Craftworld Arkendar
This page details people, events, and organisations from the /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the /tg/ Heresy Timeline and Galaxy pages for more information on the Alternate Universe.
Craftworld Arkendar existed from the Fall of the Eldar until the year 001.M31, when it was destroyed utterly by the Sons of Fire Space Marine Legion. The inhabitants of Arkendar were mainly writers, artists, philosophers, historians, and poets. Due to the actions of Farseer Jeron, their course was forever set along the path of humanity. Their every action was to assist the junior race towards a higher state of being. In the 41st Millennium, the surviving Arkendarites live scattered across various Craftworlds working along the Paths of the Warrior with the sole intent of the extermination of human kind.
History
The Craftworld Arkendar was built with the sole intention to preserve Eldar culture in a pure, scholarly form set apart from the debased masses. While men and women murdered indiscriminately in the homeworlds, catalogs of ancient texts and old folklore was saved from total annihilation by being brought aboard the vessel. It barely survived the Birth of Slaanesh, with nearly half the grand world-ship being split in half by the pains of the Chaos God's first cries. Limping in the void, they were assaulted from unknown Xenos raiders with jittering, crackling voices who used boxy vessels with striped paint. Barrages of missiles compounded into Arkendar while their meager fleet marshaled to combat them. Seeing the massive ship in danger, the local defense ships of a human colony raced to aid. Their timing was impeccable, saving the entire Craftworld from destruction by coming into the side of the pirates' formation.
Jeron the most prominent Farseer of Arkendar's Seer Council, who helped guide Arkendar from certain doom, found the inhabitants of the local planet fascinating. Before proper contact could be made however, the Xenos who had been previously forced back struck returned, coming with vengeance burning their hearts. A coalition of other races followed behind them, drawn by greed or malice. Knowing that they would certainly be overwhelmed, Jeron chose to leave the humans to their fate before his home would be overtaken. Years later, those on the Path of the Outcast with curiosity as to ultimate outcome of the conflict would report coming to a world cracked by void weapons. Jeron was said to be sent into a deep sadness upon hearing of the deaths of his home's saviors.
For the next few decades the Eldar of Arkendar delved into the stories they had saved, raising up a new generation on the tales. The doomed reality of their race was banished as they took part in retellings of old myths much akin to the Harlequins. Jeron could not be complacent with the rest of his people, and neither could the twin Autarchs Marri Hu'lana and Baereu Hu'lana. Together, the three discussed on what little they could do to help bring the vision of their ancestors to the forefront of these dark times. Jeron spent countless weeks locked away discovering what the future could bring. Once, and only once, he saw humanity in a distant future. Living as they did now, with each member being a Psyker and a utopia reigning over the galaxy.
This single revelation marked a sharp change in the direction of Arkendar forever.
The entire Craftworld could sense the turbulent emotions of their chief seer. His feverish searching of the future for how this future humanity could come to pass, what it implied for the Eldar, for any piece of information that could be of aid to him. He found few answers. Upon deliberating with the other Farseers and Warlocks, who were equally shocked, discussion came to the whole of Arkendar's leadership in all Paths. The passionate Farseer spoke proudly for his cause, being supported by both Hu'lana twins giving him significant military backing to his proposal: Humanity has shown from what Outcasts tell them, to contain rising numbers of born Psykers among their people. If this trend continues, they could perhaps be entirely in tune to the warp same as they.
Jeron's grandest, most audacious declaration of the assembly however had to be his passionate cries that the Eldar will never reach a semblance of the glory they once held. There are multiple ends to their proud race coming, licking at the edge of time. Communications with various other Craftworlds confirmed this. Similar Farseers with the legendary foresight akin to Jeron's own spoke the same. The Necrons arising after their long hidden slumber, a Wall of Midnight veiling itself in hungry need across the galaxy after that. And the Neverborn legions unfolding from the old heart of their once great realm.
Every Craftworld had their own solution to dealing with the end, a hundred different prophecies. Jeron denied them all, pointing out each kept the Eldar as the key factor. This was untrue, the Eldar were not a minority in the void. Instead, as the elder race, it was their place to safeguard their younger kin. Humanity would reach a point in the future, as he had saw it himself, were their Psyker population would become their entirety. At this moment of ascendance, Man and Eldar could face the oncoming night together. Skepticism abounded inside of the councils of Arkendar, but two very proud voices added to the chorus of those in favor of Jeron.
The Hu'lana Twins, both Autarchs sworn to the Craftworld, roared in approval of the brave speech. To make such an audacious declaration without hesitation brought the siblings to openly support the action. If humanity was to be the instrument on which the fate of the galaxy would rest, the Eldar would ensure their ascendancy. The debate took a radical turn then, setting Arkendar on the course that would shape much of their history. Jeron spent his time not divining the future forming the most potent post-Fall poetry in Eldar reckoning. He chose to be a figure seen more by the people afterwards as well, building up his reputation as a man of the common folk rather than an elitist fallen to his Path.
Countless worlds, unknowingly, were saved by the foresight of Farseer Jeron. The limited warriors of the Craftworld fought with a fervor under the leadership of the Hu'lanas. Xenos invasion and mutant uprisings were culled in their infancy before they could serve a threat to fledgling worlds. Even an Ork WAAAAAGH that would have spilled into the Sol system during the infancy of the Imperium was destroyed by a sniper's bullet killing the to-be-Warboss. Not only were human colonies saved from total destruction in the Long Night, but pathways were made for the Expedition Fleets of the Imperium by the Craftworld. Jeron ignored initial warning signs about the Imperium, saying that it would one day emulate the Eldar Empire. He had no proof, only assumptions backing his fervent belief in this perceived inevitability.
Marri Hu'lana saw a rising brother to the Imperium just beyond their borders forming during one of her long soldiery ventures to recently ignored space. A technocracy republic that would use Xenos in a tributary status providing tech and soldiers. The nation would, by Jeron's sight, one day come to blows with the Emperor's faction. The STC based Imperium would be crushed by what would one day arise from this place, but the republic itself would crumble due to infighting and losses taken in the conflict. Humanity would glimmer out on a few worlds before being totally annihilated due to prejudice accrued in the Great Crusade by Xenos peoples. The Autarch took up an eleven year campaign along with Jeron and her brother to wipe out the people to a point the Imperium could relatively crush them, and absorb them.
Their efforts were for naught. Though wounding the enemy, it would not be enough to keep the Imperium afloat after the devastating conflict. In a last ditch battle, an ancient Eldar Empire weapon was ignited at the heart of the realm causing a supernova to engulf numerous systems in a radioactive firestorm. The hope that man would grow from the forgotten domain was lost forever, along with any history that they even existed in the first place. The traumatic event nearly sent Marri to suicide in a traumatic fit, but her hand was stayed by Jeron. A bond was formed that words could not accurately describe.
By 840.M30 however it became abundantly clear that the Imperium was unrelentingly, without exception, hostile to sentient Xenos. The Eldar of Arkendar found themselves appalled at the actions of cleansing carried out in the wake of the Emperor's armies. Jeron was forced to be removed from leadership, and was replaced by the capable Hu'lanas. The military command of Arkendar saw a rapid build of ships, housed by those of the dead who had fallen in aid of humankind. During the following decades Arkendar selectively chose which worlds to help, only daring to act if absolutely necessary to the path that humanity had to follow.
Twenty years later, the Farseer began to be plagued by visions of a Imperial Civil War that would wrack it down to the very foundations. It would strip it of its greatest figures, ruin its greatest achievements, and lay down their exceptional leader without heir. The genesis of this uprising were searched by Jeron for nearly a year with little rest. He narrowed in on one name. One beginning of it all. The perpetrator of bloodletting and betrayal.
Jeron became obsessed with the name. It rang in his mind in the night. His dreams would be shrouded by this visage of a cold, ruthless madman seeking power with entities he could not begin to comprehend. The true nature of the conflict, of the involvement of Chaos, was always kept from Jeron. It would not stop him from repeatedly requesting for attacks on sites that would see the Thirteenth Legion fame or supply. In hidden ways, the legacy of that Legion was irrevocably rewritten by scraps of prophecy pieced together by the Arkendarite Seer. Though what might have been and what became are too different things. If anything truly changed at all, or if it was always going to be this way can never be truly discovered.
Marri Hu'lana with a decade away from the end of the human millennium, proposed to Jeron. The Farseer in return recounted the Autarch's favorite play, the War Lovers as he gleefully accepted. Though initially controversial, popular support swelled around the two. Together their followings were combined, silencing any other group within the Craftworld. United at last Jeron saw his dreams of fully blunting the Thirteenth Legion a reality. The warriors of Arkendar fought tirelessly to further alter the path of not only the Astartes but of their Primarch. Trying to avert the coming disaster. With the crux of the rebellion coming to fruition, desperate Jeron scrambled to at least warn one of the Primarchs to they could be prepared for the oncoming doom. He raced to find Shakya Vardhana, who he believed to be the only one capable of listening to his pleas.
The Genocide of Arkendar
Legacy of Arkendar
Culture
Notable Figures
Jeron the Hopeful
"No one saw the fall of our home. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. If only Jeron was even that."
Baereu Hu'lana, the Slayer
Marri Hu'lana
"She was both radiantly beautiful, and terrible in her wrath. I pity those who had to fight her."
Jeron, Farseer of Arkendar
Baereu Hu'lana
"Where one is the storm, the other is the ocean. While one will rip apart a fortress to the foundations, the other will erode the base with time into nothingness."
The Grand Storyteller, Teleri Ashan
Teleri Ashan
"Never humble. Always audacious. Capable of giving words immortality with his voice."
The Screaming Night, Marri Hu'lana
Clia Zush
"What beauty, lost forever. Another lament to add onto all the others."
Baereu Hu'lana, the last Autarch of Arkendar