Editing Hrud (section)

==Origins==
<blockquote>
'''''"Apparently, the Hrud's original homeworld was in a region of space the [[Eldar]] warned the Adeptus Mechanicus' Explorators to avoid, but the Explorators did not trust the xenos' warning and entered the star system anyway, precipitating the first contact between humans and Hrud sometime during the [[Great Crusade]] in the 31st Millennium. Classified as a hostile alien species after they destroyed the Explorator mission to their homeworld, the Astartes of the [[Iron Warriors]] Legion undertook a xenocidal war against the Hrud warrens on Gugann during the Great Crusade that nearly exterminated the species. However, Iron Warriors garrisons also suffered defeats at the hands of the Vulpa Strait migration of Hrud on Krak Fiorina, Stratopolae, and the Fortress World of Gholgis in the final years of the Great Crusade, proving that the Hrud remained a threat to the Imperium."'''''
</blockquote>

Yep, sounds about right. Typical Iron Warrior mentality. Attack ferociously instead of just nuking/exterminatus the shit out of the major threat.

The Hrud are a nocturnal race of scavengers and parasites. The Hrud are known to be very mysterious, many know of them, and few know about them. Imperial mothers scare their kids by telling them that a Hrud will steal all of their left socks or something if they don't eat their protein-paste. Hrud have a very strong connection to the [[warp]], which manifests as the ''"ssaak"'', or ''see mist'', an aura of darkness which surrounds the Hrud in question. Hrud can slip through narrow spaces with ease, and their ''ssaak'' have a chameleonic affect that lets them hide by surrounding themselves in shadow or pretending to be a torchiere lamp. Once, a captive Hrud was able to conceal itself in a fully lit, white-walled cell. This ability could be created by the Hrud warp connection, their chemical poisons, or biological light-tricks; nobody knows for sure. Hrud are also [[Star Trek|silicon-based]], which is actually possible.

The Hrud religious beliefs state that the Hrud were created by a benevolent pantheon of gods, known as the ''"Slah-haii"'', meaning "[[Old Ones|most ancient]]", which included a [[Kurnous|Horned God]], [[Khaine|Red Handed God]], [[Vaul|Artisan God]] and a [[Cegorach|Laughing God]] who all intended for the Hrud to live in sunlight and plenty...

Well, ''somebody'' just couldn't stand for happiness in the [[grimdark]] future, so the Slah-haii were beset upon by the ''"Yaam-khek"'', or [[Necron|Mirror Devils]], who proceeded to [[War in Heaven|boil, mash, and stick the Slah-haii in a stew]] of curbstomp and death, at "coincidentally" ''(wink wink)'' about the same time as the [[Eldar]] gods were being similarly [[rape]]d. All, of course, but one, '''Qah.''' Qah figured out that grimdark meant grimdark for everybody, and turned the Hrud into nocturnal scavengers to have them avoid being similarly bawleeted.'''*''' Qah then told the Hrud that he had better things to do for a while, and he would be back when the time came for the Hrud tribes to unite and take down the Yaam-khek for good. This of course was a blatant lie, as he went not two minutes before meeting Slaanesh in the same dark alley that he/she/it met [[Khaine]] in. Qah was then shattered into a [[Umbra|bajilion pieces]] by [[Slaanesh]] and banished into the realm between the Warp and realspace, but outside of the [[Webway]].
'''*'''<sup>''The Hrud would use this same strategy of hiding in a hole to avoid [[Games Workshop]]'s Axe of +9001 [[Retcon]]ing.''</sup>

Being near the Hrud is a thoroughly unpleasant experience, as they have an entropic field which will [[Nurgle|age, decay, and pretty much wreck all nice things]] within the vicinity at an accelerated rate. Hrud can extrude a wide multitude of poisons from their bodies, and this eventually becomes a prevalent fog in the air of Hrud-infested areas. It has been incidentally mentioned that Rogue Traders and various shady individuals, even inquisitors, have been known to gather these poisons for their own use, which trade is of course insanely dangerous and highly illegal by the standards of the Imperium. For humans who grow up in or near these places, these poisons will become adapted to, and eventually create a chemical dependency. Said humans will suffer withdrawal if deprived. If a Hrud is killed, its body will rapidly liquify, making dissection and study difficult, at best.

Things get really weird when you learn that they aren't migrating through space, they're migrating through '''time'''. So it's entirely possible that all the Hrud encountered are the same individuals manifesting in different time periods (and incidentally may actually be heavily degenerated humans). [[Xeelee_Sequence#Photino_Birds|This also means they don't exactly die since they exist at several points in time at once. "Kill" one, and it'll continue to exist in the past and future like nothing happened.]]

It's anyone's guess as to whether they're migrating forwards or backwards, though - even the Black Library authors who came up with the fluff confirming all this can't agree (maybe they themselves don't know and wander back and forth in search of desired period, or different collectives have conflicting views on it). [[Chakat|And of course, there's the matter of what could be so horrible that they'd need to indulge in time travel just to get away from it...]]