Forces of the Crux Sector, late 999.M41
“The local kroot sub-species have proved that they are not so stupid as they are usually considered to be. Each mob has its leader, always an enormous black-plumed xenos standing fully seven-feet high, who keeps watch while his fellows busy themselves with the wheat. At the first suspicious sign, he gives the signal, and dozens of heads stretch up out of the crop. A few kroot will carry out expert covering fire, while the others start a headlong tactical stampede for the scrub, the leader always remaining until his followers have reached safety.”
– Interrogator Dorkan Ordos Xenos Minorus, journal on ‘Crux Stars Native Flora And Fauna’ crcia M33. Known as E’moo to the locals, this xenos species has proved impossible to root out of the Crux stars, despite numerous Imperial campaigns to do so. Late M35, the Imperium, in a rare breakout of common sense and exasperation after an unsuccessful 2 millennia long war to evict the the E’moo, allowed the local Kroot to call the stars home, provided they wage no wars or raids on the Imperium. Since the accords, Kroot are regularly inducted into the local PDF in times of need, as pictured above. Notably the E’moo rejected T’au diplomatic advances in late M39.
Strike Force Reforger
The Last Hope Of The Imperial Davionic Republics
To tell the tale of Strike Force Reforger, we must go back to when the rift opened and the Imperial Davonic Republics fell with the sector capital, Davion Primus, overrun in a matter of days.
While it is true that a great many worlds fell when the rift enveloped them or cut them off from all aid, the real story of Davion’s fall is slightly more nuanced. After all, surely 800 Astartes, coupled with the PDF, guard and god emperor knows what else surely could hold a single world? The true tale of this tragedy is best left for another tome. What matters is that the Astartes elected to evacuate the planet, buying time with their lives as they coordinated a mass airlift.
The Astartes fleet has transformed from a void battlegroup to a sprawling refugee fleet. It is here that Strike Force Reforger was born. Tasked with enlisting aid from the greater Imperium, Equerry Owain commands the military force to back the Royal Davionic House’s diplomatic efforts. On the other side of the coin, Kill Team Aggravain, fresh off their efforts in the Verdon system where they allegedly undermined an Imperial world to secure ‘The Asset’ plays a less public and darker role operating in support of the Strike Force’s attached Inquisitors of the Sanguine Inquiro.
Owain has a number of forces pledged to him. The 2nd company of the Swords of Davion along with elements of the 1st, coupled with the logistical support of the forgeworld of Cenoff and Knight House Tokage, form the Davonic core of his military might. In addition, the Astartes seconded to the Davonic Royal Guard have joined his cause.
Outside of Davion, only the Lamenters have committed to Davion’s aid after the Swords provided a much-needed extraction for the Lamenters 7th company from the doomed Hellenia sector. Time will tell if others respond to Davion’s call for aid.
Reforger’s first mission is to find a way to stabilize the warp routes into the Davonic Republics. Following a lead on the Crux Star’s pylons on the Ginan system, they find themselves racing against the clock. Will they secure the pylons for further study and drive off any threats? Will they find themselves clashing with fellow Imperial forces that might seek to destroy them and deny them to the Necrontyr? Or will their greed and desperation plunge the Ginan system into a peerless silence?
The Necron Menace of the Shinichirō Dynasty
Vale locus bospuer – Plunderer of the Solar Catacomb, Embodiment of Metalloglory, Subjugator of the Phloxos Hordes, He Who Spits Upon the Ancient Codes, Prince-Thrall Of The Silent King, Overlord of the Shinichiro Dynasty, Gosunkugi.
Imperial scholars, whether they hail from the Ordos Xenos, Oculus Imperia or otherwise suspect that the newly awakened Necron Dynasty of the Shinichirō have arrived at the Ginan system with a singular goal, that they will prosecute with the bloody, single-minded determination that would horrify even the most seasoned Adeptus Mechanicus Dominus. Imperial forces in the Crux, no matter their own personal objectives, fear that the Shinichriō will supercharge the stillness effect in the Ginan system.
The reality is somewhat more complex. Dynasty Overlord Akída Kathréftis seeks out an incalculably rare and valuable canoptek intelligence known as K117 that is rumoured to have played a pivotal role in the War In Heaven. Tasked by the booming and awe-inspiring voice of the Silent King himself, this overlord seeks this object, rumoured to be located “….just a little bit over the left but not, you know, too far. Ah don’t worry, you will know when you see it.” of the primary Canoptek intelligence that controls the Pylons of Ginan.
Savage Ork Rock n’ Waaagh Snarltoof
The Savage Waaaagh seeking blue treasure
Snarltoof’s rise to warboss is as unconventional as his warband. An average ork yoof in a vast Goff waagh his rise to glory began when he saved the twin Ork weirdboys Chaz’rk, Dav’rk Owie and their rock troop.
Snarltoof’s waaaagh crossed into Crux Star’s northern outskirts shortly after the Shinichirō Dynasty‘s incursion to the south. Crashlanding into the deathworld of Derwin, Snarltoof began his ‘Da Biggest And Bestest Hunt’ to tame the local wildlife. His force quickly tamed the native grox population and ravaged the battlefleet grade adamantium stored in Derwin’s orbit.
The waaagh clashed heavily with the Lamenters 7th company, with Snarltoof himself losing a leg after a hellish fight against the Astartes. Seeking revenge he stuck out alone, hunting and taming the dreaded Bona Fortuna Aprum. Taking the beast as his mount and naming it “TEARER” the warboss savaged the sector looking for his next quest.
He would not have to look far, crashing into Derwin and finding the bones of an ancient gorkanaught, his twin weirdboy psykers Dav’rk and Chaz’rk Owie and their travelling ork band proclaimed it was a sign of gork’s favour, whipping the warband into a frenzied search for scrap to repair the stricken artifact.
Lamenters 7th Company
For those we cherish we die in glory!
It is said that every Astartes that lives with Sanguinius’ flaw dies three times. Once when they ascend to demi-god hood, again when they fall to the flaw and a final end as a member of the Death Company.
For the members of the Lamenters 7th company dying a mere three times would be a gift.
After the Badab War in 912.M41 the cursed founding chapter was sent on a one hundred year penitent crusade. Unable to recruit new members the chapter dwindled but the mighty 7th fought on. Their captain long dead in the Badab War, Battle-Brother Lucien, a vanguard veteran sergeant of noble bearing known as the ‘The Hammer Of Malvolion’ took charge of the company.
Lucien lead the tattered remains of the 7th well, distinguishing himself against Hive Fleet Kraken. He was a yellow bolt from the heavens, smashing monsters with thunderous blows from his thunder hammer with little heed to his own safety. Under his leadership, the 7th ruthlessly trained in bolter and blade.
It was during this time that the company answered the call to aid the Hellenia sector which was falling to the foul predations of the Heretic Astartes known as “Imperator Davide“. Working with the Swords of Davion, the 7th approached from the galactic west, while the Swords struck in near chapter strength to the south. The initial campaign was a success, pinning Davide into his self-proclaimed empire.
This would change when the rift opened. Faced with winning Hellenia or letting the Imperial Davonic Republics fall totally, the Swords of Davion left the campaign engines burning to the redline to return to their home with the 7th company tasked with holding back the coming storm.
Now Finding themselves trapped in the doomed Hellenia sector, with Davide’s forces advancing unchecked, swollen with rift-born reinforcements, the 7th’s took grievous casualties, culminating with famed Epistolary Arakiel falling to close a demon gate ravaging the sector capital, leading to his gruesome disfigurement at the hands of
Pinned by forces streaming from the gate and Davide’s fleet keeping Strike Crusier Seraph’s Light from extracting them, the 7th readied themselves to die protecting the small amount of faithful population left on Athenai II. It at the last possible moment when Strike Force Reforger broke though, while unable to save the planet, much less the sector, the force was determined to extract their abandoned allies and allow them to fight another day.
The company was in ruins, however, Reforger brought the gift of Primaris and the boons of the Indomitus crusade. Lucien would seize this with both hands, declaring that the entire company and it’s attached scout squads would submit to the Rubicon in order to rebuild it’s strength.
The company took casualties, with a number of brothers ruined to the point of being entombed into dreadnoughts but others emerged renewed. Stepping into Arakiel’s place was the untested Zadkiel and with no alternative, Luicen promoted the student to the rank of Lexicanium. Talented, young but haunted by his gift of foresight, Zadkiel saw his Captain’s final fate and resolved himself to prevent it at all costs.
With his company rebuilt Luicen plunged it into the defence of deathworld Derwin against the Orks of Waaagh Snarltoof.
The Demonic Horde Of Ushriak the Pyresworn?
Dramatis Personae
Ushriak the Pyresworn – Guileful Arch-Deceiver of the Corrupted Riddles?
Pith the Unworthy
Prologue
Sometimes my thoughts smell… purple?
Ushriak’s talons scraped over the plascrete slabs that made up the floor of the warehouse that had formed the beachhead of their latest incursion into real-space. Next to this creature scuttled its familiar, Pith the Unworthy, not even graced with a floating disc, and Ushriak’s greatest source of shame.
Their pacing continued while clawed fingertips traced wavering sigils in the air almost absentmindedly. Drifting like ash on the wind, but almost intentionally, the symbols floated to join their brethren on the floors, supports, rafters and walls; Even onto the slowly breathing bodies of those that had opened the way.
Ushriak grinned, a hard thing to achieve with a beak, at the memory of that first emergence, the expression on the chief acolyte’s face was something between pride and terror at what she had called from the emperium. Ushriak wondered what the woman had thought she and her family had been communing with over those generations, but it really didn’t matter anymore. Ushriak was here with his servants and the next stage of the plan was ready to unfold.
The warehouse was in an out-of-the-way, and mostly abandoned part of the facility, but it commanded a grand view of the hive city Of Unending Dawn…. Unending Dawn. The grin turned to a frown. Whatever THAT stands for; Ushriak could never ask, what with being a master of the mysteries and all, but no one ever says it in full. Over the days and weeks following the emergence, suspicion started to build that the full name of this place had been lost in time.
In the corners of the room floated the Winds he had summoned with the remaining devotion he could pull from the coven; Boreas, Eurus, Apeliotes, Notos, Argestes and Zephyrus. To these humans, these flaming entities looked the same, but to the eyes of the Enlightened, the pattern of pink and blue flames could be read as if their names were tattooed all over them.
Less deliberate were the 30 discrete motes of pink, blue and orange flames that, when the time is right, will burst into those gibbering hordes that always accompany the more carefully planned stages. The greatest has an incomprehensible fondness for these horrors and while they have their uses, Ushriak suspected that they were a deliberate ploy to sow apparent randomness and noise across the Plan.
Strangely iridescent wings stretched with a creaking sound that clearly bothered the mortals and Ushriak’s mood was restored. Its voice crept into their minds, “Go to this location and find me another node. More force is needed for the pattern to show itself here and we must hurry, there are those who would want us to fail.”
Order of Wrathful Sacrament
“Sanctitus per iram…”
“Sanctitus per iram…”
Canoness Commander Lucina Asperitus spoke aloud the inscription carved into the shrine of her order. A statue of Saint Mina loomed at the rear of the shrine overlooking a circular dais on which Lucina knelt, her blessed blade liberatum laid out in front of her. Across the dais from Lucina knelt a hooded figure wearing plain robes flanked by two celestian sacresants in ceremonial wargear.
Over and again the Canoness Commander repeated the order motto, gripping in turn the individual beads of her ritual rosary with every repetition, beads carved from the bones of Lucina’s sisters, each had died a martyr at her command.
“…Sanctitus per iram, sanctitus per iram…”
As Lucina recited the words she remembered each sacrifice and a flame of anger grew within her, fueled by memories of holy wrath, righteous rage, and violent death.
Hundreds of times she repeated the phrase, each time more impassioned than the last until her voice became a feral scream and tears of blood streaked down her face.
“…SANCTITUS PER IRAM! SANCTITUS PER IRAM!…”
Reaching the end of her rosary Lucina took up her smaller battle chaplet and without pause continued her recitation with heightened fervour. The golden beads of the chaplet contained bone fragments of the hallowed saints of the Order of Wrathful Sacrament, women who when struck down battling impossible odds had risen again in furious apotheosis to win the day and return once more to the Emperor’s light their sacred task completed.
“…SANCTITUS PER IRAM! SANCTITUS PER IRAM!…”
The final bead of Lucina’s chaplet contained a bone fragment of Saint Mina herself. As she grasped the reliquary Lucina seized her blessed blade and in the same swift movement sprung to her feet and thrust the holy weapon through the chest of the hooded figure.
Lucina inhaled deeply the metallic scent of blood that filled the chamber.
Her rage began to settle and she focussed her gaze upon the impaled figure before her.
One of the celestians removed the hood to reveal Genevieve, a sister novitiate who had this past week failed to pass induction. Genevieve looked into the Canoness Commander’s eyes and spoke weakly as life drained from her in a spreading pool of crimson.
“Th… thank you, Canoness… for this blessing…”.
Lucina withdrew her blade and pressed the chaplet against the still flowing wound as she uttered the benediction of her order.
“By the light of the holy throne and the blood of the saints, in violence may you be purified”.
As her life ended, Genevieve mouthed three last words.
“Sanctitus… per… iram“
Her rage gone, replaced by an all infusing warmth of holy tranquillity, Lucina smiled down at the slain novitiate with all the beneficence of a doting mother and returned the refrain.
“Sanctitus per iram“
As quickly as it had come upon her, the warmth faded and Lucina became aware of the servitor crew removing Genevieve’s corpse and cleaning the dais, on the blade and chaplet no sign of blood remained despite being covered only moments before.
Wiping the streaks of blood from her cheeks, Lucina turned to the pair of celestians.
“Sisters, bring in the next supplicant”
forces
The League of Imperial
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Lt Un-AmenVale
Nerikare’s Immortals
Khonsu
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Khonsu
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Khonsu
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