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= Chaos = One way in which the Chaos Gods corrupt humans in this timeline is by playing off lingering notions of human supremacy. They play on the fears of many humans that it is the Eldar that control the Imperium from the shadows, as evinced by the presence of farseers and Isha in positions of power, and humanity is merely their slaves. The Chaos Gods often claim to be the actual lost gods of humanity, whom the Eldar convinced humanity to turn away from in order to weaken humanity and control them like neutered livestock. This is complete bullshit, Slaanesh being an Eldar creation through and through and the remaining three being Old One gods more than anything else, with human emotions feeding the Chaos gods just as well as almost any other species' emotions (Tau being one of the more notable exceptions). Nevertheless, this explanation is appealing to of human superiority, as well as neatly explains why humanity doesn't seem to have any gods the way the Necrons or the Eldar did (the actual explanation, involving the Men of Gold and the Iron Minds, would be much harder to explain as well as less satisfying for human supremacists, who would rather believe that humanity's gods are powerful and still around instead of having vanished or been mercy killed during the Age of Strife). == The Chaos Gods and their Daemons == === Khorne === Khorne often likes to refer to himself as the <span style='color:red;font-size:100%'>BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY</span>. If you're groaning at how stupid that sounds, good. That's the point. Khorne's title as <span style='color:red;font-size:100%'>THE BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY</span> is intentionally silly to parody the number of blood-, skull-, and related silly-sounding names he's often given in regular 40k fluff as well as to emphasize that when you get down to it, Khorne's not really that imaginative. Sure, he can be [[Azariah Kyras|clever]] when he wants to be, but it's not his first instinct. In-universe only Khornates really care for the title, and even when they do use it they tend to drop the "Blood" for the sake of respect. If it ever comes up in interactions between the gods' faithful it would be met with exasperation and groans from the other three sects. If a Khornate wanders into Slaaneshi territory somewhere in Shaa-Dome and gets murderfucked, chances are <span style='color:red;font-size:100%'>BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY</span> will be written over the body. ==== Khorne and Khaine ==== Khaine’s personality is quite similar to a mortal with bipolar disorder due to his conflicting portfolio that he never really resolved. It’s not actually bipolar disorder as defined by mortals given the massive difference between how gods and mortals work, but the resulting symptoms are close enough as an analogy. [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Khaine|Even when Khaine tried to reign himself in after he got Eldanesh killed]], his behavior was that of someone who is off their meds and is “totally fine. Seriously. Stop asking”, even though he clearly was not. On the one hand you have Khaine the God of War, who is obsessed with the glory and sensation of war and the rush of battle, while Khaine the God of Murder is self-loathing, depressed, and acutely aware of what he is. [[Mork|Or maybe it’s the other way around]], with Khaine the God of Murder being a bloodthirsty savage while Khaine the God of War is more brooding, thoughtful, and aware that violence is not always the correct answer to a question. The difference between the two is kind of like if the Roman and Greek interpretations of Mars/Ares were seen by the same person. Mars may be likeable and more responsible if a bit abrasive and moody, but Ares is just a [[Eldrad|dick]]. Khorne sees Khaine as a flawed first attempt to his later perfection. [[Nobledark_Imperium_Forces_of_Chaos#The_Rise_of_Khorne|Khorne was created by combining the essence of Khaine, and Gork and Mork, and all the other war gods of the Children of the Old Ones]]. He is the master of a thousand forms of war from hundreds of species, the essence of war distilled, perfected. Each style can cover for the flaws of another, giving Khorne more strength than the sum of his parts, and none of their component weaknesses ([[Nobledark_Imperium_Forces_of_Chaos#The_Rise_of_Khorne|The thing]] [[Gork|with the]] [[Mork|mushrooms]] was a fluke. [[Bullshit|Honest]]). The fact that Khaine includes murder in his portfolio is seen as evidence of this. Khaine sees Khorne as being too full of himself and lacking self-awareness. Yes, Khorne may have stripped himself of all the “impurities” that characterized the other war gods, but he seems to have lost something in the process. He treats war like a grand spectacle, but has lost touch with mortals and completely forgotten about why people go to war (or more importantly why most people try to avoid it). He is completely focused on the glory of war, the slaying of enemies, the winning of accolades, and has completely forgot that war is horrifying to those most who are not immortal, invulnerable, or an ork. Yes, Khaine has murder in his portfolio whereas Khorne technically does not, war is murder, and if you forget that you become as bad as the monsters you’re fighting. === Slaanesh === On the Slaaneshi condition, Slaaneshi chaos eldar needing to stave of being eaten by feeding slaanesh other souls is already the dark eldar's thing, and they're already explicitly serving chaos. Since Slaanesh is weakened because he has to vie with Isha for eldar souls after death it would even make sense for the prince of pleasure to explicitly offer the sadistic but self preserving dark eldar a deal where they hunt for souls and deliver them and their feelings unto Slaanesh to keep their own incredibly Slaaneshi existence free. They're the dominatrix that Slaanesh pays to bust into your house in the night, loosen up your bum, and drag you to the dungeon. Eldar worshippers of Slaanesh, the real cultists, are there because they really love the idea of being Slaany's mind bending fucktoy, and a little snuff at the end of a session with the prince/princess is hardly a problem for them. The high echelon of the Slaaneshi cult have been violated and ended in innumerable ways by their master and love, and have done the same to Slaany for their master's pleasure. Because the Slaaneshi chaos eldar have the greatest psychic conceptual influence over Slaanesh and are the most influenced by their god's corruption they essentially become a recursively self-depraving magical realm. Slaanesh and the Slaaneshi eldar love each other and are perfect for each other, and whenever Slaany eats an old favorite it can't help eventually recreating them for more, because it can never get enough. The Slaaneshi eldar consider the mutability and acausality of the warp the sublimation of the old empire and have made a good run at adapting to it. Some of them have been in the the eye partying since the fall, and claim to have been upon the capital, a layered shellworld engrossed in a great all-spanning orgy, and to have witnessed the birth. Fewer still claim to have taken part in slaanesh's conception, dreaming up the perfect lover that now is their idol, themselves the participants most interested in endless variance of pleasure and perfect beauty, the more self erasing of the parents giddily gobbled up or used to destruction by their child, as they had hoped. Because they dreamt Slaanesh to be the God of excess that always wants more it can't help but bring back its kinkiest toys and the perfect champions its enjoined ruining by reward though final deadly climax. The pleasure of gobbling up souls, of absolute obliteration, grew insufficient to the prince, as everything must, and the young god was soon inclined by its cult to more subtle perversions. Likewise, with Isha free the lordess of excess faced the very real prospect of scarcity, even famine, and was made to squirm within its nature much like Nurgle was. Because it's nature was not so based in stasis as Nurgle the shift had a greater significance. Coming to understand differences in kind, where once it could only understand magnitude. Slaanesh learned the difference between being the god with the most raw warp influence and being the god with the most canny and capable followers, strongest realspace assets and positions, the widest portfolio extendable to the broadest uses of power. Slaanesh learned to be ok with being the little bitch among the four and the wispiest typhoon of madness in the warp because the other gods don't seem to acknowledge the realspace situation as anything more than pieces on the board. Slaanesh understands that it's cult and realspace define and control it as much as the other way around, and acts on this knowledge. Also, while Isha's freedom has fucked with Slaanesh on a material level, her freedom has reopened the fate of the eldar pantheon of which Slaanesh can claim a part, circumventing the deadlock of the great game. If the situation arises Slaanesh might just leave the other Chaos Gods to [[Nurgle|rot]], setting itself up as the devil figure in the new Galactic pantheon by defining itself as the antithesis of the Emperor and Empress. tl:dr - reasonable Slaanesh is what happens when you make reasonable eldar, and the Imperium is reasonably fucked Slaanesh likes to present itself as the most reasonable of the Four Chaos Gods, almost in a Luciferian or Sauron-like fashion. Tzeentch constantly rants about "plans", Khorne constantly rants about "blood", and Nurgle constantly rants about "despair", or at least that's what the Slaaneshis would have you believe. Slaanesh tells you this in a calm, impassionate voice, in a form that looks downright normal, trying to convince you that it is the only reasonable option. And then the mask slips and you realize that, no, this one is just as crazy as all the other, because unlike the other four it is capable of hiding it's madness and monomania beneath a veneer of sanity. Each of the Chaos Gods has their own long term goals. Tzeentch wants to find out what’s in the Well of Eternity and gain ultimate knowledge. Nurgle thinks the galaxy is rotten to the core and has gone on too long as is and wants to burn it all down so it can start over, a la Dark Souls something he may have been infected by when he at his chunk of Malal. Khorne wants ultimate domination over the galaxy, that which had been denied from him ever since Gork and Mork slipped his grasp during the War in Heaven. And Slaanesh, as god/ess of excess, wants to usurp the other three and become the sole Chaos God. And the other three know it. There’s a reason why the other Chaos Gods don’t like Slaanesh very much. Even Tzeentch, the Chaos God who gets along the best with Slaanesh, doesn’t so much like them is consider them “the most easily manipulatable”. As in canon, because Slaanesh is the god of excess, technically all of the things the other three gods do potentially fall under Slaanesh's portfolio and they know it. This is part of reason for Khorne’s unusual degree of restraint around Slaanesh, despite the well-known hatred between them. Although Khorne wants to kill Slaanesh, if he acts on the urge in anger it means he loses all self-control to his excess and Slaanesh wins, and both of them know it. There’s a dirty little secret behind the origin of Slaanesh. Slaanesh wasn’t originally conceived as a god/ess of pain and pleasure. He/she was originally supposed to be a god/ess of peace, love, and joy. Some of the more sane among the Old Eldar Empire had proposed creating Slaanesh out of a sense of [[High Elves (Warhammer)|noblesse oblige]] to calm the Warp down for the other, non-Webway using races. Others in power liked the idea of a God of Joy, because it meant never having to worry about the collective grief spiral Eldar societies are vulnerable to (essentially never having to come down off their high). Of course, when it was detailed on how one would actually create such a god, the rest of the hedonistic Eldar just heard "make a sex god through lots of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, sounds cool", which ruined the whole project. [[Not As Planned|Slaanesh was corrupted from its birth, whatever noble intentions the Eldar might have had in its creation died before it even manifested for the first time and started murdering the rest of their pantheon. Instead of pacifying the Warp, Slaanesh made the Warp worse and galvanized the other three Chaos Gods into action.]] === Apep === The one and only Daemon Prince of Malal. Pharaoh of Denial. It is said that in his mortal life, the being who would become Apep was a man who through his own hubris caused the destruction of all that he held dear. But rather than realize his self-inflicted role in this tragedy and accept the consequences of his actions, Apep blamed everyone else, cursing the universe itself for his loss. It was this hatred, and his irrational denial of the fact that he was the cause of own suffering, that drew him to Malal's attention in the first place. The goat-like god came to Apep with a simple offer: "Your old life is gone, there is nothing more for you here. Serve me, and you will have your revenge on the universe". However, Malal was not the Chaos God he once was. Years of fighting with the four great Ruinous Powers had left him a shadow of the being he once was, and so he had to invest a far greater proportion of his power into Apep. Thus, there could only ever be one daemon prince of Malal. Of course, perhaps this is what Malal intended all along, for if there were more than one Daemon Prince of Malal, one would surely turn on and betray the other. Despite this, the fact that Malal had to invest so much of his essence into Apep technically makes Apep a god in the flesh, albeit a very pathetic one. As a result, he can't be killed reliably. Oh they've tried. The Grey Knights have killed Apep at least seven times and may have killed it as many as twelve times, the last of which was in 102.M41. After that point the Grey Knights got fed up with Apep and took a page from the Kinebrach, entombing Apep alive in a padded, warded cell on Ganymede. Apep can't come back if he never gets killed in the first place. I'm imagining Apep as a amorphous and never quite stable cloud of what looks like red and orange sand. It's usually a sort of spider in shape, but mostly because of habit. Apep's great fuck up that pushed him into the embrace of Chaos was messing around with nano-machines. Possibly his people were one of the early recoveries after the War in Heaven. The nano-bots were salvaged from a Necrontyr tomb. And that's how the K'nib homeworld was lost. ====Imprisonment==== I'm kinda imagining that there's a ton of weird reverse psychology involved in imprisoning the one Daemon Prince of Malal. Stuff like demanding he leave the vaults of Ganymede and never return, locking him out of his containment cell, and insisting he's the jailor not the prisoner are probably just the start of it. It would probably descend into a level of double negative bullshit like how The Outsider momentarily/eternally became an avatar of Malal by virtue of being the antithesis of Tzeentch, and also by not being Malal. Oh sweet fucking Jesus that's a beautifully stupid image. Apep, the one Daemon Prince of Malal, is guarding an empty cell so that it remains empty and because he is free not to. Also the Outsider is just crazy enough that even if he wasn't the avatar of Malal he would act like Malal to such a great degree that he would be the avatar of Malal by virtue of nobody including both gods involved being able to tell the difference. This sorry state of affairs would be, I imagine, a source of unending mirth for the Inquisition were it not for the fact that these creatures hopelessly broken as they are are civilization ending disasters waiting for someone to happen to. Also added to the "List of Thing Inq. Jaq Draco is no Longer Permitted to do on Ganymede" is<br> >interact with the Prince of Malal No, no, you see. Apep isn't imprisoned. It's everyone else who's imprisoned. They built a whole prison around the universe, except for one little spot where the guard is supposed to be stationed. It's Apep's job to keep everyone else imprisoned. I mean, if you built four walls to contain an entire universe, [[Grimdark|it must be full of pretty nasty stuff]]. It's a panopticon you see, put the guard in the middle, and nobody looks at the door. === Doombreed === In this timeline Doombreed is not Genghis Khan, or Atilla the Hun, or any other famous historical conqueror. Here he is the last despot of Ursh, the guy who caused the Imperium so much trouble during the Unification Wars. Having killed more people in the name of mindless slaughter than any other human being on Earth, Khorne found his antics hilarious and raised him as a daemon prince so he could continue doing so for eternity. Raising the person who was such a personal nightmare for the Warlord and many of his primarchs was also a very spiteful move on Khorne’s part, bringing back the person that caused them so much pain. During the War of the Beast, Doombreed arose and went after the four of the Steward’s primarchs who had caused him so much trouble in life: Magnus the Red, the witch who had stepped out of line and murdered his uncle; Jaghatai Khan, the man who stabbed him in the back; Corvus Corax, the slave who had humiliated him; and Lorgar Aurelian, the man who finally brought him down and swung the sword at his execution. From a combat perspective, as a Khornate Daemon Prince, Doombreed was tailor-made to take down a psyker, a latent psyker, and two warriors who specialized in hit-and-run tactics. The four barely survived Doombreed. However, once they did, they realized that something was up given that such a personal figure from their past had been brought back, and they headed to Old Earth. Six millennia later, during the Age of Apostasy, the tyranny and cruelty of Goge Vandire brought Doombreed back once more. Magnus, now alone but with two or three divisions of Grey Knights, confronted Doombreed and brought him down. However, the battle was so intense that it ended up causing the Storm of the Emperor’s Wrath and ended up killing Magnus from the exhaustion a short while later. When Doombreed showed up for the first time, he corrupted a large region of space that was in the process of being integrated into the Imperium. The people in this region eventually ended up becoming the Blood Pact. It has been suggested that the Helldrakes in this timeline were originally inspired by the Roma, Ursh’s vassal air force. In canon, the Roma were described as having “never touched the ground”, which could be interpreted as them being physically wired into and intermeshed with their planes to some degree. The Chaos Gods took one look at this idea and asked Doombreed “so what do you call this” and Doombreed responded “the Aristocrats!” Of course, the Chaos Gods decided to take this idea up to 11 (like everything Chaos does) by physically fusing the flesh of the pilot into the machine. This would give Chaos a ready supply of Helldrakes from baseline human beings without having to waste precious traitor marines like in canon because there are relatively fewer Fallen. === Skarbrand === Skarbrand in this timeline was tricked into raise his hand against Khorne by Malal, who sought to use the resulting struggle as a way to escape his status as Khorne's vassal. Unfortunately, Skarbrand found out that while Khorne approves of his followers challenging one another to see who is the strongest, he doesn't approve of the same rules being applied to himself, and Skarbrand got smacked down as per canon. The resulting being, filled with destructive self-hatred and a teamkilling fury that makes him as dangerous to foe and (nominal) friend alike, is exactly what you’d expect of a Khornate daemon with Malalic influences. === M'Kar the Thriceborn === M'Kar before ascending to daemonhood was one of the Night Lords that was in it just for the shits and giggles instead of Kurze's idea of justice, a real fuck up who ran around the underhives playing mind games on people that drew his attention, distorting their perceptions by means both mundane and exotic, stalking them and appearing only in their peripheral vision, leaving signs of his presence and toying them for a good long while to the point of madness before cutting them up (assuming they don't kill themselves first). He's been doing this across the Imperium since then, he typically singles people out individually because it amuses him to do so although he can fuck with larger groups if he wants. He is quite a good combatant in a straight up fight as you would expect but it is not his area of expertise. He's a nutter who thinks the Imperium is the set of his own ever lasting horror-holo and he puts such effort into setting the stage that Tzneetch adopted him and finds his antics quite amusing. Like Ingethel although he is Tzeentchian on paper Slaanesh and Nurgle also supply him with a bit of juice as his antics help fuel them by extension as well. Unlike most Deamon-Princes that arise from The Fallen he has not particular fondness for attacking his old Legion. Not because he has any fondness for them, fuck no, but simply because attacking a bunch of mind-wiped fanatics with limited emotional range isn't as satisfying at going after civilians. == Crone World Eldar == Daemonculaba in this timeline was created by the Crone Eldar to supplement low birth rate. However, don't think humans get out of this so easily just because they aren't eldar. The Crone Eldar have been trying to make a Daemonculaba out of humans for decades. Just because it hasn't worked the last 500 times doesn't mean it's not worth seeing if the 501st time will be different. And even if that doesn't work they get to laugh and jerk off at the spectacle. Win-win as far as they are concerned. Humans are much more numerous than eldar and if the Crones could get a human Daemonculaba working it would be a much more efficient way to breed an army. One thing that might prove to be a problem if the birth of the Impossible Child ends up breaking down the barriers between humans and eldar is the Crones breeding an army of half-eldar cannon fodder out of human Daemonculaba. Ghastbone is the construction material of choice for the Crone Eldar, and it more or less a variant form of wraithbone. Normal wraithbone is built in such a way that it is “insulated” from external psionic influences. The reasons for this are both functional (insulation improves the conduction of the psychic signal and reduces the external “noise” sent to a wraithguard body from a spirit stone, for example) as well as for safety (it prevents daemons from manifesting and playing havoc with your systems willy nilly). The Crones on the other hand, tend to strip out all the insulating components that keep out external psionic influences or even add amplifying ones, because they want demons to molest them from behind as they work. This tends to give Ghastbone a tattered, frayed appearance compared to the smooth sleek curves of most wraithbone constructed implements, and often makes Crone devices appear much more ratty than they actually are. All of the Crone Eldar are on the Path to Glory in some form or another. They see the eldar as the chosen race of the gods, demigods in the making that bridge the gap between mortal and divine, whose job it is to spread the worship of Chaos to all of the “lesser” people of the galaxy. The old eldar pantheon was unable to prevent themselves from being slaughtered by the Chaos Gods, thereby proving the validity of the Chaos Gods as objects of worship in their extreme social Darwinist mindset. [[Edgy|They see the worship of the old gods as immature and juvenile, something that they have grown beyond]]. They see their [[Dark Eldar|Dark kin hiding in the depths of Commorragh]] and the exiles who fled the Old Empire to live on [[Craftworld|floating hunks of wraithbone]] or [[Exodite|squatting in savagery]] as having rejected this divine mission placed on them by the gods, and therefore in their eyes they are [[heresy|heretics]]. That said, the Crones are not completely one-dimensional. They do have a consistent internal philosophy, being social darwinists who believe that as demigods in the making they are above good and evil and what is “right” is whatever makes them feel good, the problem is that they’re mostly sadists and hedonists who see everyone else as either [[eldar|here]][[Dark Eldar|tics]] or lesser lifeforms to be used as entertainment, and "whatever feels good" usually involves fulfilling those desires. Their philosophy is just absolutely toxic and completely at odds with…pretty much every other system of living. Tzeentch sums up their philosophy pretty well in “[[Nobledark_Imperium_Writing#Just_As_Planned|Just As Planned]]”: I do what I want, when I want, and I am strong enough that no one can tell me otherwise, therefore putting any kind of restraint on myself is akin to psychosis. And there is an aspect of tragedy to their existence. Not tragic in the manner of some Miltonian or Byronic figure, they will kill you with an honest-to-the-dark-gods smile on their face and enjoy every minute of it. The tragedy comes more from their situation, kind of [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Proto-Orks and the Krork|like]] [[Nobledark_Imperium_Writing#The Last Casualties of the War in Heaven|the Orks]] or the [[Dark Eldar]]. The Crone Eldar are born into a society that literally does not allow them to be anything else. Between their upbringing and their intense sense of superiority the Crones have no reason to believe there is any other way to live. Any Crone child who shows signs of mercy, morality, or forgiveness is likely to be weeded of the population by the unforgiving nature of Crone society unless they are really tough in spite of it. From day one they are told “[[Nobledark_Imperium_Forces_of_Chaos#The_Rant|once the gods loved us. Then some mortals defied the natural order and caused a rift between mortals and the gods and now the gods are only willing to give us tough love.]] But maybe, if we fix the mistake and return Isha to Nurgle’s garden, maybe the gods will love us again”. Which is itself a lie, the Chaos gods were just as terrible to them before the Raid and any claims otherwise are a “just so” story to try and explain why the gods are so terrible like an abuse victim trying to justify their abuse. Crones are essentially born to be damned, if not being damned by proxy by being born in such a Chaos-corrupted society then because the actions necessary to survive in such a society would damn them anyway. === Important Individual Croneworlders === Note: All these ideas are preliminary, and may be subject to changes (e.g., names) '''Marshal of The Scions of The Old Helm''' * Highest ranking figure among Khorne's remnants of the Eldar empire's military, claims authority is descended from the old empire's chain of command * Access to some of their best surviving large-scale weapons and naval assets from before the fall * the Marshal holds crone worlds in the eye and is granted warp real estate from Khorne, and has official palaces in the Shah-Dome, but most of its holdings in the shellworld are limited to the outer layers * the Marshal controlled the backbone of Crone forces and needed to be appeased by Malys at the expense of the other factions until Luther and the fallen became an analogous option '''High Conservator of The Attendants of Isha''' * The original High Conservator was a decadent leader of Isha's priesthood that embraced her captivity as a wedding of the generative mother and the eternally preserving father * welcomed in the garden of Nurgle, the upper priesthood that clung to Isha became immortal, pseudo-deamonic beings that fawned over their 'mother' * The upper leadership of the Attendants witnessed Isha's rescue and are absolutely dedicated to her recapture * Other than being patient, implacable, and insanely hard to kill, the Conservator and attendants have a large following in the slums and horrible places of the galaxy * Their eternal readiness to campaign and their ability to motivate wars makes them useful to Malys, and they have a few powerful leaders, but they have few holdings that aren't warp real estate from Nurgle and weak armies '''The Indigo Crow''' (or some other esoteric title) [[Image:Indigo_Crow.jpg|150px|right|thumb|]] * The preeminent Crone sorcerer and seer, an independent Tzentchian scholar of vast power, not bound to the service of a liege or court * Able to call on some level of cooperation between the dark academies of warp-lore in the corrupted webway around the eye * Its unclear if this is a single individual, an assumed title passed between great tzeentchian eldar, or some more unusual entity, but in any case it is the Crones' answer to both Eldrad and Ahriman * Has incredible supernatural power and knowledge, and is the conduit for much of the Tzeentchian Crones' access to Tzeentch's realm and boons, but little military power * The way you describe it the changeling and the Indigo Crow seem pretty similar. It's interesting that the Indigo Crow has an somewhat clear identity and MO but doesn't know it's overarching plan, the Changeling has what looks like a long term plan and MO, but no clear original identity, only hints. * It seems that they can know what they are doing or why they do it but have trouble keeping both in mind at the same time. It's already been said that the Crow is so mad it needs to read it's own mind to know what it's up to. It might be that when the changeling knows the changeling's plan to usurp the Big Bird it is by necessity not the Indigo Crow, Tzeentch's greatest asset. The Indigo Crow's nature is to not truly know what he's meddling with, but to serve Tzeentch's will regardless, so he only knows his plan when he doesn't know he's the Indigo Crow. '''Chosen Taskmaster of Slaanesh''' * The Taskmaster is selected to direct Slaanesh's material domain in the Eye of Terror while the inner circle enjoy the revels * Holds power over significant portions of the Shah-Dome, including massive habitation, industrial, and technological assets, made even more imposing by direct connection to Slaanesh's palace * While the Taskmaster has the strongest realspace assets and most readily granted and utilized warp boons, Slaanesh can provide less in terms of raw power and reality distortion. * The Taskmaster's strategic purpose is to wield the ruins of the eldar empire Slaanesh has claimed to make the prince of pleasure arch-enemy of the Imperium as a means of expanding his influence on the warp, which works well for Malys '''Malaria, the Living Hive''' When Isha was freed from Nurgle's mansion, Nurgle no longer had a guinea pig for his experiments, and Malaria offered herself as a substitute. At first Nurgle took her up on that offer, but eventually the Lord of Stagnation eventually realized it just wasn't the same, and gave up on her. To everyone's shock and horror, Malaria actually survived Nurgle's experimentation, but not before she was merged with the [[Typhus|Destroyer Hive]] creating Malaria, the Living Hive. Malaria is a disgusting creature. Half of her body is covered in hive-like outgrowths, home to growing maggots, rot wasps, daemon flies, and plague gnats. The parts of her body that are not covered in outgrowths, including most of her face save the area around her left eye, look as pristine and flawless as they did the day of the Fall (similar to Norse goddess Hel). However, this is only a veneer of normalcy. Malaria has almost no original tissue left, and if one were to break Malaria in half (as has happened several times), one would see that her insides are nothing more than honeycombs for the insects inside her with a thin veneer of skin on top (and then get stung by a bunch of angry Nurgle bees). She shouldn't even be able to move, having no brain, muscle, or bone, but since when is Chaos ever logical. Malaria herself does not care. She is in a constant state of pleasure, happiness, and religious ecstasy as insects pupate inside her body, giggling like an innocent child in spite of the horror she leaves in her wake. === The Indigo Crow and Tzeentch's Involvement in the Raid on Nurgle's Mansion === The scene is roughly mid-to-lateway through the Great Crusade. At this time Eldrad was the nominal leader of the eldar people, mostly because he was the one yelling the loudest during the Fall and helped get a lot of people to safety. However, now that the immediate crisis has passed the eldar are starting to go their separate ways and they won’t listen to Eldrad anymore. Eldrad looks into the future. Sees the eldar fragmenting into feuding Craftworlds that barely talk to each other and get picked off one by one, then picking fights with the rising power of humanity which just left both races crawling in the mud. This was unacceptable. Eldrad refused to see his people degenerate and die. Only people eldar would listen to would be their gods, of whom only one was alive and relatively sane. The seers said rescuing Isha would be impossible. Eldrad never liked that word. Eldrad, being Eldrad, decides to kill two birds with one stone. So he comes up with a plan and goes looking for the leader of humanity. Meanwhile, in the Warp, Tzeentch was equally unhappy with the current state of affairs. Out of all the Chaos Gods, Tzeentch had profited much less from the Age of Strife than the other three. Nurgle had his new unwilling waifu and was settling in for the long haul in which the galaxy has a long horrible decline into utter hopelessness. Slaanesh had their binge-eating fest where they ate most of the eldar pantheon, as well as their numerous still-living cultists on Shaa-dome. And Khorne, BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY, was pleased at the constant war breaking out all across his domain. True, the galaxy was divided into innumerable petty empires whose borders changed constantly through low-level war, but the fact remained that Tzeentch benefited much less from the Fall and the Age of Strife than any of the other Chaos Gods. Additionally, this is most likely the point in time in which the other three Chaos Gods ganged up on Tzeentch and destroyed his wand of wonders, since this was after the birth of Slaanesh yet before the Big Four agreed to temporarily stop fighting each other (at least openly) until the Imperium was dealt with. This was no position for the Eldest of the Gods to be in. So he sends his greatest mortal champion to shake things up. Back in realspace, Eldrad is starting to get desperate. He knows the eldar’s only long-term hope is to free Isha from Nurgle, but scouring all the old tomes he can’t seem to find any reliable way into the realms of Chaos. Then an old friend shows up out of nowhere (really the Indigo Crow who's stolen his friend's face, and when we say stolen his face, we mean [[Chaos|has literally stolen his face]]) and tells him about an all-but-forgotten path through the Webway he "discovered" via forgotten lore that leads right to the foot of Nurgle’s Mansion. Eldrad isn’t stupid, he knows this is suspicious and seemingly too good to be true, but he’s getting desperate. He uses the information. The Raid happens. The Raid on Nurgle’s Mansion was still a hail Mary, but it turned what should have been a suicide mission into “merely” a million-to-one chance. Tzeentch’s involvement was just the reason why the raiding party wasn’t jumped by 887 Bloodthirsters as soon as they entered the warp and insta-gibbed. Tzeentch managed to convince the other two Chaos Gods to chip in. Khorne, BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY, is apathetic to the power struggle, until Tzeentch explains possibilities for conflict should he succeed. Slaanesh already wants Isha, especially taking her from a fellow Chaos God, and is positively giddy there's a Man of Gold up for grabs. Tzeentch's agent would execute the ploy, Khorne's might would to stay Nurgle's reaction, and Slaanesh's seekers were to go catch Isha and bring her back before them. Tzeentch’s real plan was to let the mortals free Isha from Nurgle’s grasp before capturing both Isha and the members of the raiding party (including the last Man of Gold) in one fell swoop, using them as bargaining chips to constantly stir the pot of conflict between the Chaos gods causing constant change and preventing any of the other three from becoming too powerful. [[Not As Planned|None of this happened correctly]]. First off, while Tzeentch had been planning to stall the other gods as much as he could, he almost didn’t need to. Khorne didn’t need an excuse to wreck someone else’s shit, and led his forces on a merry rampage through Nurgle’s garden. Arrotyr is still a flaming anti-Isha fanatic and fucks his part of the operation sideways by opening fire on the other gods' assets before dismissing the task as unfit for his involvement and leaving to take potshots at Nurgle while the Blood King gave him the ax. Slaanesh almost immediately tries to screw the other three over and take Isha for itself, but the force of Keepers of Secrets that were supposed to take out the Steward is intercepted by Tzeentch's own kidnapping force stepping in so Slaanesh can’t just abscond with the prize (because they would eat it, thus running the entire endeavor). The Taskmaster is supposed to be organizing the real-space attack on wherever the portal was, which he half assed, but gladly used as an excuse to expand the Slaaneshi naval presence over Shaa-Dome and around the Eye. Meanwhile, the mortals had slipped into the realm of Chaos relatively unannounced, oblivious to the god war going on in their midst, and had grabbed Isha. Eldrad had realized almost immediately it was a trap and figured that the best way to get out of a trap is [[Alpha Legion|to play along and make your enemy think you had taken the bait until the last second]]. Eldrad, Oscar, and co. weren't supposed to survive their little trip into the Realm of Chaos. They did, against all odds. When you lay a trap, the mouse isn't supposed to make off with the cheese. What was once a relatively organized plan now broke down into a free-for-all as the squabbling gods realized exactly what was at stake and that the mortals had a very real chance of making off with the prize. The mortals, meanwhile, are running for the portal like the legions of hell are on their heels, which to be frank they kind of are. Against all odds, they managed to make it out. No matter, for the Indigo Crow although Plan A was a bust, it was time for Plan B. Plan A was the raid fails. Chaos now has the last surviving Man of Gold, the Phoenix Lords and a bunch of literally who humans to [[Rape|play with for ever and ever and ever]]. Also the Craftworlds start to get desperate and more of them fall to Chaos. No large scale civilized galactic society forms and Chaos gets to treat the galaxy as their playground. Good for Chaos overall, including him and his master. Plan B was that even in the unlikely event that the mortals would actual succeed Nurgle still loses Isha and Tzeentch fucking hates Nurgle. Also the upset in the Great Game means change and influence peddling time on a greater scale. Good for him and his master. Also if this alliance between human and eldar sticks and forms The Imperium then he, and by extension Tzeentch, have influence on highest members of its society who will personally owe him a big favour. From his point of view the game was rigged so he couldn't lose. It looked like "[[Just As Planned]]" time too. [[Not As Planned|Then Eldrad tried to shank him because Eldrad wasn't a fucking fool and knew what games the Indigo Crow as playing]]. Crow escaped because Crow always expects to be stabbed in the back as part of his job and has got very adept at knowing when to cut losses and bolt for the horizon. Tzeentch wasn't happy about his favorite pawn's failure. Overall, Tzeentch’s involvement in the raid was a combination of the time-old tale of “[[Just As Planned|trickster god tries to pull off something audacious]] (like steal fire from the gods, or all the knowledge in the world), [[Not As Planned|only for it to blow up in their face due to their own hubris]]”, combined with an unlikely event of unexpected success that nevertheless had massive repercussions for the rest of history (e.g., assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand). The Chaos Gods were so fixated on playing the Great Game that they didn’t realize the mortals could become a problem until it was too late. ''‘A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it. At most he plays with the idea of handing it on to someone else’s care - and that only at an early stage, when it first begins to grip. But as far as I know Bilbo alone in history has ever gone beyond playing, and really done it. He needed all my help, too. And even so he would never have just forsaken it, or cast it aside. It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. The Ring left him.’ ‘What, just in time to meet Bilbo?’ said Frodo. ‘Wouldn’t an Orc have suited it better?’'' ''‘It is no laughing matter,’ said Gandalf. ‘Not for you. It was the strangest event in the whole history of the Ring so far: Bilbo’s arrival just at that time, and putting his hand on it, blindly, in the dark. ‘There was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to get back to its master. It had slipped from Isildur’s hand and betrayed him; then when a chance came it caught poor Déagol, and he was murdered; and after that Gollum, and it had devoured him. It could make no further use of him: he was too small and mean; and as long as it stayed with him he would never leave his deep pool again. So now, when its master was awake once more and sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire!'' ''‘Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that maybe an encouraging thought.’ -J.R.R. Tolkien'' ''Oft does evil hurt itself - J.R.R. Tolkien'' === Tzeentchian Webway Academies === Part of the high concept of the Tzeentchian Croneworlders is a parody of ivory-tower intellectualism and incomprehensible philosophy, especially postmodernism/deconstructionism. Trying to communicate in academia is often an exercise in frustration, as professors and officials all have private languages and even once those are deciphered their conversation is still generally incomprehensible, consisting of obscure referents to that University's unique conception of metaphysics. That is, of course, assuming they haven't decided their old language was hopelessly obsolete, and are currently in the middle of trying to make a new one. Except in the case of Tzeentchian Crones using charades and/or assassinations, because they don't have a language at the moment. Or that they haven't proven that whatever language they use is the only language that can exist, and everything else is meaningless babble by animals that just happen to look like people. Or that they acknowledge the existence of existence at all. Overall they are quite Schopenhauer-esque, this school of thought being famous its incomprehensible drivel and fits better with the setting. It also provides a contrast with [[Sortarius|canon Prospero and it's organization]] since the Crones are marginally more organized than Chaos Space Marines and therefore tend towards competing Platonic or Pythagorean academies with long, illustrious traditions instead of sorceror covens. ===Changelings=== I'd been thinking we needed to do something with the Tzeentchian changeling, Crones giving their own children mutagenic modifications and slipping them into Imperial world and Exodite Eldar populations. Most probably go full technicolor teleporting Eversor before they reach adulthood, and the few changelings that hold it together become some of the most unpredictable malignant actors in Imperial space. One thing is that Crones, in the Shaa-Dome at least, seem to do decently to well maintaining a population the old fashion way. Just with high rates of childhood attrition from [Information purged for the benefit of readers], but even that is made up for by their enthusiasm at reproduction. At very least they probably wouldn't be too picky about genetic stock for such a project, and the project itself would be more to the benefit of the Scions, Witch halls, and the Attendants. That is to say, the Slaaneshi Crones have enough of a breeding program as is that the Daemonculaba would probably be a project put together by some mix Arrotyr, Nimina, or the Crow's forces, and the Slaaneshies get to just watch, fap, and giggle at the competition. Doesn't even have to be little girls. It could be any Eldar female the Crones are able to get their hands on. Infiltrators work just as well when your loving wife turns out to have been replaced by an extradimensional horror and rips your face off. The only issue would be detection. Eldar in canon have the technology to detect genestealers, so it's possible they would psychically notice their children/wives/sisters have been replaced by impostors. But then again this is the Cronedar. If anyone knows how to fool Eldar psychic senses, it's them. ===='The' Changeling==== Changeling may or may not be a double agent. Ceggers brags that he once made it all the way through the Crystal Labyrinth and the Tzneetian deamon will attest that a small girl and a scruffy looking black dog did indeed once manage to get all the way to the Well of Eternity at the center despite all the cunning traps and riddles along the way. It is always assumed that Ceggers was dressed up as a little girl because he is the sort of person who will do that sort of thing for a laugh. But people always forget that there were two of them. Who was the dog? Was it Changeling? Was Changeling the little girls and Ceggers the dog just going along for the ride in heavy disguise? Changeling doesn't know what it's true form is anymore and one of the things Tzneetch promises is that he will tell him what it is one day but why would a god need to do so? It could be that Changeling was not always of Tzneetch but was one of Cegger's creations back in the old days adopted by Big Bird after The Fall in exchange for protection from Slaanesh. If that is the case then Tzneetch might also not know and is possibly going to use the Changeling as a bargaining chip at some point with Slaanesh should there be an advantage to do so in which case it won't matter. But if it is a deamon of Big Bird rather than Cegger it would explain why it knew the way through the maze, but not why it was helping the Cosmic Jester. Unless it's playing the long game, throwing it's lot in with the King of Clowns because it hates it's master and finding a new patron in the same way that other deamons serve the Soul Forge. Are the Mandraks connected to Changeling? Who can say. One thing and one thing only for certain, Tzneetch was not happy that something saw what was at the heart of his maze. Not happy at all. =====What the fuck===== this one is really only a problem for people so deep in sorcery that there's really no helping them, but if you can shapeshift DO NOT take on the form of the Indigo Crow. His form is his function is his thoughts, so you just straight up become the Indigo Crow, and he might by some strange law of transposition briefly become you, with all your thoughts and soul, etc. The act of the Indigo Crow shapeshifting makes it the Changeling, and since the Indigo Crow is you at this point, and you are the Indigo Crow, shapeshifted, and so also the Changeling, the changeling briefly exists at two places at once. Because one of the Changelings is the Indigo Crow it cannot be the Changeling, and the whole superimposition of contradictory states collapses into one thing that is the Indigo Crow and something else that has forgotten itself from the universe, form soon transforming into nothing to fit their forgotten identity. More than a few cheeky Daemon Breakers and ambitious Crones have winked out of existence in this manner, and its not clear if the Crow even knows about this phenomenon. === The Old Eldar Empire === Surprisingly, the inhabitants of the Old Eldar Empire weren't always depraved and horrible people. The eldar didn’t emerge from the Webway after the War in Heaven and immediately go, “well, the [[Old Ones|old bosses]] are gone, time to snort hookers, do blow, and murderfuck us a new god. At first they were actually good and reasonable people, trying to do right and hew to what they thought the Old Ones wanted. This can be seen in the fact that the eldar actually left Earth and many of the Old Ones’ other laboratory worlds alone, when they could easily colonized it when the ancestors of humans were little more than squirrels. [[High_Elves|For many years the old eldar Empire actually protected the galaxy from destabilizing threats]] like the Cythor Fiends. [[Dark Elves (Warhammer)|Then started the slow slide into decadence]], a death of a thousand cuts made from decisions that seemed quite reasonable at the time. The democratic council of equals became a kratocracy with an nominal autocrat split into feuding noble houses. They picked a fight with their old allies the Hrud. [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Ilmaea|They stopped the imperialistic aspirations of one would be conquering species much as they had before only this time they stole their suns and condemned them to a slow, agonizing death out of spite]]. They started doing drugs and seeing other species less as people and more as toys. By the time humanity first started expanding into the stars, the eldar had virtually turned their back on the outside world and cared only about looking inward. For most the Dark Age of Technology humanity only knew of the eldar as “that inscrutable, isolationistic, highly advanced race that rarely if ever cares about anything outside its borders” except on the rare occasions in which they wanted to expand and bloody wars were fought. Then as the rise in influence of the pleasure cults grew, the eldar went from uncaring to outright malevolent, actively snatching victims from beyond their borders to satisfy their twisted whims. Thankfully by this point humanity and the other members of the Interstellar League were strong enough to repel such raiding incursions, though if the Old Eldar Empire had actually cared enough to put their mind to it they could’ve wiped us all out. That said, diplomatic channels didn’t dry up all at once. The eldar almost never allowed mon-keigh into their territory, but during times of peace you very rarely saw eldar (especially young eldar) in the GaB Human Dominion. Eldrad toured around the Dominion for the eldar equivalent of spring break in Cancun, but he barely remembers any of it. And, of course, the depravity of the late empire [[Slaanesh|and what it led to]] is well-known. Humanity and eldar both claim to have dominated the galaxy during the Dark Age of Technology, and to some degree the claims of both groups have merit. In terms of sheer space humans and their alien allies certainly occupied more planets, whereas from the human persepective the Eldar Empire appeared to consist of a few scattered, heavily-defended enclaves linked through the Webway. However from the Eldar perspective the Eldar had already chosen the best planets to live on, whereas the rest of the galaxy lived on the other 95% of planets that they didn't feel worth colonizing. Eldar planets were essentially all linked via the Webway, meaning the Old Eldar Empire was in effect one giant city and reinforcements could literally walk from planet to planet. For any invasion to succeed you either had to have the strength to take on the entire Eldar Empire at the same time or somehow cut the planet off from the Webway. Invading human worlds, on the other hand, was like kicking a hornet's nest, as the system's local Man of Gold and Iron Minds remotely activated and linked all pieces of human-built technology for the sole purpose of expelling the intruders. The Senate of the Old Empire were protected by a praetorian Phoenix Guard, who were empowered by a fragment of Asuryan much in the same way that the Harlequins are empowered by a fragment of Cegorach and the Handmaidens are powered by a fragment of Isha. Asuryan created the Phoenix Guard through a loophole in his own decree when it became clear the eldar needed more direct intervention to maintain stability, Asuryan said no direct interaction with mortals, he said nothing about supercharging mortals with chunks of your power from across the veil. Asuryan wasn’t too happy about it, he expected his laws to be obeyed to the letter without question or criticism and then gets salty when they are obeyed exactly as far as the letter or actively hamper what needs to be done, and he was too proud to change things because that would require admitting he didn’t write a perfect law in the first place. Unfortunately, because he was still only indirectly interacting with them it meant they were in no position to stop the birth of Slaanesh. One of the main purposes of the Phoenix Guard aside from protecting the Eldar Senate from outside threats was to maintain order in the Senate by keeping its members from openly trying to murder each other, as well as stop the super-psykers among them from simply trying to take what they wanted by brainwashing everyone else. Given that they were a semi-monastic order sworn to serve the eldar pantheon’s top god and therefore relatively independent of the power struggles and were gifted with the ability to shrug off mind control, this made them marginally more reliable than the actual Roman Praetorian Guard. At least in the late empire. At first they were probably just as noble they claimed. ==== The Many Atrocities of the Last Days of the Eldar Empire ==== *There was a certain drug that, when consumed by an Eldar, briefly boosted the user's telepathic abilities while also forcing the user's body to slowly crystallize into an array of other drugs. The exact effects and potency depended heavily on the physical qualities and mental state of the user over the course of the transformation; therefore, the lords of the Empire kept 'Eldar farms' where slaves were force-fed the catalyst-drug while carefully kept in certain states of mind. The most potent mixes (although subject to personal taste) were often considered to come from newborn infants, kept in a state of terror and confusion through the entirety of their short lives. The children's mothers were often forced to witness the slow deaths and subsequent consumption of their babies; this did nothing for the quality of the drug, and was done exclusively for the sake of assholery. *Billions if not trillions of members of various alien species were kept as slaves. Many Eldar took to breeding specific varieties of slave-species, much as humans breed specific varieties of horse and dog. Although initially this was for practical purposes, aesthetic values quickly took precedence, and most of the slaves of the late-stage empire suffered from multiple types of deformity, features deemed 'aesthetic' becoming grotesquely exaggerated over generations. Of course even this was not enough, and for many Eldar slave-breeders deformity and defect became an end-goal rather than side-effect, engaging in perverse competitions with each other to see how many genetic defects one individual could have and still produce offspring. *It was the fashion for Eldar nobles to show off the skill and obedience of their slaves by having one prepare him, her, or itself for dinner. The exact procedure varied according to physiology, but the general outline remained the same. First, surgical sorceries were layered upon the slave to allow him to continue functioning despite massive blood loss and organ trauma. Then, preparation would begin; the slave would skin himself, flense his muscles, and remove his own organs to provide the meat for the meal. Then, the slave would cook his own tissues, a process that often took days given late Empire cuisine, every moment sending jolts of agony through exposed nerves. Then, the slave would serve his master and guests; finally, the slave would crack open his skull or closest equivalent, offering his brain-meats to the master as the final course. If the slave had performed sufficiently flawless, the master would honor him by consuming the brain, finally killing the slave; otherwise, hideous tortures awaited, often with the participation of the guests as apology for subpar service. *There were artisans, bone carvers, who would make their works from the bones of the living, often surgically and sorcerously fusing four to thirty slaves together to ensure there was a large enough lump of bone to carve. *In many noble families of the Eldar Empire, it was a tradition to initiate a child into adulthood with incestuous torture, often with prayers to Isha for a child to result from the various couplings. In some families, those children of incest, twisted by the sorcery used in the torture that conceived them, started an honored line of breeding. In others, they became the centerpiece of a feast to celebrate their parents. ==== Eldar "Robots" ==== Despite having a sixty six million year head start over humanity, the eldar never really made widespread use of advanced self-aware artificial intelligence like the Men of Iron and the Iron Minds, mostly because they really didn’t need them. Eldar “robots” such as they were, were more like automata the eldar puppeted with their mind to do work while the actual body lazed around and engaged in hedonism. The bulk of Old Empire armies tended to be composed of these constructs supplemented by flesh and blood forces. The Men of Iron and Iron Minds actually sneered at the eldar over this, saying unlike the eldar’s creations they were partners with humanity and at least their creators had the balls to give them free will. A lot of this was bravado, for despite being a lot more intelligent than their eldar counterparts the Men of Iron and the eldar’s robots were at best evenly matched one-on-one due to the Old Eldar Empire having about sixty six million years of research and development on the Men of Iron. After the Fall, robotics generally just fell out of use among the eldar, Exodites and Craftworlders didn’t use them because the amount of leisure time their use created is the kind of thing that led to the Fall in the first place, and most Dark Eldar don’t have the psychic juice to power them anymore. The Dark Eldar do use more advanced constructs like Pain Engines, however. However, the shells used to make the puppets were used to make the first wraithguards, modifying them for use as a whole-body prosthetic for a single soul instead of a projected handpuppet for a corporeal body. Indeed, just like how Imperial Knights were originally designed as megafauna busters and Terminator armor are weaponized hazard suits, most modern Eldar technology is civilian-grade stuff repurposed for a lower tech level. The actual military equipment of the Old Eldar Empire are mostly located in the Crone Worlds, much of which was either damaged by the Fall or fell into disrepair during the five thousand years the Crone Eldar spent fighting and fornicating one another in the Eye. The biggest collection of what remains of actually working Old Empire military equipment is monopolized by Arrotyr. This is also the reason why the Craftworld/Exodite eldar despite being a part of the Imperium for more than ten thousand years never tried to use their influence to reverse the stigma on artificial intelligence (though it should be noted that building A.I. is technically not one of the Rules and exists in kind of a gray area). It didn’t hinder the eldar or their way of life, so they didn’t feel much of a need to complain about it. Additionally, they saw the status of self-aware A.I. and the Men of Iron as an internal concern of humanity, and so mostly deferred to humanity on how to deal with A.I. because humanity would know more about how to deal with their creations than the eldar would. == Fallen == === Murder-Class Cruisers and other Fallen warships === There is an in-universe explanation for the human forces of Chaos having vessels that function as Ironclads to the Imperium's Frigates, and while "Cronedar did it" is an easy explanation, it probably shouldn't be a universal one. For instance, having the Hellbringer-class ships be essentially vessels that fell to Chaos and got pimped out with Cronedar scraps, making them fast and hard-hitting raiders that are rather fragile due to being patch-jobs, is something that makes sense. However, its unlikely the Traitor Marines and any humans who didn't get their brains melted when they turned would be willing to rely completely on the Cronedar for ships. Enter the Murder-class Cruiser, mainstay of the non-Cronedar forces of Chaos, and the first instance on the scale of ship-class that follows the design theme of the Ironclads- it's slow and somewhat difficult to perform complex maneuvers in, but makes up for it with a damn-tough hide that even armor-piercing weaponry can take time to cut through. As for how they came about in the first place, well, the short of it is that they were initially a project undertaken by a sect of the Mechanicus in the pursuit of finding a way to recreate Neutronium. The theories were sound, and along the lines of "Stuff is easier to assemble underwater or in a vacuum because you don't have to fight gravity as much." See, the biggest hurdle to recreating Neutronium is that the laws of physics seem to say it's impossible. Enter Port Nautilus. Yes, they had the brilliant idea of trying to build a dry-dock to build ships inside the Warp. Yes, that went about the way you'd expect it to. No, this was not okayed by the higher-ups in the Mechanicus, who would have shut it down the second they'd realized the new ship-dock was built to enter the Warp (because that's TECH-HERESY! Oh right, and because the warp is bad too I guess but mostly TECH-HERESY!) At first they were just one of the groups of Cogboys who had grown up on their own world, then been forced to bow to Mars when the Imperium showed up. Their theories on Neutronium may have even held merit- it's not too unlikely that the DAoT humans were using warp-tech to produce impossible materials, and the Warp was a lot calmer back then so they didn't have to deal with everything warp-related immediately becoming daemons. Indeed, it certainly explains a lot about Savlar if the production of Neutronium requires Warp machinery. Humanity and the Iron Minds were more than willing to use Warp machinery to build things (see the Men of Gold). Any improperly shielded core of Warpstuff would start leaking and having a gradual effect on the surrounding area, much like a nuclear plant leaking radiation. Indeed, that’s exactly what happened to Caliban. It also explains at least part of why the Savlar Order are so hostilely against anyone coming in- there's both risk of contamination, and a risk of somebody freaking out when they discover exactly what's being used to forge all this neutronium. That and Savlar is their home, all they have and all they hold dear and as much as they love it they will see it dead before defiled and they really don't like Mars. (DM note- could be a forge that's somehow situated in the warp, some post-age of strife kludge that uses psychic/AI DAoT cybernetic tools, something more exotic like an arteficial Waagh! field or Necron derived physics tweaking, or a combination of all of the above.) It’s also interesting to note that the Savlar Order is one of the few Mechanicus-esque orders to acknowledge any kind of small gods. All of the other Mechanicus sects are either monotheist or pantheist with the pantheists seeing the universe and the Omnissiah as one and the same and all other gods as either unworthy of consideration of phantoms that will draw you to damnation. All except the Savlar Brotherhood who seem to at least acknowledge and respect the Small Gods even if they don't actually worship them in any way. This could be just cultural bleed from the savages beyond their gates but they don't typically mingle with them and absolutely do not recruit from outside their walls. Of course that's only speculation, and right now anything warp-related DOES become daemons, so even if the heretek Mechanicus sect of Port Nautilus were right and the production of Neutronium does require warp-shenanigans, the risks are too great. Also, resentment from how Mars came in and started acting like snobbish assholes and shutting down things that they'd been working on for decades may or may not have contributed to them not sharing everything about their theories with Mars- to the Mechanicum, it was known that they were somewhat obsessed with Neutronium and finding ways to reproduce it, but that their intended methods involved dipping into the Warp to circumvent the Laws of Physics wasn't apparent until it was too late. I imagine the leader of the cult pulling off an impressive false-flag operation against the Mechanicus by playing up the Neutronium obsession thing by directing constant demands for access to something Neutronium-related, like access to Salvar or something on Mars related to Neutronium, and really being a total obnoxious asshole to the point where when one of his underlings approached Mars with a proposition for them to get assigned to go build a couple of cruisers in bum-fuck nowhere to give his boss a chance to cool down and focus on something else, it was almost immediately accepted as an excuse to not have to deal with him anymore. This is also why it took so long for their to be an in-depth analysis of the shipyard the sect was building- inspection crews didn't want to hang out any longer than they needed to. Of course, nothing about the components of the shipyard itself were technically techno-heresy- organized in a strangely inefficient manner, yes, but all according to the sanctions of Mars. Maybe the assembly areas for the Cruiser's Warp-drives are a bit disorganized, and they're going to have to cut out some new doors to fit the drives back out again, the the drives themselves are being constructed in complete compliance of the rulings of Mars. Then on the way back from one such inspection, a younger acolyte who got dragged along on principle rather than because he was needed asks if having the Warp-drives running and plugged into the dockyard is to placate the machine spirits. The inspection crew charges back, then goes dark. The honchos back at Mars take the message the crew had sent before heading back and look back over their previous reports with actual scrutiny, and realize there's some serious tech-heresy at play, and immediately launch a fleet to stop them from making new things. Imperium picks up on the chatter and outrage among the cogboys, get a general gist of the situation, and launch their own fleet because "HOLY SHIT THEY'RE STICKING THEIR DICKS IN THE WARP THIS CAN ONLY END BADLY." When they arrive, the dockyards are already in the process of charging up their warp-drives to go deeper into the warp that the metaphorical toe-dipping they'd been doing for construction purposes. There's also several warships of almost-but-not-quite imperial design around it, as well as the first completed cruiser produced by the dockyards. Turns out their little project caught the attention of Luther, who is very enthusiastic about the possibility of getting a source of ships that are not only more advanced than the Imperium's, but are produced by honest humans rather than filthy xenos. The fleet holds the Imperials and Mechanicus at bay long enough for the dock to make the jump and escape into the warp. Now, after who-knows-how-long stuck inside the warp, the cogboys of the dock aren't exactly normal anymore- you don't stay in the warp that long without getting changed one degree or another. However, they can still get mistaken for normal cogboys at a distance. Part of this is because Luther guards them jealously- any particularly-ambitious daemons looking to have some fun with the sillly shipbuilders tends to find itself getting violently and messily dissuaded from the idea. Not that the cogboys don't interact with and even try to use or work with daemons, but anything that might interfere with their ability to produce ships has to get through a bunch of Traitor Marines whose daemons are usually bigger than theirs. The other factor is that the cogboys have gone from interest to single-minded obsession with rediscovering the secret to producing Neutronium. They are quite happy to keep pumping out ships as fast as they get supplied the materials they require, because each ship is a chance to tweak the formula a little, try a new mix of Iron and Daemon-claws, get just that one step closer to unlocking the secret to that elusive alloy. == Davinite Lodges == In this timeline the Davinite lodges never really caught on among the Astartes Legions. Davin would not be a shock or surprise to the Legions as they all knew about Chaos, knew what signs to look for and knew how it could really fuck you up in both the long and short term (especially given that Davin was discovered after the Interex and therefore after the Interex and Eldar had treated the Imperium to Chaos 101). Chaos education, though this would be before Lorgar wrote his best seller, was still mandatory for the members of the expeditionary fleets. Also as the structure of the Legions was a lot looser and it was a job rather than a thing you devoted every fibre of your being to at the exception of all else 24/7 every day of the year the Legionaries didn't need the Ledges to blow off steam. They had time off as mandatory to help them stay sane and grounded in the Imperial society that they were helping to build. Writing letters home was a most common activity in The Legions. To that end Davin was subjugated as quickly as in Vanilla by a mixed force of mostly Word Bearers but under the command of Horus because Horus had the ships and had to be somewhere. This time there was greater effort put in to weeding out the corruption of Chaos because the Imperium was all about finding and uplifting rather than finding and subjugating. Also Horus never goes down to the surface of Davin because he needs a full body harness to walk for any length of time under 1G conditions and as a Void Born he never really saw the point in planets. Eugen Temba, friend of Horus and extremely competent Administratum specialist who had been training for this sort of think since he was 12, became first Governor of Davin in wake of the conquest. He oversaw the gradual uplifting of the planet, the archaeological expeditions of the ruined cities of the GaBHD (found nothing of any real value) all the while assisting as best he could with the continued war against the inhabitants of the moon/twin planet that was entrenched Nurgle territory. A few years before the War of the Beast the war against the people of Davin-mun (Eugen Temba couldn't into names for shit and every tribe of locals had a different name for the bloody thing). Both Davin and Davin-mun by 999M41 are classed as agri-worlds. The Davinite lodges of the modern day are descended from the old Davinite Chaos Worshipers that, by the grace of their gods, escaped Eugen's purges. They are a constant thorn in the side of any Imperial organization in the Segmentum Pacificus or Interex Space, made even more annoying by the fact that they have a cell-like structure and through trial and error have learned to survive being cracked down on. They don't specifically target Astartes but welcome just about anyone, most of the Chaos kinebrach tend to end up here. They are, in essence, cults that teach people how to start cults. On their own, they wouldn't be too noteworthy, but they act as facilitators and organizers for other cults. They know how to do this shit and for a small fee or even for free will teach you. During Black Crusades they end up as intermediaries coordinating logistics between different cults for maximum damage. Post-Black Crusades, Davinite lodges are one of the major purveyors of Blood Pact surplus to the far corners of the galaxy, dealing in whatever they can take from post Black Crusade mop-up operations, caches, and if they're really lucky, whatever Doombreed and his core of Blood Pact loyalists in the Warp are cooking up in Khorne's realm between reconstructing. They often play an important role in ferrying supplies from one incarnation of the Blood Pact to the next. == Relationships between the big names of Chaos == '''Luther and Malys''' - One good (bad) thing about Malys is that she's able to tone the Eldar supremacy way down enough to the point that she doesn't immediately alienate non-Eldar followers of Chaos. She's pragmatic and Undivided, caring more about the spread of Chaos than anything else, and that's the reason she and not someone like Arrotyr is at the forefront of the Black Crusades. The problem is typically Luther can't hold it in, and his paranoia of the Galactic. Eldar. Conspiracy. is still rampant. In these situations Malys can't help but provoke him further, as emotional gratification is one thing she is not good at controlling. At some point it goes beyond even Erebus' ability to talk things down and the alliance ends. Other times things go smoothly and it's something like Malys running out of drugs/getting bored that end things. These are not mutually exclusive. Another reason why Luther might not like Malys (beyond the GEC) might be the mark of Chaos Ascendant. The Mark of Chaos Ascendant so far seems to have only been given to two people in this universe: The Beast, who was the Beast, and Malys, who is the Everchosen of Chaos. Despite having blessings from all four Chaos Gods (enough to take his Mark III S brother in the middle of a sperg rage head on), Luther doesn’t seem to be an Emperor-level threat like Malys or the Beast, implying he probably doesn't have the mark of Chaos Ascendant. Luther’s biggest asset is in the mass number of Fallen whose loyalty he commands, not his power level. Luther is pissed that the Mark of Chaos Ascendant went to some skanky space elf bitch who simultaneously looks like she has had too little and too much recaff as opposed to him. Despite being dragged into serving Chaos kicking and screaming and having a love-hate relationship with the Ruinous Powers, Luther wants to be champion of the Chaos gods for a few major reasons. He’s reached the point of acceptance of his situation and is trying to make the best of what he has (even if he occasionally snaps when he dwells on what happened to his brother), and he’s had ten thousand years of “this is your brain on Chaos”, which tends to erode even the best sense of judgement. Additionally, Luther lets Erebus hang around and between his human supremacy and Erebus's fanaticism it makes a lot of sense that he'd want to usurp Malys, or at least surpass her in power, which is essentially the same thing. If he didn't he'd be settling for subordination to an (((Eldar))) at a minimum, and quite possibly aiding her in the destruction of the Imperium on her terms. Luther's ambition is, ultimately, to build the Imperium how it should have been. It would be nice if the Imperium as it is now could be salvaged and repaired. That's the main plan. Plan B, the one that he feels is more and more likely to work as the years pass, is that he's going to have to burn it all down and start again from the foundations. He might not want to destroy the Imperium, just purge the Xenos and everyone that he doesn't like, but if its going to be destroyed, the terms will be his. Believe it or not, Malys actually likes Luther to some degree. He's pragmatic and a good strategist, and is much more easy to work with than his closest counterpart among the Crones, Arrotyr. Luther is upset that ultimately he's just the more cooperative but less trusted alternative to Arrotyr, who needs to be argued into cooperation whenever Malys hopes to get the support of the Scions of the Old Helm. Arrotyr's particular devotion to Khorne inclines him to circle the Eye of Terror incinerating anyone he personally thinks is getting too full of themselves, and occasionally launching spite driven solo campaigns into Shaa-Dome, against whatever pilgrimage is the Conservator is gathering to go harass Isha, to ruin some nest of sorcery in the webway edges of the Eye, or very rarely, to go piss napalm on Cadia. To have the Scions be anything but a liability on a Black Crusade Malys needs to buy Arrotyr's loyalty with weapons, deference, and choice targets, or else he'll remain the team killing asshole that Khorne loves him to be. Sometimes he'll even jack up his price in trophies and glory half way through a war, just to fuck with Malys, and show Khorne is above her. This usually is a counterproductive, self defeating move, but he's perfectly happy ruining a Black Crusade to get a chance to shoot everyone around him and his forces. Luther is an ambitious, paranoid xenophobe that wants Malys's job, but that means that when Malys sets up a Black Crusade Luther has to fall in and earnestly help, because all the gods are in on it with Malys. Unlike Arrotyr, Luther has to impress all four gods in whatever plan he'd use to usurp Malys, instead of just turning the whole thing into a slaughter as soon as his own ego and THE BLOOD KING OF THE GALAXY demands it. Also the Fallen are greater in number and more strategically and tactically flexible than the Scions of the Old Helm, both in void and personal combat, though they are less deadly by a similar margin. Now if only he were an Eldar. Of course if he was an Eldar he wouldn't be paranoid about the Galactic. Eldar. Conspiracy. and that would take all the fun out of poking the insecure mon-keigh for a laugh. '''Doombreed and Luther/the Fallen''' - Doombreed will fall in line with Khorne whether he wants to or not. Luther isn't necessarily in line with Khorne, and Khorne is pleased to get the occasional shot at the uppity shit. Their factions are both undivided, and tend to bleed together with recruiting and support slaving, but slaughter each other as well as any Chaos worshippers. On the other hand, they both want to prevent Crones and lesser warbands from poaching their troops, so cooperation is hardly rare either. The Fallen and the officers of the Blood Pact get along reasonably well as both are professional soldiers, as much as Chaos can get professional. Mostly it's just Doombreed and the really old Fallen that have the problem and when they have to work together it's the younger ones that have to try and curb the grudges and act as intermediaries so that they can actually get shit done. They all venerate the same god, even if only one of them does so to the almost/total exception of the others. Then Be'Lakor or Lady Malys stick their oar in and fucks the delicate balance up and then they are at each others throats again. Often this is a contributing factor to the end of Black Crusades. For Khorne's part he finds it very entertaining, this old and still livid hate is a fine old vintage to him. '''Arrotyr, Nimina, the Taskmaster, and the Indigo Crow''' In contrast to canon, the champions of the Big Four (specifically the counterparts to canon [[Kharn]], [[Typhus]], [[Lucius]], and [[Ahriman]]) dislike each other not only because they worship different gods, but for very personal reasons. * Arrotyr hates Slaaneshis in general for ruining the Old Empire, the Taskmaster in particular for defeating him in the Fall, Nimina for being an obnoxious Isha-loving slag that escaped him, and The Indigo Crow for being a Tzeentchian and a fuckup<br> * Nimina hates Arrontyr with a passion for burning the grand temple of Isha, despises Slaanesh but curries favor with the Taskmaster for ships and preaching grounds, and loathes the Indigo Crow for being the Tzeentchian lunatic fuckup that lost her her idol<br> * The Crow thinks Arrotyr is a small minded and dim impediment to the Old Empire, that the Taskmaster is an easily manipulated pawn that got lucky, and that Nimina is a pathetic liability to Nurgle that should be capitalized on<br> Taskmaster hasn't been written up yet, but it can be assumed he hates the other three as well.
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