Warp Raiders

The Warp Raiders
Battle Cry	I CAN FEEL THE WARP OVERTAKING ME
Number	V
Successor Chapters	None
Primarch	Oramar Elthiran
Homeworld	Azrimuth
Specialty	Sorcery and archaeology, raiding tactics.
Allegiance	Renegade
Colours

"The Eldar knew a truth that humans are only now beginning to dream of: Feelings have consequences. The eddies of the Great Ocean are born not by wind, but by the emotive essence of incalculable minds. The Warp is a place where thoughts go to mingle with their kin. All men should be wary of what they think, for those thoughts will one day come home to roost."

The Musings of Primarch Oramar, date unknown

The Warp Raiders are sorcerous xenophile witches who are lost to the warp forever after the Edict of Nikaea censured them and sentenced them to death.

Summary of Legion XII

Numeration: The Vth Legion

Primogenator: Oramar Elthiran

Cognomen (Prior): The Knife Ears

Observed Strategic Tendencies: Hit and run tactics using psychic teleportation, wielding pyromancy and xenotech

Noteworthy Domains: The Eye of Terror

Alliegence: Renegade

Homeworld

Azrimuth was a world where bright crystal formations rose like mountains from low salt flats. The people of Azrimuth were pre-industrial savages who fought each with other with blackpowder weapons on their sand-sailers, weaving at break-neck speeds through the forests of monolithic crystals. Oramar Elthiran was the most feared of all the salt pirates, for his skill with a blade was legendary. Oramar was far more than a mere pirate, however. He was a treasure hunter. He and his crew searched for the white bone buried deep beneath the sand. With a knowledge of the wind and the lay of the land, Oramar was able to know where he might find openings into the great superstructure below, and within those dark crypts he found many ancient xenos artifacts. Foremost among them was a monofilament whip made of unknown metal which was so thin that it could not be seen by the eyes of mortal men. Second, a pistol which fired bladed disks instead of bullets, and needed no blackpowder. He wore armor which seemed to be made entirely of pearl, but which could deflect bullets without a scratch.

Legion Tactics

The Warp Raiders prefer hit and run tactics. Astartes with the psyker gene quickly learn the arts of teleportation and illusion, as well as other schools of witchcraft. They use these spells and incantations to confuse the enemy and tear them apart from a thousand directions.

Legion Organization

The Legion is divided into scholastic cults. The Burning Flames, the Darkwalkers, and the Fleshtakers are only a few of the thousands of schools of thought. Each scholastic cult is headed by an Archademic Lord, who is peerless master of the sorcerous ways of his cult.

Legion History

Great Crusade

The Warp Raiders kept to the furthest fringes of the galaxy for many years in the crusade, far from any eyes that may have alerted the Emperor to their witchcraft sooner. When their archaeological pursuits brought them into proximity with the Sky Serpents, however, word traveled quickly. Oramar and his Archademics attempted to teach Xun's librariams their ways, and it was quickly whispered among their ranks that these sorceries were far more dangerous than the Warp Raiders let on. Word reached the Emperor soon afterward, and he called for a great council at the planet Nikaea, where the Primarchs and their kin would debate the crimes of Oramar. Many brothers defended the arts of sorcery in general, but few could deny that Oramar was delving too deeply and greedily into the Great Ocean. When it was revealed that the Warp Raiders used warp entities called tutellaries to aid them in their magics, the Emperor decreed that Oramar and his legion were to be put to death. Masters of telepathy are not easily caught, however, and Oramar's raiders fled across the sky into the Eye of Terror, where they remained until the Warmaster called them back to rebel against their father.

Legion Equerry

Writefaggotry

The Anathema

Four years after the Edict of Nikaea Azrimuth, homeworld of Oramar Elthiran and the Warp Raiders.

Oramar stood on a great embankment of till and stone overlooking digsite V. Around him stretched salt flats for thousands of miles, with massive crystalline formations dotting the landscape at geometrically regular intervals. Digsite V was at the perfect midpoint of three of these formations, a deep terraced pit with walls reinforced by Imperial engineering. At the base of the pit was a strange, tetrahedral ziggurat of unknown xenos design. The ziggurat was constructed of warped bone, bleached by centuries of salt exposure. On each of its three surfaces were ninety nine triangular balconies, and on each one stood a tall guardian of the same warped bone. The guardians had no faces, and held lithe looking curved blades or tall pikes.

With Oramar were five of his closest brothers, called the Ṣaḥābat. Inducted into the Vth Legion from the tribe of Oramar's youth, they had been his brothers long before he met the Primarchs. Each of the Ṣaḥābat was master of a kabal, a school of study in the arts of the warp and the nature of reality. Each of them bore different weapons recovered from digsites just like this one. Ja'far wielded a clawed gauntlet with lobstered armor, Khalid a lance whose tip glowed like the sun, Mu'adh had two pistols which fired bladed disks, Jabal carried a wraithbone sword and a shimmering shield of light, Umar a fusion cannon. All of them wore shimmering pearlescent armor like that of Oramar's. The light of Azrimuth's ultraviolet star made their armor radiate with a thousand iridescent hues. They reflected similar colors in far deeper dimensions of reality as well. In the warp reflections of reality, their suits of armor shone like beacons in a sea of darkness. And, like beacons, the intent was to draw something's attention.

Oramar could feel his familiar, Sharsk, draw near to him. It was an inconstant thing, prone to long bouts of nonreality. At present, it chose to look like one of the salt lizards of Azrimuth, with crusted halite across its back. The creature was anything but a mundane lizard, however. It was a manifestation of thoughtform itself, a being of the warp. It was one of the djenni, the dark spirits of the void. Sharsk's body was formed not of matter, but ideas. Those ideas were what Oramar needed, for ideas are powerful things.

Sharsk sang in the warp, and Oramar listened. The song made promises to Oramar. Any wish he desired could be made into reality, any thoughtform could be created, if only he offered sustenance. Oramar sent a telepathic signal to his brother Mu'adh, and he stepped toward Sharsk. The false lizard rose its head, sniffing curiously. Mu'adh reached into his beltpouch and pulled out a red gem. It was perfectly round ellipse, and deep within its lustrous interiour there lingered a pulsating glow.

Oramar deftly touched the warp beast on the chin, guiding its mind, and consequentially its body, toward the stone. Once it caught the scent, however, it needed no guidance. Sharsk pounced upon Mu'adh, slobbering over him in its haste to reach the stone. Once it had the crystal in its jaws, it crunched down hard, and the whole digsite flashed with warp tremors. Oramar and his Ṣaḥābat reeled as their telepathic senses were assaulted by the screams of a thousand dying souls. A resonation came from the pyramid below, and Sharsk caught a new scent. The beast flowed down the embankment, not so much moving as inhabiting several places at once.

When it reached the Ziggurat, it crawled upward onto one of the statues like a spider. It sunk its jaws into the plain, swept face of a statue, and revealed that they were hollow. Within the statues were millions of gems like the one Mu'adh had discovered. The fel beast gorged itself on the souls of the longdead, growing from a lizard into a fat, asymmetric blob of concentrated ecstacy. Oramar and his brothers climbed down to the ziggurat with reverence.

Oramar examined the pyramid's mathematical structure, finding the appointed place. He flew upward on telekenetic wings, landing on a balcony in perfect golden mean proportions. He placed his finger on the surface of the pyramid, and a sigil appeared to him through his third eye. The wraithbone surface of the pyramid parted, strands pulling apart like sinew. Inside Oramar found a massive chamber. The walls at first seemed like mirrors, but Oramar quickly realized he was seeing outside the ziggurat. He could not see the wraithbone of the pyramid nor the statues, but he could see the soul stone gems. They floated like stars around him, and beyond them he saw the digsite and the towering salt spires. He looked around him, and he could see patterns emerge between floating red orbs and the stars in the sky above. He analyzed these patterns, and quickly determined they were a form of written language.

By the time Oramar had determined the structure of the language, three more Djenni were feasting at the bottom of the pyramid. There were a great many statues who lay below the horizon from Oramar's perspective. Oramar had determined these were the souls of commoners, lesser people who managed to earn salvation but had little real honor or worth. These low stars were not organized into words, but decorative geometric patterns which framed the piece above. While it hurt Oramar's aesthetic preferences for the creatures to damage the piece, none of the true signal was lost. It was worth destroying art, so long as you managed to extract meaning from it first.

The high statues at the top of the pyramid were great heroes, priests, and warriors, aranged into aspects like the ancient zodiac. From these aspects Oramar translated a recording which he estimated was older than Terra itself. He spoke in a voice which carried through his mind across the entire planet, "From Void comes the Annihilator! It is chaos, destruction, and death. It is the nothingness by which all things fall. Its entropic claws tear into reality, feeding on reality and leaving nothing." Oramar's words spread to warp raiders across the Azrimuth system, down to the lowest lexicographer, "From Matter comes the Anathema! It is order, construction, and life! It is the quanta which forms the universe. Its seething complexity grows patterns of inexorable truth."

Warp Raiders across the system knelt in reverence and scribes scrambled to record every morsel they could through the channeling librarians. In their minds, they saw the conflict of two axiomatic forces. The juxtaposition of flame and void built more and more nuanced constructions, spinning into stars and galaxies. They saw the creation of the universe as reality assertet itself further. "Order earns the early victory," comes the translation from Oramar, "but the Annihilator is a persistent foe, and its touch poisons irrevocably." They see life rise on a trillion worlds, growing into violent monsters and kingdoms of hate. They see explosions of life as empires rise, but inevitably fall. "The Anathema uses its energy to build, weakening itself, but the Annihilator consumes what it destroys, growing stronger. Chaos will always prevail against order, for Chaos is unburdened."

The audience of a thousand minds roared in outrage at the inevitable doom of all mankind. Oramar did not relent, continuing to translate, "But if the Anathema could be untethered from its burden, it could face Chaos with equal force. The force of order would be able to claim the slow victory of enthalpy. The great war must be fought not on earth, but in the heavens, in storms of thought and warplight." The message ended there, and Oramar's telepathic connection slowly faded. The walls grew dark, and soon lost their transparency. Oramar found himself in a plain white chamber of undecorated wraithbone. Light came from the bone itself, shining evenly over everything. Oramar heard a footstep behind him, and turned. Mu'adh stood on the precipice, holding another of the soul shards in his hand. With his other hand he removed his helmet. His skin was not Mu'adh's swarthy brown, but a deep black. His hair was not Mu'adh's shining gold, but the same light absorbing darkness. His eyes, however, burned. Like orbs of hot iron, they shone into the very core of Oramar's soul. "You..." said Oramar, "No... what have you done to Mu'adh, REDACTED?"

The man who was not Mu'adh stepped into the white room, and the wraithbone ceased to glow. In the absence of light, the white walls turned to black, and darkness overtook Oramar. A triangular beam of light from the doorway made him into a silouhette, reminding Oramar of the dark effigies he had tied to his sandskiffs in his youth. The Shadow spoke, "I have witnessed this farsight, brother. Like you, I see what it means."

Oramar's shock turned to calculation. "Yes..." said Oramar, and then they spoke in unison, "Our father must die."