Editing Story:Warhammer 60K: The Age of Dusk (section)

==Additional Background Section 18: From Ashes Born: Eldar Recent History, and Tales of The Phoenix Lords. [Part One]==

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We must speak of the Eldar at this point in the history. At no point since the direct aftermath of the Enslaver plague had the Eldar been at their apparent weakest; all but two of the Craftworlds lay devoid of life and the promised salvation of the Ynnead entity was stalled for reasons unknown.
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The Eldar race maintained but four strongholds in the Age of Dusk; the Black Library, Commorragh, the defiant Biel-Tan survivors and finally the cursed Craftworld, Altansar.

The first was the ever-elusive domain of the Harlequins, sightings of whom had become more and more common across the galaxy.* By far the most enigmatic of the Eldar factions, their true goals and intentions a mystery to all those who could only see the wider web of interrelationship between dimensions.

The second was the sprawling nest of cancer that was Commorragh, which fed like a parasite upon the death and anguish of the war-ravaged races of the Age of Dusk era. They preyed upon the refugee colonies, the abandoned worlds, and those who could barely defend themselves. In addition to the normal divisions and everyday schisms of the Dark Eldar, the factionalism of the Kabals themselves was at an all-time high; once the Kabals were all so depraved and diverse in their cruelty that one faction was indistinguishable from the other. Times had changed. 

The youngest generation of Archons were rash and incredibly impulsive in their enacting of cruelty and sadism. They would attack the most heavily-defended worlds of the material races, and would hunt anything and anyone who got in their way. They were loathed by the older Archons, for they brought irritating attention to their realm. Though the older Lords did love to torment those fools who presumed to invade Commorragh, even they knew their place in the galaxy was not just born of their superiority, but also their ability to weave the fact of their existence into the fabric of the galaxy’s nightmares; the Dark Eldar could not be seen as merely an invading xenos that could be fought. They had to appear to be creatures from dark fairy tales; they were the monsters nobody dared to admit were real. The Young Archons (''adherents of the shadowy Baron Sathonyx'') ruined this image by being overtly and blatant in their raiding. Where was the artistry? Likewise, the eldest pre-Fall Commorrites began to split off from the Kabal system altogether; the Lords of Twilight, locked off in their sub-realms, had not been seen outside the Webway (''or even on the Streets of Commorragh'') in seven thousand years. Rumours abounded, but nothing was provable. Then there were the Archons illicitly supporting the Lady Malys, as she sought to undermine the leadership of Vect, the only figure above the politics of Commorragh due to his own unassailable position as Overlord. Meanwhile, Vect made his own plans; plans so subtle even his fellow Archons had no inkling of his intentions. 

The Incubi too began to distance themselves from the rest of the Commorrite rabble; several Hierarchs of the largest temples covertly sent forth Incubi mercenary bands to join specific realspace raids. These were raids that were close to former Eldar colonies and Crone worlds of various forms. Each time, they returned with fragments of technology, utterly uninteresting to most of their kind. Only the Underseers of the Commorrite factories could be coerced into deciphering their meaning and function; they were elements of a vessel. A vast vessel. On a world of broken glass, hidden within a Webway fold, they worked in secret. Guarded by the Incubi warriors, they worked to repair and re-forge this titanic vessel. Its name was unpronounceable to humans, so I shall utilize its translation for the rest of this chronicle; it was known only as ‘The Wailing Doom’.

Biel-Tan also suffered internal strife and schisms. War with Huron Blackheart was not going well, for it was proving impossible to kill the ancient Chaos Lord. Even when he was seemingly destroyed beyond all reason, he would cling to life long enough for his Corsair rabble to patch him back together like some grotesque mannequin. The warriors of Biel-Tan could not understand how he could survive such punishment.

They eventually realized that the Hamadraya was the key. Huron’s strange jaundice-coloured familiar was no mere acolyte. Somehow it was linked to Huron at the level of both the mind and the soul. As he lived and perpetuated his villainy across the Eastern Chaos Imperium, so the Hamadraya reflected his expansive presence, swelling until it was a towering, diseased nightmare of claws and gnashing jaws. Using warp born powers it hid in plain sight, always just out direct eye line. It was the unseen force at the right hand of the cybernetic Tyrant. Under its influence, Huron persisted, a product and creator of its indomitable will. The Eldar were desperately short on resources, which began to seriously hamper their guerrilla war.

The rule of Autarch Asitar, her council of allied Farseers, and Prince Yriel were threatened at this time by the influence of more sadistic minds. Factions within the craftworld’s diverse fleet thought the best way to win their war against Huron was to abandon all pretense to honorable war; poison the Tyrant’s lands, sow true terror and misery amongst his petrified populace. Make serving Huron the most feared option available to subject worlds. This faction rallied around the Corsair Duke Sliscus. Though he was a fickle and monstrous Dark Eldar, his fleets were formed from all manner of rogues and cunning forces, and the distinction between Biel-Tan guerrilla fighter and lapsed Dark Eldar was becoming extremely slim indeed. Not only this, but the Duke was charming and charismatic, rivaling Yriel’s own roguish charm.

His fleet, centered around his trio of captured flagships, often appeared to reinforce critical Biel-Tan assaults. Sometimes he’d strike at Huron’s own corsairs with all his naval acumen, performing his famous low orbital raids upon unsuspecting supply worlds. He enacted a terror campaign even a Night Lord would envy. On one world, he captured the entire populace, and stitched them inside one another like some deformed mon-keigh doll-ornament. He had one planet infested with a glass plague that slew everyone with blue eyes on the planet over the course of a month, before changing genetic markers at random to effect a different group. This act sowed paranoia and discord among the populace until they became gibbering wrecks, jumping at their own shadows, when the combined Eldar fleets came to plunder their world. Though it was downplayed, the Duke attacked his own supposed allies almost as much as he did Huron. Occasionally he’d give the Craftworlders false jump co-ordinates, or redirect their Webway portals into damned sections of the Labyrinth dimension. He was a force of inconsistency, polished by a crafty smile and a swift wit. Asitar herself was never made aware of the Duke’s excesses; nor the fact many of his rival captains within the Biel-Tan fleet were apparently joining his fleet, along with their ships...

Though he was sometimes loathed, Sliscus was mostly loved by the embittered Eldar populace, because he empowered the Eldar at last after long years believing in their own futility. He gave them purpose. Yriel despised the Duke, who hated him in return. Yriel did not want to see his race become monsters like Sliscus and his Kabalite contacts. He did not wish to win the war against Huron, only to replace one monstrosity with another one. He and the Duke competed for the favor of the Autarch and her court; this inevitably led to clashes.

This tension came to a head during the terror campaign against the world of Mulvene. This world was used by Blackheart as a weapon range. The few settlements scattered across the wide plains, jungles and mountain reaches of the planet were regularly bombarded, raided and attacked by the Tyrant of Badab, simply for him to perfect his techniques of planetary assault, and test the latest weapons churned out by his Techmarines and obliterator-priests. Oddly, Sliscus chose this planet as a focus of one of his campaigns of whimsical vindictiveness. The Duke’s fleet hung in low orbit, destroying the meager defences with ease. Then he started to play games with the miserable mon-keigh below. He ravaged whole settlements, then as the people sheltered, he would return to them with the promise of mercy; his holographic projection claimed he wanted no further culling. He was not the Tyrant, and they were inclined to trust him, with all the desperation of a beaten dog hopefully submitting to the promise of a new, better owner. He asked for negotiators to come to him, and they duly did so. These unfortunates were hideously tortured, before being skinned and nailed to the hull of the Duke’s flagship. Once this was accomplished, the Duke resumed his attack, claiming that one nation of the Mulvenians broke the truce and fired upon his vessels. Once they were only just defeated, the Duke allowed them to retreat to their bunkers in terror. Then, with the seeming patience of a saint, he asked for peace again. This cycle of lies and torment continued for over six years. 

When Yriel arrived in-system to see why the Duke had not bothered to attack more important targets, he was horrified by what the Duke and his Corsairs were doing. Yriel saw humanity as a form of semi-sentient animal, but that was no justification for such pointless cruelty. He was once a Pirate Captain, but even he was never so base and evil. He did not want his race remembered as monsters; something had to be done.

By now, Sliscus had grown bored of tormenting the Mulvenians, who continued to send envoys in vain hope to an end in the hostilities. He ordered his Razorwings and Voidraven craft to descend upon the world, and unleash the glass plague upon them. This would render every living thing upon Mulvene into a glass statue, contorted in abject horror.

The Mulvenians emerged from their hovels and bunkers when they did not hear the cruel laughter of the usual full-on Corsair assault. They watched in muted dread as vast flocks of sleek Dark Eldar aircraft swept across the sky. Their dread turned to bafflement, when other sleek shapes intercepted them barely thirty thousand feet above them. Soon the sky was ablaze with streaking missiles, silver and black lance beams and the whining sound of splinters and shuriken splitting the air. The Prince’s fighters cut down the enemy craft with ease; the Dark Eldar were unprepared for his treachery, but also their ships were configured for attacking ground-based infantry targets, not equally maneuverable Eldar attack craft, perfectly suited to dog-fighting.

The Duke looked on from his flagship with an amused smile as his fighters were forced to flee without their prize, but even his newest minions knew this smile of his was a bitter forgery; he was seething with hatred. Calmly, he requested for his ‘Dearest sister’. This was a signal for his men to communicate to his agents aboard Yriel’s craft (''placed there to keep tabs upon Sliscus’ rival''). He ordered them to execute the pirate Prince.

Yriel had predicted this move, and had had his First Officer hunt down Sliscus’ agents months before, forging their replies to the Duke to make him think they were still alive. Yet, Yriel had underestimated the cunning of Commorrites. One of them was a Lhamaean priestess, and she had seduced the first officer. He had promptly hidden her from the purge aboard the ship. The venomous Dark Eldar had then infiltrated Yriel’s bridge crew and she found herself in the perfect place to strike down Yriel. But Commorrites have a disadvantage other Eldar lack; a shriveled psychic potential. Yriel felt her approach moments before she struck. Moments was all he needed as he span on his heel and beheaded her with his Spear of twilight in one smooth motion. Yet as she died, her toxic blood exploded in all directions (''a modification installed by a Haemonculus long ago''). Half the bridge crew collapsed, gasping as the venom touched their skin and turned their blood to fire in seconds. Yriel was in armor, so he was protected somewhat, even if he had to rip his armor from his chest as the acidic venom corroded it.

Simultaneously, Sliscus’ reserve fleet lunged from the shadows, only to be struck in the flank by Yriel’s own reserves. The naval battle that followed was one of the most complex and sprawling of engagements yet recorded in space combat history. The two fleets chased one another across five star systems. Their capital ships and arrow-swift escorts exchanged fire from myriad angles, as their mimic engines and holofields fooled their counterparts with ever more complicated illusions. Maneuvers had to be planned to the exact centimeter as the fleets danced between each other. Several times, the two flagships passed within ten miles of each other, the two vessels each fractionally too slow to bring their weapons to bear before the other evaded them.

The Duke and the Prince were two of the greatest naval strategists in the entire galaxy; pinning one down was like trying to ensnare mist, whilst the other was a coiled viper, which would turn in its skin to punish any who grasped it. Each counterattack was met with counter-counterattacks, every ploy and stratagem was defeated by a perfectly executed riposte. Their florid stalemate only ended when Yriel’s flagship plunged into the churning atmosphere of a gas giant, destroying several pursuing ships in the process. As for the fate of Yriel, no Eldar present could tell. Sliscus took this as a triumph, and returned to Biel-Tan proclaiming his victory over the turncoat Yriel. He was forbidden from entering the internal reaches of the Craftworld, for he was one of the unrepentant Dark Eldar, and his soul was polluted. Nevertheless, he was congratulated by the Craftworlders, who were desperate for all the military experts they could muster. However relations turned sour almost instantly, as one of the Farseers forgot to call Sliscus ‘Duke Sliscus’. The insane Commorrite took instant, irrational offence, and cursed them all. Asitar the Autarch, ruler of Biel-Tan, demanded to know the meaning of Sliscus’ outburst, but her words were lost on her tongue, when she looked upon Sliscus’ latest fashionable costume. She looked upon the strange multi-colored leather, and could make out the tribal markings of several of her naval captains. The full horror of their deal with Sliscus was revealed to them. 

Asitar ordered the Duke destroyed, but he escaped her aspect warriors and Guardians, carving his way through the press, before stealing one of Biel-Tan’s own Void-Stalkers at harbour in the aft docks. He fled, cackling with glee at the misery he had wrought.

Some months later, the battered fleet of Yriel returned, but their leader and his ship were missing. Biel-Tan had been weakened. News of Sliscus temporarily allying with Huron simply compounded the ill omens. The Farseers of the last Craftworld cast around desperately for any clues on how they were to survive the coming storm.

A significant fraction of their vision quests told them the most likely path to survival lay upon the dead world of Pax Argentius, and the catacombs that dwelt beneath its surface. 

What the Eldar desperately needed at that moment in history were heroes, nay, champions. Fate (or possibly design) answered their unvoiced plea. It was answered in the form of the Phoenix Lords. While most figures weakened and suffered the degradation of age throughout our history, the Phoenix Lords experienced the opposite. These ancient supernatural soul constructs were the sentient armor of the most ancient and powerful of Eldar heroes, infused with the souls of all who since donned their ornate war-suits. As the centuries went on, more and more occupants took up their armor, and with them their power grew. By this point in history, millions upon millions of Eldar had taken on the form of the Phoenix Lords; every mortal death it was possible to suffer in combat had been endured by these legendary figures. And with each death, they had learned and expanded their knowledge. Likewise, their souls had been bolstered by the new souls assimilated, until wheeling constellations of souls churned within their bodies. They blazed with baleful soul-fire that was blinding to anyone with the psyker-gift. Even warp neutral figures could taste the power emanating from them.

They could dance between volleys of fire, their blades and weapons moved like quicksilver. It was said they could pluck bullets from the air, read the language of battle with such perfect clarity that it seemed they knew precisely what their opponents would do before even they knew.

Each of the Phoenix Lords traveled the galaxy, dueling monsters, rescuing civilizations and generally fulfilling their own personal agendas.Though the following individual accounts cover the seven primary Asuryana, one must remember there were more Phoenix Lords aboard at this time too, including Zandros of the Shrine of the Slicing Orbs, as well as the mysterious Lords of the Shining Spears and Warp Spiders respectively. We know the Warp Spiders battled the Mandrakes across the Webway, desperately trying to prevent them from sundering the Labyrinth dimension in their efforts to free their mysterious dark patrons. It is likely their Phoenix Lord was leading them in this secretive conflict, but no records exist for him during this period.

The Asuryana generally traversed the galaxy alone; the only company the billions of lost souls swirling within their impossible interiors. Sometimes they traveled with retinues of their most dedicated and powerful of Exarchs, who acted as their vassals and as their chroniclers. The data I have located upon the Phoenix Lords abroad at this time was culled from not only the eye-witness accounts and histories of the Asuryana’s ‘victims’, but also from the oral ballads the exarch-retainers shared with the Harlequin mimes and their allies. Combined, I feel these accounts represent the most accurate portrayal of the Lords of Asuryan/Khaine yet constructed. Any obvious hyperbole has been scrutinized and cross-referenced. Surprisingly, much of the more insane feats of these figures seem to be corroborated by bystanders and their enemies.


Baharroth, the Cry of the Wind; Lord of the Swooping Hawks Aspect.

In the demented realm of the Theologian Union, following the war against Vulkan, there was civil war, fire and death. Deng Vaal, the blinded genius that developed the Witchfynder warships and countless other infamous inventions of torture and pious excruciation, was leading a coup against the ruling Ceylan family, who had come under the control of the violent bastard child of the last Ceylan scion. Doloriad Ceylan was a foolish and vain man, but he was also supported by a military council of Tallarn Generals who supported his rulership of the spiritual Conclave. Both sides created Inquisitorial orders of watchers and spies. The Persecution squads of Deng Vaal were cybernetic super soldiers, designed to conceal their power in plain sight. But when they found political or religious dissidents, their implants activated; blades, whirring saws and poisoned injectors unfurled from them to unleash hell upon the impious.

Doloriad’s men were less technologically minded; their soldiers were highly trained elites from the worlds of Scar-Vein and Temalri; death worlds that bred psychotic crusader henchmen for the Cardinals Crimson, a powerful ally of the illegitimate Ecclesiarch. They also hunted within the populace, murdering and burning the suspicious at the sake for the smallest provocation. As power constantly fluctuated between factions, everyone became a target.

Then word reached the Theologians of the Warrior-Angel, who leapt between worlds, destroying armed mobs and soldiers, before simply leaving. At first, the Unionist soldiers merely increased the number of psyker-weapons that accompanied each expedition and witch-hunt by necessity. They believed these sightings were either illusions, warriors in the employ of a rival faction, or at worst minor Angyl incursions.

It was none of these things. Deng Vaal himself realized this when he began the invasion of Lambast. The somber monk-knights of Lambast were no match for the Power-Armoured Sisterhoods, or their cybernetic allies in the Persecution units. Then, the central library archive of the planet exploded, as if a line of explosives had been planted down its flanks. It fell away in two halves, showing all combatants with a fine film of silver dust and rolling smoke. The vaults of the building had contained a captured Eldar portal, and it had reactivated spectacularly. And from this gate, a blazing angel of glittering silver and polished sky blue armor burst forth like the first rays of a new dawn, soon to be followed by half a dozen similar winged figures.

Baharroth, the Cry of the Wind, was unleashed. His luminous soul made the psykers flinch before him, and the sun reflected form his shimmering pinions in all directions. Alone, he swept into the battle against Vaal’s power armored cronies, while his fellow Hawks battled to take down the heavy artillery of the assaulting force. Baharroth was a storm of blades and laser bolts fired from hawk’s talon. Anyone who so much as raised a weapon against him (''be they natives, or Vaal’s own minions'') were cut down with cold skill.

Soon, Deng Vaal’s cybernetic persecutors located the single figure amongst the sprawling chaos of the city-wide melee. Unfurling their plasma-blades and sonic exterminator cannons, they closed upon Baharroth. In the shattered ruins of the Lambastian Lord-Marshal’s own palace, they finally located the Phoenix Lord of the Swooping Hawks.

In the smashed citadel, two supreme warriors dueled. I am not certain of the nature of the Marshal of the Lambastian Monks, but he was a powerful warrior in his own right; a warrior psyker skilled in the art of the Kine-blade. When the Persecutor cyborgs located them, Baharroth was surrounded by a storm of silver daggers and serrated blades, twirling like a tornado around him, as the Marshal advanced upon him, hands crackling with telekinetic energies. Amazingly, not a single one struck the Phoenix Lord; his glowing sword shattered each blade as it struck, before deflecting each of the resultant splinters with equal ease. The confidence of the looming warrior Monk evaporated. With a final flourish, Baharroth swept his wings around him. His grav-engines flung the kine-blades back towards their master with the force of bullets. Only the hasty unsheathing of his force sword saved the Marshal’s life. Now the two warriors fought blade to blade.

The fight lasted three sword strokes. The marshal fell to the ground; first his two severed arms, followed by his head, then his dismembered corpse. Slowly, Baharroth turned to face the persecutor squads, who warily cycled their weapon systems. They hesitated before striking the cry of the wind. Deng Vaal, who was in orbit on board the Witchfynder vessel ‘Excruciator’, grew impatient with his minions. He demanded to see what they were frightened of and he used an override over their pict-sensors; rerouting the feed direct to his command bridge.

Deng Vaal’s bionic eyes narrowed to focus upon the bright figure standing over the Marshal, framed by the sun streaming through the broken palace windows. He knew the Phoenix Lords, for he had researched much in his long and abhorrent life. He grew pale and quivered with terror.

“Kill it! Kill it now! Fire!” he screamed, and the persecutors were mechanically obliged to follow his orders. Plasma bolts, sonic shockwaves, snarling bolt shells and streams of toxic needles flew from them as one, obliterating the throne and most of the back wall in a great fusillade of high-powered weaponry. But Baharroth had taken wing, and plunged amongst them with the force of a comet. The hulking half-machine monsters were sent sprawling across the tarnished marble. Even as they rose, ten of their number were felled by perfectly placed laser bolts that pierced hearts and vaporized minds with every shot. Hastily, the rest rushed to engage him before he gun down any more of them. Baharroth had expected this, and his wings shivered in anticipation. The Swooping Hawk used his own wings like vast vibro weapons, carving through carapace and ceramite with a similar ease to his own power weapon. The persecutors were cut down in their droves, bisected fragments of their bodies still glowing as they toppled to the ground.

The battle was over within minutes, ending with Baharroth plucking a severed head from the ground. His steel-grilled mask appeared to be grinning, and dominated Vaal’s pict-screen as he stared into the eyes of the dead Persecutor. Though no words left the Phoenix Lord’s lips, everyone on board knew what he had said to Vaal; 

You are next.

The terrified scientist immediately ordered a bombardment of the city; it was to be razed. Plasma fires and the blast waves of kinetic impactors flattened the city barely an hour later, but already it was too late. Baharroth rose above the flaming city, surging through the air towards the upper edge of the planet’s atmospheric shell. He was too small to target with orbital weapons, so fighters were scrambled at once.

Baharroth and the Hawks engaged the hypersonic fighters in the thin atmospheric ceiling, battling their high powered foes in a silent ballet of laser discharge and darting maneuvers. Even the Swooping Hawk Exarchs were no match for Lightnings and Furies. They were slain one by one, until only Baharroth remained. He leapt from fighter to fighter, carving through cockpits and slaying all within, before jumping from the pilotless aircraft and engaging another.

It was a kind of confused bemusement when the Cobra class destroyers escorting the Excruciator were ordered to engage a single figure, flying through the void. Nevertheless they diligently acquiesced. Their small anti-fighter turrets filled the void between them with a terrifying volume of firepower, but they were not designed to target such an incredibly tiny target. Not only this, but their own turret weapons were impacting (''harmlessly'') upon their fellow destroyers’ shields. These impacts did not harm them, but it send up walls of glowing impacts across their shields, making any sort of targeting all but impossible.

They lost the Phoenix Lord. Hours passed, as Vaal’s enginseers and helm sensor officers scanned every square inch of space in orbit. Some claimed the Phoenix Lord was adrift in space, helpless. Others claimed he was dead finally. But Baharroth’s wings were did not function as a real hawk’s do. They were grav-engines; void space made little difference to him. Of course, no Swooping Hawk would be used in a naval battle, as they could do no damage to even the tiniest naval vessel as a rule.

This rule however, did not apply to a Phoenix Lord, carrying a Webway portal. Ten hours into the search, Baharroth re-emerged, inside the Excruciator. Reports began to flood in of some great killing machine sweeping through the decks, destroying all the armed personnel who tried to stop it. Deng Vaal fled the bridge immediately, ordering two of his guards to follow him to the Null Vault. This was the location where all the heretical and tainted artifacts confiscated from condemned witches were stored during witch hunts. Ironically, Vaal’s only hope lay in the nightmarish devices he had long condemned his victims for possessing. He opened the vaults, and thrust whispering daemon weapons into his guards’ startled hands. Instantly, the female crusaders twisted into black-veined nightmares, who instantly tasted the scent of Baharroth as he closed upon their position. The twin Slanneshi daemons who possessed his guards eagerly rushed to taste the soul of the Phoenix Lord. Meanwhile, Vaal frantically searched for something to save his own worthless life.

As Baharroth slew another armsman patrol, the daemons found him. They mocked him for his futile defiance; didn’t he know that his death was foreseen before his birth? Baharroth psychically dueled with their venomous words.

She Who Thirsts will thirst no longer, soon. Soon, she will suffer extinction, just as all things do.

The daemons laughed. “Do the Lords of the Phoenix King not know? Simple creatures, spears with souls; weapons and nothing more. They don’t see what we have planned. Silly little Eldar. You still think you can win the great game? The great game is ending; the board will be flipped, and the pieces scattered. It has already started.”

And with that, both daemons lunged. Daemonic weapons clashed with supernatural metal. Only the devils of the great enemy could hold the Lord in deadly combat. For a moment, it seemed as if Baharroth would fall. But he returned, full of all the fury of Khaine and all the majestic power of Asuryan. Like the phoenix, his blade burned as he beheaded the possessed humans, before he shattered the daemon blades one after the other.

Baharroth was advancing, and Vaal grew desperate. He took up a warp jump generator, itself an Eldar artefact. Baharroth arrived mere moments too late. Deng Vaal smirked as the generator activated. His expression turned to horror as he saw something within the nightmare realm he had foolishly flung himself into.

“Oh God-Emperor, I see it. I see the N-“

Those were his last words, before Vaal was consumed by the warp portal, leaving nothing but the scent of ammonia on the air.

Baharroth disappeared from the ship soon after. He had killed only the armed soldiers inside the vessel and no one else.

The Cry of the Wind appeared numerous other times over the following five years; each time destroying the forces on both sides. Yet, without Vaal, Doloriad’s forces inevitably triumphed. As for Doloriad, he was assassinated soon after by the Tallarn Junta, who grew tired of his extravagant lifestyle and a petty cruelty that was too much even for the church of the Wasteland-Emperor. Several Ecclesiarchs and would-be Emperors followed, but the Theologian Union never again rose to become a threat to the galactic community. In the years that followed, they would be utterly overshadowed by the greater menaces that moved against the forces of sanity.


Jain Zar, the Storm of Silence; Lord of the Howling Banshees Aspect.

This Phoenix Lord was involved in running conflicts with the forces of Chaos. In both the Western and Eastern Chaos Imperiums, she was a stalking silent force of swirling destruction. Her weapon, the triskele known as the Silent Death, was a recurring theme in the mythology of a dozen chaos civilizations; it was the representation of vengeance, and of the punishment of lost gods. 

On the blade world of Kalderus, she faced the entire population of the Khorne-tainted hive cities, who had been reduced to naked savages clad only in blood, wielding chainblades and axes of a wild profusion. It is said that she and her daughters battled atop a mountain fashioned from the millions killed by her in this grand battle. Though none of her seven dozen Howling Banshees survived, she stepped from the world, victorious and unbowed.

Her screaming war cry made a battalion of the Despoiled fall upon their bayonets, rather than face her devastating fury. During the brutal war of Kalnendris, she intervened to aid the human Imperium of Garrosynx (secretly a world ruled by an underground cult of Exodites) in their war against Huron Blackheart, who sought to open the Dark Gates of Rhidhol. She appeared as if from nowhere, and she struck at the heart of the Tyrant King’s fleet. His Corsair Chosen clashed with her handmaiden Banshees, lumbering Terminators dueling with lithe armored females in a dazzling display of power weapon blade work. She evaded their blows, and clashed with Huron himself. As witnesses from both sides of the combat were busily killing each other, the account of their duel is fragmentary. Both the Phoenix and the Tyrant struck blows against one another, but the disciple of Morai Heg and the war god Khaine was the more proficient combatant, and defeated Huron, hacking what little flesh remained on his body until it was naught but bloody ribbons. Of course, weeks later, Huron’s surgeons had once more brought him to life, and replaced yet more of his flesh with bionic augmentation. Meanwhile, the Hamadraya swelled in size, unseen by all but Huron himself.

Jain Zar seemed to particularly come to the aid of all seers and warp-prognosticators. Surprisingly, even non-Eldar witches were aided by her enigmatic presence. She cut down the Daemon Prince N’Kari as it sought to devour the soul of Prognosticator Alcain of the Silver Skulls’ 8th, during the infamous four-day siege of Varsavia. It seems that she was a patron of all those who utilized Morai Heg’s gift.


Fuegan, the Burning Lance; Lord of the Fire Dragons Aspect.

Fuegan and his Dragon Disciples fought the Necron onslaught on the moons of the Hex-Fort, and held off the newly risen Legions of the Deceiver, giving the Farsight Kassar Enclave the precious time needed to build their defences in the wake of the invasion. Fuegan’s fire pike, and the fusion blasters of his minions were some of the few weapons capable of severely disabling Necrons; forcing them back to their Tomb complexes on Thex Prime time and again. He did this not to defeat the Necrons (who he could not defeat alone, even enhanced as he was by countless ambient souls), but to corrupt their programming through the constant need for Necron revival. The deceiver’s once disturbingly sentient forces began to degrade.

Fuegan was cornered by the Deceiver’s forces around the world of Kanus. Fuegan walked among the Tau defenders, pointing out weakpoints in Necron shells and blazing his own path of destruction against the enemy. But the Necrons could not be held back for long. Entire nations of Tau and Gue'Vesa defenders were utterly wiped out; settlements, buildings and people all atomized within minutes by powerful gauss pylons and destructive aeonic discharges. At the height of the siege, a new vessel appeared over Kanus. It was a vast tomb ship, dwarfing the Cairn Class vessels that moved out of its way. The vessel was golden and silver, glittering with crackling green fire. This vessel was evidently the flagship of the fleet, and it instantly destroyed the remaining defenders’ vessels in orbit.

Then, at the peak of the battle, Fuegan vanished in a shimmer of green energy; he had been phased aboard the mighty tombship. He and his retinue reappeared inside one of the strange alien laboratories within the ship. Fuegan’s weapons were absent, much to his silent fury. He attempted to leave, but a powerful field of azure energy enshrouded him. Eventually, a Lord of the Necrons emerged. This figure was obviously one of the elder Necrons, for his form was adorned with all the decoration and fine artifice of a long-forgotten culture, while the newer Necrons bore no ornamentation whatsoever; they were purely functional new recruits. This Necron was clad in a thin film of microscopic scarabs, that rearranged themselves at a molecular level to allow the entity to take on the form of any living humanoid. Somehow, Fuegan knew this entity. Its actual name goes unrecorded, but humans knew it simply as Ralei at some points in history.

The entity was intrigued by Fuegan, as he was essentially a soul construct housed in an artificial body, much like the Necrons themselves. Fuegan watched as all but one of his Exarchs were slowly flayed, to see whether their internals were biological. To Ralei’s disappointment, they were.

“You are different. You are not alive. The creature you call your god was cunning, despite his emotional instability. The molten shards of the Reaper must have contained elements of Kaelis Ra’s dark knowledge. You are a product of his tinkering. Kaelis Ra was inspired by Drachen of the Void to create our mirror-bodies, and your warlord was inspired to make an image of us for his own wars. How quaint. I will ensure you are exterminated at the close of this procedure,” Ralei informed Fuegan, who burned with an incandescent rage.

“I will not die here. Only I call the final dance of the Asuryata. It is fate,” he rumbled, his voice like a stoked furnace.

Ralei’s scarab-face twisted into a smile, as he took on the form of an old Eldar hero. “Fate is a lie. The greatest lie. Sentiment and mysticism are foolishness. We built our gods, both of us. The path of existence is not fixed.”

“The End is foretold. All paths converge.”

Ralei, luckily, had not fully disarmed Fuegan; his concealed melta bombs were still fixed to his armor. With a sudden jolt of movement, he threw one. The blast momentarily shorted out the containment field, and Fuegan took this opportunity to leap free. Ralei advanced upon him, but Fuegan thrust a second bomb into Ralei’s face, and turned it into molten slag within moments, before he fled the chamber, pursued by questing gauss rays. Ralei reformed soon after, unleashing a piercing metallic scream which activated every Necron inside the tombship.

Fuegan was hunted through the labyrinth of conscripting metal corridors and passageways, that actively sought to ensnare him as he fled from the screeching gauss beams that shredded all in their path. Somehow, he regained his fire pike and his axe during his headlong flight. The twisted geometries of the Necron vessel would have drove a lesser entity insane within a few minutes, but Fuegan was a veteran traveler of the Webway portal system, a network so infinitely complex, even the old Eldar Empire had failed to map its full extent. Only the Phoenix Lords, the Harlequins and the Atlas Infernal were proficient enough to traverse this realm. The dimensional games of the Necrons were as naught compared with the impossible realm; their tricks were still anchored to reality and could never reach the height of true insanity.

The Burning Lance stabbed at the many hearts of the tombship; destroying nodes with pike and axe, and piercing gauss matter reactors by the score. His skill and dexterity allowed him to avoid the disintegrating energy-meshes of the internal defences and the frenzied talons of the Wraiths that drifted after him. Finally, Ralei caught him, at the heart of the vessel; its aeonic core. The core was a star caged and consumed by the internal workings of the vessel. It seemed impossible that a class M star could fit within a vessel so comparatively small, but it was so; green veins of energy poisoning the fusion furnace as its energies were extracted with 100% efficiency.

The Necron Lord was a terrifying opponent, and the two clashed in silhouette before the colossal star. Its energy and lethal heat was barely contained by force fields, and the battlefield of the Necron and the Phoenix Lord was constantly bathed in gouts of plasma fire and radioactive discharges, that blasted any Necrons who sought to intervene in their fight to atoms.

Ralei was a puppeteer of time, and he moved with a speed which was impossible for anything mortal. Fuegan somehow matched him, but was forced backwards with every flourish and every blow. His fire axe avoided clashing with the warscythe of the Deceiver’s herald, for nothing would stay the blade of a Necron Lord. These were two soul constructs, built in olden days; perfect killing machines, bred for war and extermination respectively.

Ralei was gaining the upper hand, but he had failed to take into account Fuegan’s true motives. He was never interested in dueling Ralei. The Burning Lance was a destroyer, and no vehicle was too large for him to slay. As they battled, Fuegan's weapons had also been firing all around him; it seemed to Ralei that he was continually missing, when in fact Fuegan was hitting his targets every single time. His targets were the force field generating pylons.

Too late, Ralei realized his mistake, screeching in impotence as the star surged into life. Finally allowed to progress in its timeline, it began to expand. Ralei’s body was vaporized by the swelling giant, and he was forced to be reborn in a newer, plainer shell (to his cold distemper). Coronal mass ejections gutted the tombship from all angles and directions, as the star slipped its bonds and punished the Necrons for their hubris. From the outside, the tombship appeared to distort horribly, before great shafts of light and plasma fire stabbed outwards like sea urchin spines made of fire. Then, the ship collapsed into nothingness, and a great star was sudden born in the heart of the Necron fleet. The gravity pulled in the closest vessels before they could engage their inertia-less drives. The rest vanished, as their engines effortless carried them from the system.

Of Fuegan, we know little after that. But I know that he survives. For he must. For he will. For he has.

No one is more pivotal than the Burning Lance in the coming events. Somehow, I know he has not perished.
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