Editing Unburdened Horde (section)

==Constituent Members==
Nine Warbands made up the initial Unburdened Horde after the Council of Medica. These factions comprise the primary strength and political power of the Horde. Before the arrival of Elenkor, the nine Warlords who held power and sway over these groups decided upon a Warmaster to lead them to victory. Often times, the Warlords bickered, fought, and attempted to politically outmaneuver one another too often to give decisive leadership. Laws and rulership differed wildly between the members of the Horde. For what may be considered a great feat in the territory of one could be a death sentence in another. Whatever the case, when united these warbands formed the mighty Unburdened. Alone they are powerful, together, nigh unstoppable.

===The Bastion Breakers===
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Not the most numerous, or well known of the Bulwark successors, but a highly vital group to the early Horde's successes. The ''Bastion Breakers'' jumped onto the Legionary Wars as a mercenary band for higher. Taking in any Marines they could, a dreaded reputation brewed for the group. Nevertheless, the Breakers remained steadfast loyal to their employers which did not give them many successes. Founded by '''Adjudicator Serbat''', interned into a Dreadnought Chassis after the [[Battle of the Crucible]], his iron will even from his diminishing memory kept the small group highly mobile and fair to one another. This was crucial as the Legionary Wars went on, with inner rivalries ripping apart whole empire states in the tumultuous time before the Horde's unification.  


After the Council of Medica, the Bastion Breakers were hard pressed to lend their services to the various members making up the Unstainted. With freshly refurbished equipmen, Serbat was leading them to victory breaking apart all those who refused to give up tribute or recognize the power wielded by the new dominant power inside of the Eye. Using an inverted strategy pioneered by the visionary Hidden Rex, the Breakers used their innate memory of fortifications and defense strategy to rip apart lesser fortresses with ease. The blasting cry of their explosives heralded the fall of many a castle in the genesis of the Unburdened Horde.


Upon the broken foundations of a hundred warbands, the Breakers lived up to their namesake. In return for their services, Serbat retired to them to the turbulent world of ''Strakoxs''. Filled to the brim with a maddened populace, daemons, and young warbands looking for plunder it has some of the greatest fortresses known in the Eye. From ''Mount Slacte'' the Bastion Breakers train new recruits, amass equipment, and set out to destroy all opponents on the planet to keep their warband keen on the ways of war without worrying about Horde politics. When the Unburdened calls upon them, they set out to make war and break down any fortifications in their path.


The young '''Arch Strategist Galius''', brought up as the successor to Serbat as his age continues to eat away at his mind, dreams of one day taking the Bastion Breakers to destroying the mightiest obstacle in the way of the forces of Chaos - Cadia. He has made it his life's mission, even constructing whole live-fire exercises that claims thousands of slave-lives with recreations of the Kasr-Cities to practice his skills on breaking them down. He is a staunch perfectionist, never content with a single experiment.



'''Culture'''
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Living far more monastic lifestyles than their counterparts, the Breakers focus exclusively on advancing the strategies of their forefather in any measure possible.  Watchmen of the Breakers reflect upon the writings of Sebastion Rex every morning before their first meal. It is usually a modest meal of hydrocarbons mixed in with basic protein supplement. After this, they commence practice upon the slopes of Mount Slacte before descending down to do battle with the barbarians of the planes or attacking the Autocrats of the southern plateaus attacking their defenses and assessing their weaknesses. This is part of the daily routine of a Breaker, as every facet of their lives obsesses over the deconstruction of defense tactics and fortifications. 


Neophytes are taught from dusk till dawn on mathematics, chemistry, and physics. These are to help hone their minds on measurements and explosives. How to implement them in battle or a siege. After these scientific studies are completed they move onto combat training and practical fortification dismantlement. This instills the core tenants of the Bastion Breakers, to end a siege before they enemy can prolong a fight. To break apart their defenses, to overwhelm them with force. The goal is not to take an enemy on their own, but open up opportunities for others to do so. Once a Neophyte understands how to do this, they are implanted with gene-seed and uplifted to the status of Astartes.


A subset of the standard Watchmen are the Khornate disciplines of the Lancer-Tower Brigade. These odd three hundred Marines attach themselves to any warband they can who are on an offensive side. After completing their mission, which is to break apart a fortress to the foundation, they return to give tribute to their leader Serbat before immediately setting out to do so again. If their assigned warband takes too long to attack, it is not uncommon for them to use excessive explosives to butcher them before stealing their equipment and attacking a battlement on their own. 

===The Dread Banners Company===
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An anomaly in the politics of the Eye, the '''Dread Banners Company''' is a union of certain members of the Dark Mechanicus and the Traitor Armymen of the Lost and Damned. Their founder, the ageless and mysterious Nicimodeus has calculated optimal strategies for the Banners' success in a unstable, twisting landscape. Their strength in the Legionary Wars was precisely for their peculiarity in existing. With all the vendettas and inter-rivalries between the Legionnaires allowed for their human subjects a chance to grow out in relative obscurity. Initially, the Dread Banners started as the guard to a confederacy of a dozen systems within the Eye protecting owned by Xenos and Humans alike, some having worshiped the Chaos Gods before the first Astartes. Eventually, these planets became so dependent on the highly organized and responsive defense of the Company that they could not resist their unfortunate, inevitable takeover. 


Several warbands, including the ''Unrequited Sons'' attempted to claim territory away from the Company only to be repulsed each time. The Dread Banners sold their own humanity bit by bit to achieve victory, augmenting themselves with daemonic energies or corrupted bionics. Nicimodeus experimented and plotted on repeated success to create blanket improvements to the troops of the Company. Largely human, but partly not, the soldiers of the Dread Banners fought on to hold their independence. Mutants assisted their fighting strength and were thus given full rights within their territory. This coupled along with the abolishing of slavery endeared many of the oppressed masses to their cause creating a surge in population. During the last years of the Legionary Wars, a few decades before the Unburdened Horde's arrival, their success had not gone unnoticed within the Eye. More raids into their territory increased, and any hopes of expanding were stifled each time.


The '''Elder Cranog Moore''' of the ''Pale Sword Tribe'', a successor of the [[Iron Rangers]], arrived wishing to sign a pact with the Company. Breaking off from his home Legion more than two centuries ago towards the middle of the Heresy, the Pale Sword Astartes lusted for plunder and prestige. Cranog saw an opportunity in the collection of worlds held together by the elite and twisted mortal men before him. Giving over much needed ships and Space Marine support, the raids proved too costly for their potential gains for most abandoning any assault into Banner territory after a time. Cranog also represented the Company alongside the Syndic Nicimodeus at the Council of Medica discussing their part to play in the Unburdened. 


Though not many Marines will admit it, the Company provides invaluable support as the backbone of their military expeditions. The bulk of the Lost and Damned is rallied behind this behemoth of human force. Rogue Psykers, mad Tech-Priests, mercenary Guardsmen, and crazed Mutants swarm over the enemies of the Horde allowing the burgundy clad Marines to seize victory on the backs of these millions of souls who throw themselves zealously into the fray for recognition and glory. Though most only grab onto an early death, thus is the will of the Gods. 



'''Culture'''
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Across their worlds they have been unified behind the will of the Three Syndics. Each Syndic represents a facet of their highly regimented people, and they lead the will of the Company's citizens. The Guilds are the workers, the builders, and the producers. Everything used in the Dread Banners comes from them. They also oversee the use of plunder from raids and the extraction of resources. Thanks to the Guilds, there is food aplenty to feed the denizens of the Eye. Guild members are predominantly women, but there are exceptions. The Cogs are a minority, but a powerful voice. They are the overseers, the engineers, and the minds behind the success of the Dread Banners. Syndic Nicimodeus has been the only Syndic for the Cogs, and he personally chooses the Syndisc for the other factions. The Warriors are all of those who serve under arms, which is the majority of the population. These men follow a standardized set of training that is similar to how a Feral-level world culture may interpret the doctrine of the Imperial Guard. Highly ritualized, these discipline fighters have the final say in any discussion within the Company. However, Nicimodeus always finds an agreeable leader for them or he simply cuts off his forges and activates his servitor-sentinels until a new one is found.


To the Company, children are prized above all else. Babes are considered a blessing and it is common to give gifts to a couple upon the birth of their first child. Orphans of war from either side of a conflict are adopted by the Cold-Mothers, female Dark Mechanicus Priests who raise the infants to productive members of the industrial-militarized society of the Dread Banners. This reflects the attitude to outsiders held in the popular conscience of the Banners. Any mortal is a potential member, all that must be done is to swear loyalty to the Company. Often times during the Great Chaos Incursions there has been observed multiple defections of prisoners to the Company as they are extremely welcoming with many freedoms compared to the utilitarian Imperium.

===The Immaculate Phalanx===
Having their genesis during the Last Battle of Cadia, during a final stand made in the face of overwhelming Imperial might. With their leaders gone seeing their fellow comrades in arms abandon them, there was no hope. The last few hundred Marines with a few thousand unlucky Imperial Armymen stood in the face of the Space Marine onslaught that threatened to overtake them. Cocytus Raptis, a former protege to Leonidas Manisicus, turned his Battlecruiser around to run across the fleet attempting to tighten the noose around those left on Cadia. His ships were able to save fifty Marines and a handful of mortal men before it was too late. Orbital bombardment had been used by the impatient Imperials, glassing the last pocket of resistance. The flight back saw extreme amounts of damage to Cocytus's ship, forcing it to lay stranded in the Eye.


Only a select few humans had not starved to death, the elite of the ship's crew along with choice survivors from the battle. They managed their resources carefully, but the Astartes would consume all the food they could ration before long. To avoid this, Cocytus convinced his men to enter their Su-san Membrane induced sleep. It did not take long for looters to come to the carcass like maggots to rotten meat. The innards of its cracked, dented hull showed the promise of loot. The allure of glory. Its only reward for these fool-hearty scavengers was an early death. Ship by ship joined a mass graveyard, giving over enough supplies to allow the humans to carry on their work. After many years, and two generations of workers acting endlessly to complete their mission it was done. The vessel was reborn.


The ship arrived at any world held by former Heralds members to lend their assistance in warfare. They entered the fray with battlelust, hungry to prove themselves after decades long absence from the affairs of the Legions and warbands. It did not take long until the signs that a deep madness had overtaken these warriors however. It had become so severe it now affected their very gene-seed, meaning any descendants would be cursed with this slow degradation into insanity. Cocytus felt impotent in the face of this rampant corruption, but remained stalwart for his men. Leading them on to a higher ideal beyond themselves. He transformed into the Immaculate Phalanx, a force to defend their brethren even in the face of their dwindling cognition. 


The Phalanx became an army without fear, charging into the fray with total clarity usually lost upon the Khornate warrior. Due to their mental faculties beginning to degrade, they felt no measure of pain, and rarely even were touched by ethereal aftershocks of Psykic Phenomena. A remarkable mutation was revealed to the human servants guarding their protectors and masters. The Progenoid glands had become hyper-vitalized, producing gene-seed at an astounding rate. Because of this, their numbers continue to grow despite their horrible affliction. Zhardan prized the unyielding characteristics of the Phalanx, using them as the spearpoint in his assault upon the Imperium to unify the Traitor Legions. Cocytus was fed information of Zhardan's plans through a neural link established by a mortal Psyker, able to agree to the plan without ever escaping from his endless dreams.


From then on, the Unburdened has used the Phalanx to crush any major opposition. But they are a dangerous, and limited tool. If a battle drags out for too long, there is a great risk in losing many good Marines to a numbing mental sickness as their brain matter evaporates in their skulls and they go berserk from the pain. 

'''Culture'''
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Normally upon vanquishing their foes in open battle, the Astartes of the Phalanx would enter their deep sleep to keep any possible corruption of the brain frozen. Their hooded, loyal mortal serfs would descend to carry them away in a ritualized ceremony that few outside of the Phalanx truly understand. Very rarely, there is a member of the Phalanx who is not cursed with the chronic mind-collapse syndrome. These Marines form the diplomatic core of the warband, representing them and negotiating the deployment of their sealed warrior-caste. In addition, they train new Neophytes best they can before they are implanted with the Phalanx gene-seed and must immediately enter sleep. Sometimes a Marine can go through several cycles of sleep Su-san sleep before realizing they are immune.


The Awakening is not a simple procedure. Thankfully, the tech-savvy servants beneath the Phalanx Marines have perfected the chemical cocktail necessary to awaken them. Before an assault is made, the first Primer is loaded intravenously into their bloodstream. These cataonic bodies are beginning to rise, but have not completed the rite just yet. Their living-corpses are then loaded onto Drop-Pods, from which a second injection, the Second Primer, brings them to life while falling to the ground into combat. Orders are usually filtered into their helmets as they land or after, directing them to objectives on the field. 

===Unrequited Sons=== 
Few brilliant minds of the Great Crusade were as highly reviled in their Legions as Jamasa's was in the [[Sons of Fire]]. His leadership was instrumental in establishing the highly restrictive system that had brought ruin to the Hammers of Terra, the early genesis of the Pre-Primarch Fourth Legion. He took the brunt of the blame, and justly, the punishment. When Inferox had been told of what Jamasa had done, he was demoted to a Sergeant only being kept from the humiliation of serving as a Line Marine due to Inferox not wanting to insult his brother Hektor too greatly. But from here, Jamasa worked his way upwards. As all of the Sacred Band, he adopted a new Crematorian name but this one symbolized his rebirth.


By the start of the Heresy, Jamasa had been brought back up to the equivalent of his old post as a Battalion level commander. His personal Conflagration did not launch as many attacks upon Loyalist worlds, but they had the most victories out of the whole Legion. Inferox, even in his slowly floundering state of mind gave Jamasa a crucial objective: Lead the joint Legionary assault group ''Taskforce Fiery Vengeance'' to destroy the subordinate empire Alexandri had left unattended. This would crush a heartland of industry thought to be far behind enemy lines and deal a blow to the Primarch's pride. As it is wildly known, though successful in the short-term Jamasa's attempts to crack Rosskar itself failed unable to claim the greatest resource of all: [[Silver Cataphracts|The Silver Cataphract]]'s geneseed stores. 


After falling back to Terra, licking their wounds, Jamasa's naval expertise would be tested as he was tasked with leading the distant elements of the Legion rallied by Dilshad in a fighting retreat from the Sol-System. Try as he might, he could not properly resist their never ending swarm of ships resulting in many Sons dying in the fray. At the Betrayal of Sudden Flame, seeing as how the rest of the Legion had fallen into madness Jamasa took those who would follow him into the Eye. Being one of the first warbands to enter it, they established a three-system tributary in a crossroads of sorts. After beating off any other contenders, they invited the Dark Mechanicus to help them extract resources from the planets. This arrangement gave rise to the name for this region of space, the Triumvirate Worlds. Jamasa named his warband the Unrequited Sons, for all the Primarch had done was bring them misery, death, dishonor, and madness. 


The Unrequited Sons now form a crucial, integral part of the Unburdened Horde. With their stores of firearms and ammunition, no army is left wanting. The Unrequited are able to call up great swathes of mercenaries to augment their own strength, quickly overwhelming any foe. However, due to their distancing from their original Legion it is hard to tell them apart from the descendants of the first Astartes of the Unburdened who followed Zhardan from a member of the Unrequited. Jamasa still lives even into the Forty-First millennium, choosing to live through throwing his vast wealth behind rejuvenant treatment. He has written several books detailing out what he learned from the many failures he suffered in life so that others may avoid suffering his fate. He lives secluded life, scribbling away at tomes while those he has entrusted to represent the Unrequited in turn help guide the Unburdened's war chest to success. However, when Elenkor arrived onto the scene, Jamasa broke his solitude to ensure his warband threw their full support behind the new Warmaster. 


They now ready to join the frontlines alongside the Immaculate Phalanx, ready to prove to all of the Forces of Chaos their worth. Jamasa is full of life once more, ready to show his is a tactical mind unlike any other. 

'''Culture'''
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The Unrequited's primary strength is their industrial hearth of the Triumvirate Worlds. Jamasa understood the primary means of winning and losing a war is logistics. Those who control it, and utilize it, always win. The first major deposits of carbon metals within the Eye were secured to be later exploited rigorously by the arising Forgeworlds made by the Dark Mechanicus. Three of these planets are protected by the Unrequited Sons, whose fleet surrounds them in a constant patrol. Sometimes war-parties are formed to bring in loot and prestige to the Sons, but they largely keep to their trio of worlds allowing them to pump out arms and armament for the multitude of killers within the Eye. 


A satellite station named 'the Rook' orbits at the outer edge of one of the systems, secretly it is the very web that keeps the Unrequited Sons together. Inside is Jamasa's personal library and study room along with several tiers of scribes working along the clock to keep track of both the production of the planets and where it goes. These men dedicate their lives to understanding the complex trade network that ensures the Unrequited shall never be at a disadvantage, using the money made from guaranteeing trade to Medica always has them using the latest in weaponry with a well supplied stockpile ready to be plundered in case of all out war. It is because of this comprehensive network that Zhardan knew it was necessary to secure their patronage in order to control the Eye.