Editing Leagues of Votann (section)

===History===
[[File:Votann meeting.jpg|500px|thumb|right|[[Star Wars|200,000 clone units are ready with a million more well on the way.]]]]
Even though the oldest living Kin don’t remember what their earliest days were like, some undeniable “First Truths” remain constant in the Votanns’ data tracks. One such truth is that the First Ancestors departed from ancient Terra prior to the Unification Wars to harvest the untold riches of the galaxy with the first holds being settled near the galactic core. What became of these Ancestors is unknown, but curiously when the Ancestors begun to fade away…the Votann are first mentioned.

A second First Truth is that the Kin have always been a cloned people. The Ancestors used genetic systems called “cloneskeins” to [[Transhumanist|manipulate and modify their race’s molecular structure]], and continue to define their overall division of labor. Over time the Kin became squatter, denser, and stronger, growing no more than five feet tall max. They’ve even been able to artificially neuter their [[psyker|psychic]] footprint to avoid the attention of [[Chaos]], in a not too dissimilar fashion to how the [[Tau]] souls work. Other examples of this engineering can be seen in the Hearthkyn Warriors, who often are also engineered with particular cloneskeins that allow them to specialise in combat – heightened senses, improved stamina, and the ability to see better in the dark, to name but a few (although, maxing out their bodies' capabilities should be standard for all Kin anyway because duh). In contrast, others augment their bodies for battle with mechanical limbs and synthetic organs, with members of the powerful Cthonian Mining Guilds being noted as extensive users of these body modifications. This is not that unexpected as that particular guild (which is noted as being a particularly extreme embodiment of the usual belligerent acquisitiveness of the Kin) is willing to fearlessly locate, secure, and harvest resources for their race from environments so dangerous that even other Kin would balk at their hazards leading to a need for extensive augmentation on their part. Because of all the above, some fans are now speculating that GW is tying the [[Men of Stone]] thread to the modern Squat civilization (either to the Squats themselves or to the Votann) given the [[Men of Gold]] and [[Men of Iron]] have already been speculated to be [[Perpetual]]s and [[Machine Spirit|abominable intelligence]]. It is also revealed the Leagues also have the “Iron Kin,” their fully-mechanical and true AI robot social class, who were designed with a prerogative to help their meaty cousins. This along the mention in some Kin myths of a “group of gleaming golden figures” relative to the first Votann (sometimes referred to as the the Gilded One), means this theory of the Kin being the Men of Stone could bear all the more weight.

At some point during the reconstruction after the Horus Heresy, the ancestors of the Ironhead Squats arrived from the Leagues to help with rebuilding efforts on Necromunda. However they somehow lost their Votann ancestor core in the process and so they ended up having to stay on the world long after the rebuilding was done so they could try and track it down, a search which still continues to this day and has resulted in them regressing technologically in the mean time. Maybe someone should tell them to go search Van Saar's basement. Wait...[[Derp|don't those cores radiate in the Warp like a miniature Astronomican?]]
On many other Imperial worlds, the Kin have even been states to show up in pre Imperial records, truly showing that the Leagues are a deeply ancient set of orders with even deeper roots that spread all across the galaxy.

With the formation of the Great Rift, the Leagues had lost a few holds and trade routes, pressuring them into expanding and gaining new trade routes, endorsing new colonization efforts, and slowly withdrawing from their semi isolated state.

During the events of the Arks of Omen, Ark Infernal Threnody was ruthlessly picked apart and dismantled by the Kronus Hegemony league after a failed voyage into the galactic core. Around the same time, one of Abaddon's battlefleets under Lady Maeve of House Grendyl, arrived in the Polyhadra system with the expectations of easily conquering a world and acquiring a key fragment from the hands of a ramshackle Ork empire. The Greater Thurian League had instead long beaten them to the punch, to the point of having a thriving enclave in the system. Anything resembling ork occupation was reduced to wreckage bolts floating in the void, and the world they sought for was long sliced apart by the Kin. The key fragment itself had already vanished into the churning machineries of the Kin's colossal mining ships, with the fragments psychic spoor leading into the galactic core. Before she would pursue the fragment however, Maeve's twisted honor code demanded she punish the Kin for their interference. And soon, savage battle raged across every surviving world in the Polyhadra system.
There were also Kin mercenaries contracted by Indomitus Fleet Quartus that immediately fled after the murder curse was unleashed.