturbing,” Diana’s voice dipped, “But if you really are serious, then how about a little tip -- if you promise to spread the misery?”
“Hey, was just one idea,” the answer from the well came with joking offense, “I'll spread you that and worse!”
“Then listen close, you ugly hunk of delight,” Diana called down, “There is a festival of new and young minds on Galbar. So fresh, so naive...” She cleared her throat, “The best part is the variety, an entire cluster of continents and islands in the northwestern hemispheres. Maybe try your luck there.”
“You cann-” the voices intoned with the cadence of a bawdy song, “count on me to-” the following part was largely indistinct, drowned as it was by cruel enthusiasm, but the bits that floated up did not presage anything good for whoever inhabited those places, “-them! Aalways count on me!”
Some more sputtering mixed with chopped-up delighted excoriations in Diana's direction, abruptly interrupted by a grunt and the sound of a fist hitting the surface.
“'Fact, so you know to remember-”
A knife whistled up the pit, thrown up with phenomenal force. Its rusty, jagged blade was adorned with a crudely scratched All my loathing - V.
“Be rude not to leave nothing back for everything,” followed the eager, if not very cohesive explanation, “Should be good for nails.”
“I do like to look presentable.” Diana called back down, “I’m nothing if not a perfectionist.”
“Can't say for looks, but you got the right track with the rest,” the garble of voices was beginning to grow fainter, receding to greater depths. “Keep at it and they'll gag on their guts soon as you're near. Tell me how it works out next time.”
The churning spiked up into the roar of a cataract, and over it rose, like a chorus of wrathful damned souls, “Catch you later!”
Then silence, darkness and the all-pervading smell of alcohol.
High as a kite after smoking the wrong thing at Chopstick's party, Vrog passes out and dreams about being in line for something in a place as obnoxious as can be. After some antics, he stumbles through into Diana's presence. She convinces him to sweep Narzhak's order to go find K'nell under the carpet, and the two have a lighthearted chat punctuated by drinks. With the unfathomable power of dreams, Vrog gets properly smashed for once, much to his joy. Diana gives him some pointers on where to drop off the pigguts, after which the vision completely degenerates into alcoholic haze.
“Three. A quick-print Brood icon in the third hall, a couple of Harvester sign paints in the corridors on the other side, and this.”
With a flick of his ramified tongue, Thraas switched on a lateral monitor on the large mound of machinery that filled the center of the wide, squat domed room. Its even electronic glow cast bluish shadows on the smooth cemented walls as the three skirol leaned in, amid the clanking of their motor vehicles’ mechanical limbs, to get a better look at the cramped display. The jagged characters of Srynn Universal on it assembled into rather dry and formal-looking stylistic spirals, but the semantic clusters that formed them were bombastically fanciful as only propaganda pieces could be.
Fellows in superior genesis! We approach a new age of wealth. The old hand that closed around our throats is dead and we eat its remains. Its shields will not stop us, nor will the lesser scavengers that flock to it defeat us. We are born the devourers of life and carrion, and we abide no equals in our domain. Let the feeble prey-things that walk upright break themselves against our jaws of stone! Death waits for them on this world, and triumph for us. We will prevail. We will consume. We will harvest.
But the greatest threat to our supremacy is not from outside. The cowering reactionaries who call themselves your leaders refuse to see the potential of the bounty that lies before us. They would use it just as another weapon. Another tool on the field where our kind must abase themselves before scum that would not last an hour on Vesereth. The brave among us say no! Enough!
No more politics! No more crawling before weak prey-things! The brightest minds of the cycle are with us. We will take the power from the corpses of the Ashtar and no one will have strength to stop us. The universe will be remade in the image of its rightful masters. Come with us, and you will rule over suns beyond counting.
We are the Genome Harvesters. We are the one future.
Veissk folded the pale flaccid skin over his eyes, closing them away from the rambling drivel on the screen. This was the kind of thing that brazenly circulated over the lair communication network under his command. To think that everything had been so quiet at the start. Every member of the expedition had gone through extensive vetting, or at least so he had been told, and he had been assured by the ranks on Vesereth that his officially rogue force did not have anything to fear from the flocks of rumours that surrounded it long before launch. And yet here he was, staring at something out of an espionage pherofilm.
The distant, regular rhythm of the artillery batteries aboveground pushed him out of his moment of lethargy.
His lateral eyes glanced over Thraas, the head of surveillance attached to the expedition to contain just this sort of trouble, who was twisting more buttons on the hub, and Cyret, his lead technician, who nervously ran her tongue back and forth over the edge of her cockpit. As if things were not bad enough, that was it. Those two were the whole of his command anrak. Good people, for sure, but so very few, enough for neither a good command or a good trezklin. This was a sensitive mission, they had said on Vesereth, they had taken precautions, but it was better to limit risks. Taking his trezklin was out of the question, and they could not make the anrak too big. He understood that, but three?
“What do you make of it?” Thraas was asking, evidently done with the hub. Veissk’s left mandible twitched with mild annoyance. Who was supposed to be the expert here, he or them?
Cyret seemingly felt the same way, as her tone had a small edge to it when she replied “What do you think? Some radical fasthead’s ranting. You don’t have to tell us we’ve got a clutch here.”
“That’s the thing.” Thraas leaned back in his cabin. “How many times have you two dealt with the Harvesters?”
Bundles of Veissk’s nerves pulsed under his skin as he remembered. “Once when I was on border duty and they’d been harassing Jalaryias again. Never actually saw one of them, but they made a ragged mess that time.”
“Haven’t seen them either,” Cyret assented, “Just ran through some hardware that got taken from them in a raid. Dangerous stuff, I told you that other time.”
“Right.” Thraas’ head bobbed downward. “And how often have you seen them send out stuff like this?”
“I haven’t, they weren’t recruiting-” Veissk began, but his anrak-brother cut him off.
“Even if they’d been, you wouldn’t have known. The Harvesters don’t work like that. They’re professionals, much as you and me. They don’t need this kind of trash to tell them what to do, when they’re on an op, they already know everything. Running their jaws would just risk blowing their cover, and they know what it’s worth.” He lashed his tongue at the writing on the screen. “This doesn’t look like them a bit. Maybe the Brood or Omniphage or some other religious crackcoil, or our friends in the Pure Circuit, but Harvesters sure as teeth don’t sign their messages.”
There was a brief silence, punctuated by the dull thumping of artillery.
“And what does this mean?” Veissk finally spoke up.
“Either this and the signs are a plant and it’s really the Brood that’s at work here,” Thraas replied, “but you know that can’t be it. Or else the Harvesters are so confident they’ve brought in preachers.”
“So confident…” Cyret repeated half-silently as if distracted by a calculation in her mind, “How many are there around us?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. I’ll run a deeper background scan than what I’ve got now for everyone, but I need Veissk here to give me clearance for that. I can also try to trace this present they’ve left us, but I can’t guarantee anything there.”
“You’ve got it. Do what you can.” Alarming as it was, Veissk was just eager to get this business out of the way for the moment. “Cyret, you’d said you had something about that transmission?”
“Cracked it.” Cyret bit the air with a satisfied expression. “The code was a basic one, the message a standard hail. Whoever sent it was taking no chances with misunderstandings.”
“So we still don’t know who it is.”
A tongue-whipping of denial. “Completely new signature. Haven’t got any matches with wartime records. I got them a first contact data pack - had to update some pieces there. Nobody I know has sent one of those for a long time now.”
She tapped something inside her cockpit, and one of the screens before them flickered to a looping string of ”welcome - welcome - welcome - welcome - welcome - welcome”, while the one next to it began coursing through columns of encoded language.
Veissk snapped his jaws impatiently. He was no specialist. “You’re clear to send it. If it comes to the worst, we’ll let orbital handle it.”
“Speaking of orbital…” Thraas pointed at a steadily burning red light near the top of the hub. “I think communications’s been waiting on our line for a while now.”
With an irritated gnash, Veissk flicked the comm channel on. What did they want now? The next push against enemy positions was due in four lesser cycles, he still had no idea of what troop readiness was like, and the Harvester markings were not a good sign. “What?”
“Fold Warleader One, we have an oddity.” The comm overseer’s voice was indistinct without the pheromone signals backing it. Downsides of remote technology. “Unscheduled drop from orbit. They must’ve taken advantage of the skirmish up there to get close enough. Looks like a tactical transport unit, but we can’t be sure.”
Just what they needed. More complications. “What do you mean, can’t be sure?”
“They’re not responding to hails. Their trajectory’s too far for visual contact.”
Now as grim as the dull metallic chassis of his vehicle, Veissk pulled a small lever near the hub’s top. A loosely set projector crackled, and a rough holographic schema of the surface in a wide radius around the command lair sprang into being over the mound of machinery. Key locations gently pulsed as purple sphericles caught in the bright blue mesh; the inbound transport’s projected path cut a broad red arc overhead, burying itself in one of the lightly breathing purple points.
Veissk gaped. “That’s where the Asrians set up camp,” he hissed to one in particular, “we’re not supposed to hit that until we know for sure what they’ve got there.”
He looked at both his anrak-siblings in turn with consternation, and was met with equally lost stares. The only thing they were almost sure about was that the blame for something or the other was going to eventually fall on their heads.
Administrative Hub 409 Traysk Centre, Isvest Vesereth
...said actions on the parts of major powers like the aforementioned present a clear threat to the integrity of the Treaty of Madrigasa and the terms thereof. The implications of this for the preservation and balance of galactic peace are evident. It is therefore the duty of any sincere adherent of the Treaty, and more so any sincere proponent of peace and stability, to formulate a reaction to the aforedescribed infractions, irrespective of whether they are legally sanctioned by their respective governing bodies. The preservation of peace and balance takes precedence over recognition for a nation’s ability to follow its laws, as well as, regrettably, the original unaltered word of the Treaty proper.
The Joint Commissions of the Harmonic Conflux of the Innumerate Suns, with the approbation and support of their constituent authorities, have thus reached an agreement regarding the emendation of the Exegetic Corpus of the Treaty’s terms. In accordance with this motion, several points of the disarmament conditions will be subject to revision in the near future. A committee is being formed with the task of ensuring that these revisions are conducive to the further preservation of a stable and balanced state of forces within the galaxy. The most salient excerpts eligible for emendation include…
Skenyrr slumped back in her walker, letting her eyes drift away from the tightly regimented letters on the workstation display. The text was obviously written as a declaration to the international arena - the awkward, stilted language and rigid stylistic lines were designed for easy translation - but circumstances dictated that it be framed as a news article, and thus written in Srynn, however bad, for authenticity’s sake. Nobody in the Suns was going to learn anything new from that, of course. The local media had already come up with thousands of clearer ways to say the Commissions were rewriting the Treaty so that they, and only they, could have dreadnoughts and new warships to supposedly counter threats to galactic peace.
Politics, however, called for a show. Skenyrr never did understand, as many skirol did with her, how other polities managed to have one person or small group representing them who could make announcements to the whole galaxy. Something like that might have been possible for pre-space primitives with countries of a few hundred million at best, but when a government stretched over suns on suns, it was absurd. No single thousand beings could possibly be a reliable mouth for the whole system, let alone the one making a speech at a single moment.
And so it was that the Conflux had no real face to show to the galactic community, only an enormous, shapeless mass. Communications were never signed with a name, and proclamations were done this way, as if through incidental news pieces. It really did make much more sense that way.
The skirol glanced over the wide white-plastered hall, brightly lit by several large windows high above anyone’s head. Before her, the brightly chromed bodywork and softly curving pale backs of her family sat before their own stations, checking the day’s news or already tapping away at some diplomatic dispatch. The work was not as glamorous as that of the people making the actual decisions some floors higher, but someone had to organise their disjointed notes into something presentable for foreign governments, and she had never minded the living it afforded them.
Wincing a couple of eyes, she was able to see Inoksh, her second-mate, waving at her with his tongue from across the chamber. She waved back and sank down to the level of her display, flicking the monotonous flow of the declaration away from it. Her neighbour, her clutch-aunt Vnissrin, was already at work, and tossed her some document over the connector fibre with a light tap.
“Message from Rolvius,” she nodded at the notification symbol lighting up on Skenyrr’s monitor, “Already cleared to answer. They had to split it up between Trade and Distribution and the emigration people. Check the first part, it’s better than yesterday’s comedy.”
Skenyrr opened the letter with a tap, and her jaws gaped wider and wider open ash she read.
I approach the Conflux today with a message from the Government of the Prime Speaker of the Republic.
First, she sends her greetings and wishes to inform the Conflux as a whole good fortune in the fourth quarter. Your ambassador continues to perform their duties admirably on Rolvius and has been naught but a consummate professional in all things.
Unfortunately, this note comes bearing bad news. The expose on the Silent Maw by the Times of Ardat has made waves in certain circles throughout the galaxy. While we are not unsympathetic to a species such as yourselves pursuing physical primacy through medical engineering (myself having treated my own daughters' genes to be less susceptible to Cancer-4112-b mutations), the Republic has no stomach to be dealing with those who practice formal slave trades.
The Forana, Viona, and Trianas Cartels have sought to cancel their shipping contracts to Giaxil through the Minister of Foreign Affairs and, as it stands, the law is on their side. The Norala Cartel has opted to finish all voyages underway, but has informed the Prime Speaker in writing that they do not intend to accept new contracts until there is definitive proof that the Flesh Trade in the Silent Maw is ended.
I can make efforts to introduce your esteemed selves to other trade cartels outside of our Big Four if you so choose.
Finally, there is the matter of the Manir Acolytes. We understand there are... cultural reasons for desiring their extradition to the Conflux worlds, but the Acolytes have been quite insistent that they deserve asylum in Rolvian space. As of yet they have broken no serious criminal laws, and they have not presented themselves as Prisoners of War from the Great War- nor were they claimed by the Conflux during the great treaty. The fact that they were quite literally hiding underground until after the treaty was signed is unfortunately a legal technicality. Unless and until it can be proven that they are guilty of a felonious offense in Conflux or Rolvian space, they are welcome to continue living and aiding in the rebuilding on Manir.
Should you have significant evidence of criminal activity as established under the Ashtar Concordences, then we will receive and review them through the embassy.
~ Ambassador Shion Lukaia of the Republic of Rolvius
“...They want the Maw closed?” she was finding it more difficult by the moment to hold back a spray of hilarity pheromones strong enough to cover the whole room. “Because they saw something on the news? Srin, is this a joke? Tell me you wrote it.”
Vnissrin whipped her tongue. “Wish I did, but it’s real. You’re our expert in letting prey-things down, go and bite them hard.”
“You got it.” Try as she might, she could not suppress a chuckle of a spurt. “So, what’s the verdict? I’m guessing telling Lisrak to deal with it isn’t the solution?”
“Not that easy. They’re already antsy about Theniax muscling them out on the Maw’s profits, so we at least try to throw them a bone or they’ll give us all the headache of the rotation. I tagged the administrators’ orders with the thing.”
There were indeed a couple of laconic notes attached to different sections of the letter - “denied, seek alternative; admin. 7” for the first and “not authorized, prepare inspection; admin. 31” for the second. With an exhilarated breath, Skenyrr began to tap out a response.
We extend our gratitude for the good wishes of your government and its favourable appraisal, and are glad to return augurs of growth and prosperity to it and its peoples. It pleases us to assure you that it is our intention to maintain our contact with the Republic cordial for the future.
It is understandable to us that information on certain practices within the sphere of the Conflux's economic activity may have alarmed certain of your citizens. We are aware that several sovereignties consider our involvement in the flesh trade aberrant and distasteful, and it pains us to acknowledge that this view may in some occasions have negatively impacted our international relations.
Regrettably, however, we cannot presently offer any definitive assurance that commerce in the Silent Maw will be brought to a close. Far from being merely a question of profit, the flesh trade is an element firmly ingrained in the cultures and reigning ideologies not only of our sovereign constituent states, but likewise of many of the developing protectorates currently benefiting from our support and assistance. Were we to prohibit it over our territory, we would not only face financial instability and widespread popular discontent, but also earn the resentment and adversity of many peoples we wish to see grow and thrive beyond the need for our aid.
Although your concerns are justified, we fear that the price to pay to assuage them would be too high. We would thus be highly grateful if you would facilitate our communications with more accommodating parties.
Concerning the Manir Acolytes, the matter is unfortunately as well not without complication. Rare as such cases are, and much as it pains us to see our citizens leave their homes, we are eager to allow them to enjoy the full extent of the freedom of movement and residence to which they are entitled under Conflux legislation. However, insofar as we are informed, none of the Acolytes known to be present on Manir is in possession of an extended transnational relocation certificate and the accompanying documentation. For any persons not provided with these documents, prolonged stay outside Conflux territory on non-professional grounds constitutes a breach of emigration law.
Nevertheless, we hope that no serious charges will have to be pressed, and are eager to see the situation resolved as smoothly as possible. As such, we respectfully request that you accommodate an inspection committee that will be dispatched to Manir to that end.
Regards,
The Foreign Connections Administration, Commission for Beneficent Symbiosis
She let her tongue rest for a moment and glanced at Vnissrin. “I’m not sure about these smaller dealers they’re writing about. You think we should get Lisrak a backup supplier in case it doesn’t work out with them? Maybe send a suggestion upwards?”
“Already thought of. There’s a message to the Lokoid queued after yours, this one by courier. They had me prepare the ground a bit, have a look.”
Another notification flashed to life on the display.
We trust that this message finds you in strong and stable health both of spirit and of finances. May our accords continue to be firm and prosperous.
It is our hope that you remain amenable to the continuation of major trade arrangements between our respective commercial entities. However, the principal matter prompting us to contact you in this fashion is a graver one. As you undoubtedly will be aware, multiple sovereign nations have announced, formally or otherwise, their intention to withdraw from the constraints of the Treaty of Madrigasa within the present cycle. The influence of these powers is such that we consider it likely that numerous others will be ready to follow their example. Your acumen will undoubtedly not need to be informed of the considerable risks for the stability of international relations galaxywide that such a shift of attitudes is inevitable to entail.
As we trust we have repeatedly demonstrated to date, and hope we will be able to prove again in the future, we place great value on our agreements with the esteemable Hierarchy. We sincerely wish that these relations not be jeopardised by the dangerously radical actions of unrelated bodies. We therefore would submit to your consideration an offer to coordinate the military actions of our respective governments in defence of our shared interests at thimes when this should become necessary.
Regards,
The Foreign Connections Administration, Commission for Beneficent Symbiosis
Skenyyr clicked her jaws in amazement. “That’s as good as offering a military pact. You think things really are bad enough to start thinking that way?”
Her clutch-aunt wobbled indecisively. “You’ve seen the news, they’re bringing out the guns again. Maybe it’s still going to be nothing, but don’t quote me on that.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got enough quoting for the morning.” She let the gelatinous sides of her bulk lightly slide down the flanks of her cabin, in a half-studied way by reflex. Vnissrin did not really care about her showing off her girth, but she had gotten into the habit since meeting Inoksh. Speaking of which. “Few of us are going out for comm-feeding this noon, there’s a new place past the river we haven’t been yet. You coming too?”
“Count me in as long as it’s not Lokoid. I wouldn’t want to starve the poor hatchlings on Giaxil.”
The gentle wafts of their laughter drifted over the rows of clerks. A few joined in on the missed joke with a cautious puff. Srynokk shone brightly overhead.
The jungle-lantern that had elected to lead Vrog through the rain was an old being, weathered and mossy, the pits on its stone surface inhabited by all manner of black specks that would probably have been insects if they were crafted by a more capable hand. The trail it led him on was natural, for a certain value of the term. No axe had beaten it through the shrubbery, certainly, but no ordinary forest was this full of malign will, either.
The tōrō-lantern strode on, dipping its hat-like cover only occasionally to indicate to the Avatar that he was still on the correct path, and drawing near.
Vrog’s tongues swiped about, sampling every trail of smell like sticks running along a xylophone. The constant reminder of meals wafting from distant shrines was a slight annoyance, but the thick, dusky air crushed under the treetops smothered most of it. More often, he felt breaths of death and some sinister omen that could not be fully natural, and his mouths broke into pleased grins.
As his luminous guide nodded once again, he bit down with one pair of jaws, as though just having remembered something important, and ran the ridge of a finger along his side. New stains of scum and rust blossomed over his armour, the air around him growing faintly dark with an unplaceable, but malodorous presence. When he lifted a foot for his next step, he bared a footprint of muck and squirming maggots. He brushed against a low-hanging branch that resembled, not all that vaguely, a grasping withered arm, and a green slimy blight crawled up its bark. Checking himself with a rapid sweep of a tongue, he cracked a satisfied snarl and hurried up his half-loping, half-shambling steps. The lantern had already gone a few paces further ahead.
A gust died just long enough for the sound of music to be audible from the gazebo ahead of the avatar.
Chopstick Eyes had just enough joints in her limbs to stretch out luxuriously under the rain-shaded roof, arms rolling out over the hammocks and around the ovens and braziers, laying easy on a bed of pillows. A pair of limbs strummed her guitar with lazy energy, while another set handled a marimba and a loose strand of hair worked the maraccas. When her sticks focused on the coming stranger, she put down her flute long enough to pick up an already-chomped limb of some large bird and raise it in merry welcome before chomping once more.
“Ey, sup,” she announced, her mouth full. “You Narshak’sh friend?”
The avatar raised two long segmented fingers and cocked them forward in what must have been some form of greeting. As if to punctuate the gesture, a chewed seed snapped against a supporting plank as close as it could get to Chopstick’s head. She tilted her head back with a lengthy stretch and admired the seed embedded in the timber, then turned back and nodded in sage appreciation.
“Something like that,” he hopped across the last steps dividing him from the gazebo, trailing rotting soil all the way, and perched in a crouch on the wooden floor’s edge. The boards under and around him immediately became covered with an ugly-looking greenish mold. “He didn’t figure why you’d been on the low ‘til now, so I got to do the checking.” He fumbled for something near his hip, then snapped his fingers and pointed back at his host. “You got a smoke?”
The sticks creaked for a moment, but Chopstick shrugged, rolling over on her pillows to reach for her backpack. “Sure. Pipe, cigar, or bong?” She reached up from her laze just long enough to put a tin on the table, followed by the other two options and a ground bud in a paper bag. “Personally, I’m just gonna eat. I’ve actually been working…” Yawn, accompanied by an enormous stretch. “Really… hard lately. Join me, the pulled pork is amazing.”
The hooked fingers hovered over the familiar shape of the cigar, but moved sideways to snatch up the bong at the last moment, staining it with rust where they touched. A tongue probed the vapour rising from the mouth, then wrapped itself over it, topping the opening with a narrow coil. Minuscule jaws opened along its length to breathe up the smoke and let it slip through fine openings. The tip clicked appreciatively.
“Love to, but-” another tongue stretched out way longer than it had any business to, snatched off a whole leg from a roasting camel and pulled it back into its maw. Said maw almost immediately spat out a mouthful of fine grey dust. “-someone thought this’d be funny. Could go for a drink, though.” Vrog picked up the bottle closest to him and poured its contents into a cup formed by a third tongue. “Strange how some spit teaches you to appreciate stuff. So, figure I’d ask,” he tapped his belly with one hand and filled a second makeshift cup with another, “What’s up with working? Spit sounds boring as anything.”
“I work so I don’t sleep,” said Chopstick Eyes, right corner of her mouth twitching. She discarded a bone. “I eat so I don’t sleep. Sleeping is terrible. That’s vinegar, by the way. Finest balsamic.” The cloud of dust finally descended low enough to interrupt her chewing and she wheezed. “Geez, dude. Who did that to you?”
“Slagface that really liked dust. Made of it too, far as I could tell. Orvis or something.” Chopsticks had started smiling in a curious way. Vrog raised the bottle to his middle mouth, for lack of anything better to hold it up to. “So that’s why. Thought it was just old. Gotta say, I like the sour a lot better even if it’s got no punch. Mind if I take it?” Without waiting more than a perfunctory instant, he twirled the container in his hand, and it was gone. “But yeah, it’s annoying as it looks. Hit it just when I was getting down from indigestion, too. Sleep’s the spit from what I’ve been hearing, but you gotta be trying to even go wrong with eating. You keep at it long as you can.”
“Mm, I will,” said the goddess, knuckling her mouth with her burnt hand and an unfocused sticky gaze. She was still smiling. “I’ve got more vinegar lying around here somewhere, if you want it, but I have other stuff that has... More of a punch, I guess.” She threw her bone into the air like a juggler’s club and rose with a spin- “Kum-ba-YA!” The fragments of the bone scattered, scorched by desolate magic. Chopstick left the fist with the burning ring in the air for a moment then withdrew it. She stretched again, but in an entirely different way.
“Well! I think it’s time I got back to work on something! Go grab that bottle of tabasco, mm, and that, uh, garum over there, and honestly, anything else that looks liquid. I’ve got some tests I want to run. And I’m gonna show you my lil project! Talk as we walk! Hey, do you like little guys?” Chopstick twirled on a wooden column and made vaguely human-shaped motions.
“Remember I said indigestion?” Vrog hopped and rummaged about the pavilion, leaving a tangled trail of rotting footprints on the floor and traces of infectious growths and grime wherever he touched, which fit remarkably well into the accursed forest. Better than the picnic spread, certainly. Bottles, pitchers and anything that could have contained a fluid were swept up with hand or tongue, generously sampled, and carried along or put back - out of place - seemingly at random. “That was little guys all right. Got enough of 'em then to last me long as I've something to bite with.”
He reached into a fissure in his metallic skin with a free finger and pulled out a small pod-like thing with mournful eyes. With a disgusted grunt, he pinned it on the tip of his claw. “Try putting them in someone's food, though. It'll be hilarious.” A flick, and the podling was sent flying into an open pot. A tongue followed it to check it had landed where supposed to, then abruptly twisted around and pointed questioningly at the goddess. “Less you've got another kind there.”
“Another kind of what, little people? I mean… I guess. In a way.” A frond of Chopstick’s hair competed with Vrog’s tongue for general stretchiness and scooped up the pot before retracting back into the jungle trail on which Chopstick was rapidly disappearing. She shook it, remarked a rattle, shook the pod onto her palm and threw it down her gullet. She chewed. “Tastes like... a bad pill. I’m Skraghnaphgh, by the way. You?”
“Vrog.” The mass of metal and roiling sludge hobbled after her, balancing an armful of drinks and sauces under one hand and the bong in the other. With a spectacle of fingers contorting in ways they perhaps should not have, he managed to pour a few drops of something into the tube, then breathed up again and nodded, mostly to himself. “I like being open. You smell me, you know me.” A hooked digit scraped for another fleshpod, but failed to find any. “Except for the dust and these gutted things, that’s someone else. People can’t go without sticking stuff in here.” The loose finger scratched over his stomach. “That some kind of calling card thing, you think?”
“Probably. I dunno,” said Chopstick Eyes, who was feeling at her throat with odd consternation. “It was somebody else’s name, but they’re not around, so I’m trying it on. Liv calls me Chopstick Eyes... Geez. You sure that thing is meant to be eaten?” She plucked a cigarette holder from behind her ear as the two breached into a scorched wound in the jungle much too large to be called a clearing. “Oh, hey, Liv. This is Vrog.”
The gardener crooned.
Vrog and Alphasticks compete for general anatomical weirdness as Vrog rocks up in the Feasting Forest for a picnic. The vast amount of food Choppy is flaunting doesn’t do much for Vrog-boy’s temper, though it turns out he can still drink and smonk. His desires are… unconventional.
Choppy tries to accommodate for his curse as he explains, and they introduce each other en route to Choppy’s big project. Vrog, perhaps justifiably, tricks her into eating one of Diana’s despair pods (results pending).
Chopstick Eyes
Starting: 13 MP, 8 FP
None spent.
Narzhak/Vrog
Starting: 8 MP, 7 FP
1 MP spent on an aura of filth and infection around Vrog.
@Nate1008 Let's be clear on this from the start, I'm not trying to be confrontational here. I'm not aiming to offend or insult anyone. However, I feel this subject is degenerating in a way that isn't healthy for this RP's environment, and I'd like this to be resolved before it gets any worse. From your sheets and replies, I'm getting a sense of some attitudes that don't mesh with the spirit of what we've got going here, and I'll try to explain why I think they are a problem.
First off is the fact that, despite acknowledging people's advice and criticism, you aren't consistently acting on it. Yes, the bio-FTL has been fixed, but that's the least of the problems here. Sierra has pointed out, long ago, that "infesting" and taking over people's things is lazy writing, and I'd add that it's borderline powergaming unless there's an agreement between the players; you've added more original elements and units, which is good, but all the infested stuff is still there and listed as if it's a regular thing for your nation to field. Multiple people have pointed out that a nation that's not capable of interaction other than mindless fighting is not interesting or desirable in a collaborative setting; you had added hints of it being possible to communicate and form agreements with it in earlier versions, but have removed them again. Those were actually improvements. If you're going to get rid of anything, it'd be much better if it was the overaggressive part.
Next up is your approach to the RP on the whole. Your faction is built to be blindly murderous, being formed by hive-minded animals and zombies. The issue here is that this is an advanced, character-driven RP, as you would see from reading the IC posts, or, for that matter, even the OP. This is not a thread where every post is supposed to read like an AAR from a tabletop wargame. Players portray their nation through characters who go through their own plots and stories, move through the shared world we build, face their own struggles reflecting those of the nation they live in, maybe even grow and develop, and, most importantly, interact with each other. Sure, it can be as straightforward as soldiers shooting each other on a battlefield (and even then it doesn't have to be simple - war isn't easy on people), but beyond that there's whole realms of diplomacy, subtle power struggles and political intrigue, which you're completely cutting yourself away from. Heck, these characters don't have to be just regular people - hive-minded beings with a hundred bodies or incorporeal AI can be just as interesting to write as, but that takes dedication and effort to do in an engaging way. Without real personalities to work with, and a singular hive mind isn't going to cut it, you will eventually find yourself with nothing to write besides dreary exposition, and that's not going to be fun for anyone.
You said you like playing as destructive factions who are everyone's enemy. I don't want to sound condescending here, but how many times have you done that before now? Speaking as someone who has created and used that kind of thing a few times, being a common foe is something that takes a lot of work collaborating with other players and, if necessary, the GMs to make sure that things stay fair and interesting for everyone. A faction like this needs to be plausible (i.e. "what's stopping everyone from wiping it out as soon as they can if it's such a threat?"), balanced (i.e. the answer to the above is not "because it's just that strong and could stomp any other single nation"), and, above all, interesting. That, I find, is the Scar's main failing. Your sheet is extremely threadbare in everything outside the military section; your nation has no depth to it beyond its ability for mindless violence. A hivemind is a difficult thing to write as, sure, but if you can make it work it can have a great deal of mystery, terror and unnatural mystique to it in every detail, to be explored, puzzled out, contended with on its own terms, and maybe understood. Instead, all you can offer to other players willing to interact with you is "shoot the gnashing monsters", and that's not interesting or appealing for anyone looking for a deeper story, which people in advanced RPs generally do.
This ties into another thing I've noticed about your sheets. You mention things like "tech research requirements", precise numbers of weapons per ship and earlier on things like "less hull integrity and less shield", which look like they're out of a video game. The process for infestation you described is also very gamey, with people having to complete some objective within a set time or else they lose their ships and have no more say in that. That's not how RPs like this work. This is not a video game, this is a story collaboratively written by people who add their contributions to a shared plot and setting. When there are conflicts like battles, the participants agree on an outcome based on plot and circumstances before writing it out. Saying things like "I do this, and you can't do anything about it besides trying to meet some arbitrary conditions that I decide, and that's that" is extremely bad form, if not outright godmodding. That's how things might work in a video game with rigid rules where the computer regulates everything, but we're not playing one here.
Finally, there's your take on the sci-fi genre. Of course, it's a genre built on impossibilities, more so in a space opera like this one where things like FTL and forcefields are common. However, as Archetype pointed out, this isn't just fiction, it's science fiction. This means that technologies, no matter how wild, need to be grounded on a minimally plausible explanation. It can be pseudoscience, or something that only works in the RP's setting, or even just some vaguely technical-sounding words, but if you present something that would normally be impossible, you need to establish a principle holding it up, which you haven't done. The rhino monster is the most obvious example (and on a sidenote, I really don't think you realise what kind of numbers you're talking there; 24 km is 4 Mounts Everest on top of each other - nobody has cruisers that big, the organs you described for it are microscopic in comparison, and reasonably it would need centuries, if not millennia to grow to that size, not 60 years). But there's also things like winged monsters flying and making sounds in space, or organs somehow merging with a ship to control it and make it become alive, which make no physical sense on their own and are never explained in any way. Going more in depth about things like these would help flesh out your faction and actually make it more interesting to work with, but you've ignored them entirely.
So, before you start another rewrite, I recommend you give these issues some thought and reconsider your approach to the RP.
Izurich
Archetype Zero
Lord Zee
Cyclone
