AN : well, here it is. The Codex Parecxis, describing the new troops acquired by the Forsaken Sons during their campaign, and irredeemably messing with my so far perfect Fanfiction Chapter Order/ Story Chapter Order. It has been complete for a while now, but I wanted to wait until after Nalemos' fall to publish it. For a while, I thought about adding profiles, but I changed my mind quickly when I realized how much of a clusterfrak that would be. If you want to play these units in your Warhammer 40000 games, either come up with an equivalence between them and an existing unit or invent your own profile for them. If you do that, please tell me what you used.
If you have any question, or see any incoherence (a very possible thing, given that I wrote each of these entries in whatever order inspiration decreed), please tell me too, either in a review or by PMing me.
Also, please tell me (yes,, I am aware that I am repeating myself a lot in this foreword) which of these units you would like to see in action during the final battle for Parecxis. Though I have a broad idea of how it will go, the details remain unwritten, and I would like to know on which faction to shed more light. And while I am at it, thanks to all my reviewers for the 23rd chapter, which apparently a lot of people enjoyed. I will endeavor to maintain and even surpass that level in my future work.
Zahariel out.
I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
Codex : Parecxis
Sha'eilat
When Slaanesh was born from the decadence and corruption of the Eldar empire, not all of the haughty xenos turned away from the god they had created. A few, the most debased and twisted, embraced this new divinity, and were reshaped in its image. Some of these Chaos Eldars would become the xenos overlords that the Great Crusade would defeat in Parecxis, so transformed that identifying them as Eldars was impossible. They ruled over the descendants of unlucky human colonists, who had ended up in the Parecxis system due to some trick of the Warp. Whether this was a coincidence or the result of some dream of Slaanesh before his complete awakening, none but the Dark Prince himself – and perhaps some of his rivals in the Great Game – know for certain. During the Great Crusade, they were exterminated by the Thirteenth Legion, and the people they had oppressed for so long were freed – although many had to be put out of their misery, so twisted had been their bodies and minds. By order of the Emperor, all record of the aliens was erased, and they were only referenced as the 'overlords' in Parecxis' chronicles. In time, only the veteran Space Marines who had taken part in the campaign remembered anything of the monstrous xenos they had faced – and those would all perish in the first days of the Horus Heresy, slain by the treacherous sons of Lorgar in the opening salvos of the Battle of Calth. For decades, the true nature of the Overlords of Parecxis was forgotten, nothing more than a tale used by parents to frighten their children, the only traces remaining of their existence a few relics and ruins that had escaped the attention of the Imperium.
Now, through gene-craft and sorcery, the Forsaken Sons have managed to resurrect this extinct branch of the Eldar family from the corpse of a long-dead xenos called the Ancestor amongst those of the Forsaken Sons who know of such things. Calling themselves the Sha'eilat, or Children of Hell, they are the reborn scions of She-Who-Thirsts, remembering all that happened in their previous lives and eager for more. Their alliance with the Forsaken Sons is an uneasy one, as they see themselves superior to the upstart mong-keigh, but at the same time know all too well their power and the debt they owe to them. In return for their service, Arken gave them the city of Nalemos, sending them at the head of all Slaaneshi forces under his command.
The Sha'eilat appear similar to the Eldars they once were, dressed in robes or armor of alien but beautiful and elaborate design. Yet this is only a superficial likeness, and any who gaze upon them for even an instant know, deep within his heart, that something is terribly wrong with the pale humanoid he beholds. Their movements are not in synchronization with the rest of the world around them, their faces are too pale to be those of a truly living being, and their smiles impossible wide, revealing too many teeth to be contained within their thin jaws. This aura causes discomfort amongst even their own allies, touched by the Dark Gods themselves as they may be. Those who do not follow the Ruinous Paths, however, feel only hatred at the sight of the Sha'eilat – a deep, unrelenting urge to kill them that surpass any instinct for self-preservation as their very nature rebels against the abomination standing before them. It is only the touch of Chaos, and the fact that they already have turned their back on their species, that allow the Forsaken Sons and their followers to tolerate the presence of the reborn xenos.
In truth, the essences of the Sha'eilat have been irredeemably altered by their devotion to Slaanesh and their time in the Sea of Souls, making them into existences between mortals and daemons. Their cruelty is beyond even that of the infamous corsair lords of Commoragh, and the only limit to their evil is that imposed by their self-preservation instincts : they know that, should their black souls return to She-Who-Thirsts in anything less than a most glorious and sensational demise, their goddess will punish them beyond even their darkest nightmares. That knowledge, and the gaping hole in their souls slowly draining them of their anima, push them to torment and slay those weaker than themselves in order to taste sensations that have been denied to them for far too long.
Warrior
Most of the Sha'eilat resurrected by the Forsaken Sons are warriors, but there are no rank-and-file grunts amongst the ranks of this alien elite. Each of them is a champion of Slaanesh, marked by the Youngest God for their depravity during the Fall and chosen as worthy of a second existence in the Materium. The youngest of them are hundreds of years old, and have experienced the delights and agonies of Slaanesh's court in the Sea of Souls for a timeless eternity. Now returned to the world of bone and flesh, they hunger for the true sensations of battle, taken from them since their deaths at the bolters and blades of the Ultramarines.
Their bodies, which are still relatively new onto this plane of existence, are still evolving, and though they outwardly resemble normal Eldar, they are all subject to intense mutations that make them faster, stronger, and increase the intensity of every emotion and sensation beyond even the Eldar's usual intensity. They enjoy nothing more than utterly crushing a foe on the battlefield, reveling on their superiority and the heightened sensations running across their flesh. When foes flock to them, pushed by the impulse to destroy their unnatural and unholy existences, they revel in slaughtering them by the dozen, dancing amongst the carnage like the very daemonettes of their dark patron.
Unlike some of their kindred of the Black City of Commoragh, the Sha'eilat do not eschew protection – their own life is the most precious thing to them, and their senses are sharp enough that no layer of armor can truly separate them from the swirling maelstrom of battle. Clad in armor forged of an eldritch metal harvested from secret caches on Parecxis Beta and shaped in the depths of the ruined temple where the bones of the Ancestor were found, the Sha'eilat warriors wield a wide array of weapons in battle. Each of them has his own preferred tool of death, but all of them use close combat weapons in order to best savor their kills. Many have scoured the crypts of Parecxis Beta for the relics of their own past lives, but few of these dreadful weapons have survived to this day. Most Warriors instead forge new weapons for themselves, or call upon the Warp to grant them powerful daemon blades, as thirsty for the blood of their victims as their wielders. Regardless of its origins, the weapon of a Sha'eilat Warrior is one of a kind, vicious and cruel, created to inflict the maximum of pain on those unfortunate enough to face its master. More often than not, the Sha'eilat poison their blades with concoctions of vile humors and Warp-twisted ingredients, taking great pleasure in the agony they can cause with the slightest scratch.
In the society of pre-Imperium Parecxis, these Sha'eilat were the leaders and champions of their masters' gene-forged armies, leading tens of thousands of tortured beings into pointless wars over pride and territory. Now, they have fallen far, but know that one day the glories of their past shall be their again, and soon surpassed. They have adapted well to the meritocratic hierarchy of the Forsaken Sons, and seek to prove themselves in the eye of Arken both to show off their superiority and to maintain their alliance with the one responsible for their resurrection, mon-keigh or not. Their natural pride makes it difficult for them to work with one another, while at the same time thirsting for the blind adoration of the weak-willed cultists that fill the holds of the Hand of Ruin. Most of them fight at the head of a small group of hand-picked humans, choosing those whose appearance and skill they can tolerate. Others have joined with the most depraved Forsaken Sons who have embraced the path of Slaanesh. Others yet fight alone, marching ahead of the rest of the warband, seeking mighty champions amongst the enemy to test their skills against.
Gene-Lord
Before the Great Crusade reached Parecxis, its human population was ruled over by the Sha'eilat. Billions of lives were sacrificed to sate their deviant hungers, but the atrocities of the Gene-Lords are amongst the most terrifying. They were the former leaders of the Eldar colony in Parecxis, using the human population are guinea pigs for genetic experiments. Entire generations were twisted into difform monstrosities so that the Gene-Lords would harvest their flesh and bones, or send them as vast hordes through which they waged wars against one another for the pettiest reasons imaginable. The coming of the Fall only revealed the corruption of their souls to the mortal eye, making them into half-daemons of foul humors and black bone. During this dark era, the laboratories of the Gene-Lords were constantly filled with the screams of their latest experiments. All of them were burned down by squads of Ultramarines flamers, annihilated from orbits, or cleansed with nuclear fire. On one occasion, an entire island was stripped bare of life through careful local deployment of the Life-Eater virus – the deed, exceedingly rare for the Thirteenth Legion, considered better than risk anything escaping that particular Gene-Lord's stronghold.
When Parecxis was conquered by the Imperium, the Gene-Lords were quickly identified as primary targets, though the secular Imperium of these days did not recognize them for what they truly were. One by one, the rulers of the system were brought down, dying ignominious deaths at the hands of an inferior species. Very few Gene-Lords have been brought back by the Forsaken Sons, though the exact reason for this is unknown, and a subject of speculation amongst both the Fleshmasters and those of the Sha'eilat already resurrected. It could be that the picking of the Sha'eilat souls to be reborn is random, but the involvement of the Youngest God in the process makes this unlikely. Regardless of the truth, the galaxy can only be grateful that no more than half a dozen of these terrifying, ruthless fallen overlords have been dragged off Hell by the Forsaken Sons.
In their new bodies, Gene-Lords wear elaborate robes that hide the armor beneath, and are surrounded at all times by an escort of Sha'eilat Warriors and their own creations. They all experiment on themselves, twisting their own genetic coding to reshape their bodies into their own twisted idea of the ultimate lifeform. This has made them naturally seek an alliance with the Fleshmasters of the Third Legion, whose own quest for perfection has taken them down similar paths. The goal of the Gene-Lords is to recreate the 'Perfect Form' that was bestowed upon them by Slaanesh when the Fall engulfed Parecxis in its catastrophic aftermath.
Each Gene-Lord is unique, a nightmare of altered flesh that more often than not abandon the humanoid shape altogether. Even those who choose to keep their former form for practical purposes still alter their organs and bone structure, making them even more disturbing as the Sha'eilat normally are. Fiendishly intelligent, they seek to restore the influence and power that were once theirs, cooperating with the Forsaken Sons only because the Chaos Marines can give them access to the equipment, supplies and test subjects they need.
When the time comes for war, they surround themselves with the products of their experiments and other servants. The Gene-Lords look down upon direct combat, preferring to enjoy battle through the senses of their enthralled slaves by using various methods of connecting their minds – which can go from psychic links, to clouds of pheromones, to thick cables of nerve actually linking their brains to those of their helpless thralls. These unfortunate souls, which are either test subjects unlucky enough to survive whatever fell alchemy was performed on their bodies or the results of unholy cloning and genetic alterations, are unable to defy the will of their master, and willingly go into battle in search of death – the only thing that can end the unending agony of their existence. Some especially cruel and depraved Gene-Lords – even by the standards of their kin – actually enjoy experiencing death through their link to their creations.
Scions of Plague
Plague Homonculi
Each Plague Homonculus is born inside the cursed halls of the Palace of Glass, brought into blasphemous existence by the hand of Pharod the Reborn himself. These creatures are human in shape, yet it is not flesh but corruption that hides beneath their skin. Distilled plagues are gathered by the Reborn, who injects the liquid – one drop of which is capable of killing a thousand mortals – into an empty skin that has been grown within his daemonic Garden. Once the grotesque balloon has been filled, some of the liquid hardens, forming bones of black material that allow the creature to move. At the same moment, Pharod places within his newest creation a shard of his own tainted and fractured consciousness, awakening the Homonculus and placing it wholly under his command. There are no organs nor muscles within a Plague Homonculus' body : it is the movement of their bones and the flow of the liquid imitating a living body that allows them to walk and pass for human.
In battle, the Plague Homonculus display strength superior to that of a human, but lesser than that of an Astartes, while their skin is easy to pierce – through such a course of action is most unwise, given the corruption flowing beneath – and their bones almost as though as adamantium. Their minds are too simple for the use of weapons, so focused are they on the propagation of their plagues. They use the poison in their bodies as their primary weapon, spitting corruption at their foes through every orifice as well as any wound their enemy is foolish enough to inflict – wounds that close of their own once enough of the plague-filled substance has poured out of it. As the Plague Homonculus uses more and more of the liquid that makes up its body in this fashion, it appears to grow thinner and thinner, until it is little more than a skeleton over which a skin has been hung. Even then it will continue to move and fight, its every move motivated by the orders given to it by Pharod upon its birth. This sight can unnerve even the most iron-willed soldier, for to look upon a Plague Homonculus on the edge of death is to look upon Nurgle's grand design made real : an existence inevitably nearing its end, yet struggling to bring more down with it into ruin. The primitive awareness visible in an Homonculus' eyes – which in themselves are nothing more than two orbs of coalesced putrefaction – is also terrifying, as it shines with joy and delight at accomplishing its existence's purpose.
Plague Homonculi are infiltrators, whose human appearances – which can be male or female in equal measure, without any difference between the two's capabilities – are considered works of art in their own right by their creator. While living amongst humans, they take the guise of a traumatized survivor of some cataclysmic battle to justify any lack of response and unusual behavior. They are both programmed with a single mission and a more general purpose, which they use to determine their course of action when faced with difficulties or once their primary goal has been accomplished. Few survive the execution of their goals, and those are taken care of by Pharod himself, who refills them with his pestilent cocktail and adds them to his personal guard until such a time comes when he has need of their services again. These veterans are even more dangerous than common Plague Homonculi, for every 'refill' flows them anew with the favor of Nurgle, making their consciousness grows more developed as the corrupt code that Pharod implanted within them evolves into more complex forms.
Plague-Born
The disease unleashed upon Hive Talexorn by Pharod's agents was a weaker version of Nurgle's own glorious Rot. While it lacks the ability to turn mortal souls into Plaguebearers, those lesser minions of Nurgle that labor incessantly in His domain, the plague of Pharod's making can twist the living flesh of those who are touched by it into something halfway between mortality and daemonhood. Not all those touched by the plague are thus inflicted : only those whose soul present cracks for the corruption to use, or were cultists of Nurgle to begin with, can reach this twisted ascension through Pharod's disease. As the infection progresses and the mind of the victim is slowly eroded by fever and hallucinations, the body becomes less and less human, though the mutation remains hidden until the disease has run its course. At the same time, the corruption of the soul progresses, slowly tearing apart the victim's faith in the God-Emperor and replacing it with the lies of Chaos. When, at last, both body and soul reach their breaking point, the human identity of the plague victim is shattered to pieces and a new Plague-Born appears.
Marks of Nurgle's favor manifest on rotten flesh, new strength fills the ruined body, and the mind of whoever the victim was is replaced by a faithful scion of the Father of Plague. This is not daemonic possession, nor is it a complete overwrite of the victim's personality. Some trace of the previous being remain, serving as the foundation for a new consciousness, which care only for the propagation of plague and decay across the universe. To the faithful of the Imperium, the Plague-Born are the worst of the treacherous damned, for they chose to accept their corruption and welcome it in their soul, instead of embracing death and the Emperor's grace. Since a Plague-Born is created when the soul of a plague victim accepts Nurgle's touch, they are not wrong in this judgment, though one may argue that since their mind was clouded at the time of their decision, many of them aren't to blame for their damnation. Such concerns, however, are irrelevant once the Plague-Born is created. No matter how it came to be, it is a monster that cannot be redeemed, and whose sickened soul is bound for the Garden of Nurgle after its death.
Plague-Born are intelligent creatures, capable of reasoning and of controlling their lesser, mindless kindred the Plague Zombies. They also have a survival instinct, since their destruction would set back the propagation of decay around them. Their goal is to share the plague that made them what they are with as many people as possible, as well as to earn the attention and favor of their divine patron. Like other followers of Nurgle, they are more than capable of working together toward a single aim. Upon its birth, a Plague-Born will seek out others of its kind, as well as gather as many of the Plague Zombies that are liable to be present as well. They lead their lesser kin through shouted orders or telepathic injunctions, commanding them to move to other areas or to perform simple tasks. These orders cannot be given to a single Zombie, but are instead broadcast over the horde they have gathered. Subtlety is not a trait of the Plague-Born, who tend to appear only after the plague has already claimed hundreds of lives and the infected are ready to consider any option for their survival.
The Plague-Born are strong and resilient, and their touch carry the same disease that turned them into twisted parodies of life. So strong is the influence of Nurgle within them however, that they cannot use any weapon or device more sophisticated than a lump of metal without it falling apart in their hands. At the same time, this weakens the armor and weapons of those who go to battle against one of them, accelerating the decaying process of both. This field of entropy also causes the lairs of the Plague-Born to turn to ruins mere weeks after their arrival, a process which only gets worse if several of the cursed creatures gather.
Plague Zombie
Amongst the millions who were infected by the plague, most fought against death until their dying breath, refusing the embrace of Nurgle and recommending their souls to the Emperor even as they died, some by their own hands as the horror of their condition became too much to bear. By denying the Lord of All in life, they also limited His hold over them in death : instead of becoming Plague-Born, their corpses turned into Plague Zombies, mindless creatures with no reflection in the Warp. On the outside, the Plague Zombies look like corpses in varying states of decay, moving awkwardly and wailing their torment in a disturbing choir. Guided only by the daemonic lifeforms swarming in their rotting flesh, these beings are led by their sapient brethren into battle as cannon fodder. They are slow and stupid, but possess strength superior to a normal human and always move in great numbers. Directed by the will of Nurgle, they seek to infect and consume all untainted life in order to spread His blessings – the only thing they are worth for as those who rejected them in life. They do not know fear, do not hesitate to throw themselves in front of overwhelming firepower and never, ever relent in their assault. Survivors from Talexorn learned that Plague Zombies are blind, perceiving the world around them either through sound or, if a psychically gifted scion of the Plague God is near, through some kind of warp- sense allowing them to detect the untainted souls around them. Without a disciple of Nurgle to guide them, they are not very dangerous, and can easily be destroyed through traps and the use of explosives.
Plague Zombies move slowly and have difficulties negotiating even the simplest of obstacles, such as stairs or fortified walls. However, great hordes of them can gather enough momentum to bring down even the hardest fortifications, or form ramps of dead flesh for those coming behind to climb. Since they are only kept moving by the disease coursing in their forms, the only ways to put them down are to burn them to ashes, to blow them to pieces or to remove the head – either through decapitation or pulverization. This last form of destruction depends on the fact that most of the microscopic daemons responsible for the plague are located in the victim's brain, in an attempt to force the mind to accept the touch of Nurgle while the body is still alive. Any other damage inflicted to the Plague Zombie may push it away or slow it down, but even with a limb severed the creature will continue to crawl towards the nearest unsullied human, leaking foul fluids behind it.
The main weapon of the Plague Zombie is its bite. Its limbs lack the focus and precision necessary for anything else than simply clinging to its victim, keeping it in place so that the creature can use its jaw to tear chunks of flesh off the poor soul. Plague Zombies usually surround their prey before bringing it down together – not out of any tactical instinct but because that is the only way for them to prevent the human from simply running. A single bite from a Plague Zombie is a death sentence : the disease spreads immediately through the victim's body, and cannot be cured by any method known to Man. While hygiene, sufficient food and devotion to the God-Emperor can keep the airborne and Warpborn forms of the infection at bay, nothing short of a bolt to the head can save from such a direct contact with the disease. Astartes are capable of resisting the disease, but even them can be killed if too much of the daemonic pathogen finds its way to their bloodstream. However, none of the Sons of Calth who fell to the Plague Zombies rose again as mindless husks – though whether this is due to their superior physiology or the Emperor's protection is unknown.
Former inmate of Parecxis Gamma
Before the unleashing of the Warp Storm, Parecxis Gamma was used by the Imperium to put away all the criminal elements in most of the Trebedius Sector. The planet had rich reserves of promethium, the source of which was never really identified but is believed to be linked to the past of the Parecxis System under the rule of its xenos overlords. However, the unstable nature of its soil made it impossible to use conventional methods of extraction. Instead, manual labor was required – incredibly dangerous, health-ravaging manual labor. Several years after the system was integrated to the Imperium – at the time when the taxes started and when the Ultramarines were far away – the Governor of Parecxis Alpha and his counselors decided to turn the planet into a penal world, in order to use the prisoners as a workforce. Millions of criminals flocked from the Sector, living harsh, short lives in the bowels of the extraction complexes. Regardless of the gravity of their crime, all were sent to the promethium pits, the prospect of their sentence's end the only thing that gave them hope. But when the Heresy began, even that hope was taken away. By the time the Warp Storm was unleashed by the Forsaken Sons, the inmates of Parecxis Gamma had grown bitter and thirsty for revenge – a quest that would be considered rightful by many, even in the Imperium.
The Warp Storm brought forth the bloodlust of the caged humans, and they rebelled against their cruel overseers. Petty criminals and gang-lords alike butchered their guardians and claimed vast sections of the planet before being contained and restarting the territory wars that have always and will always plagued any criminal community. Several months later, as the shambling society they had built was beginning to enter its terminal phase, the chief Sorcerer of the Forsaken Sons conducted a ritual that teleported the millions of surviving inmates to the capital world, using the power of the countless daemons drawn by the bloodshed.
Already changed by the slow descent of the planet into the Warp, all of the survivors of Parecxis Gamma have been driven insane by their passage through the Warp. This madness takes various forms : most of the escapees are trapped in full-blown psychosis, attacking everything alive around them with the only exception of the strongest servants of the Blood God. Others can still reason, but are driven by an undying rage that is the motivation behind their every act, no matter the circumstances. They base every decision and choice around the prospect of spilling blood, caring nothing for morality or their own survival – only the number of skulls and gallons of vitae they can offer to the Blood God.
These marked mortals can hardly be controlled, but those high in the favor of the Dark Gods can herd them in the general direction of the enemy. Those bearing the Mark of Khorne are especially capable at commanding them, but since they are generally as bloodthirsty as the inmates, it serves little purpose in a tactical sense. They are armed with whatever equipment they looted from the corpses of those they killed. Most prefer close combat weapon, as this is the favorite way of Khorne, but those who managed to retain a modicum of sanity can use ranged weapons as well – with a preference for plasma weapons, flamers and other tools of war with little regard for the safety of the user.
The most frenzied and the weakest inmates died soon after the teleport. In the final battle for Parecxis, only the most cunning or ruthless were present, gathered by the agents of the Forsaken Sons as a powerful host fighting for the glory of the Blood God.
Daemon Vessel
When Asim, lord of the Coven, warped the penal population of Parecxis Gamma to the prime world, he had to bind a thousand of them with the daemons hovering around the planet. These Neverborn were lowly spirits of bloodlust and violence, birthed by the prisoners' revolt or drawn to it. For weeks, they had fed on the carnage, and though most of their power was expended when they aided the Sorcerer in his spell, only the strongest managed to claim one of the consecrated vessels for themselves. Immediately consuming the soul of the wretched mortals, the daemons have since reshaped the bodies of their hosts to best serve them in the pursuit of their dark appetites. Those daemons who belong to the legions of the Bloodletters sport the horns of their kin, while the more varied Neverborn alter the flesh of their host in whatever fashion best reflect the particular madness that gave them birth. Blades of bone emerge from blood-red limbs, and thick hide covers most of the exposed flesh.
By the time of the final battle for Parecxis, very few of these daemonhosts remained. Most had been destroyed, either by the loyalists or by the Forsaken Sons themselves. Others had simply burned through their bodies, reducing them to dust or twisting, mutated messes. Despite the power they could call from the Warp Storm, others yet were banished back into the Empyrean when careless use of their powers drained them of energy. The few surviving ones were the strongest and the most cunning, much like the mortals that had come to Parecxis with them. Hunted and captured by the Forsaken Sons, they were bound by the Sorcerers of the Coven and used as powerful but unreliable weapons, as likely to slaughter the foe as to turn on the Sorcerer responsible for their perceived enslavement. Outside of battle, wards force the daemonhost to assume a more or less human aspect, although some details always reveal its true nature even to a non-psychic observer.
Only those truly high in the eyes of the Dark Gods or powerful enough to destroy any challenging them can fight alongside the Daemon Vessels. Anyone else will either by killed by a daemon that makes no distinction between enemies or allies, or driven to madness by the aura of bloodlust that constantly surrounds them when they are unleashed. Unlike other of their kind, Asim's creations care nothing for manipulation and subtle scheming : their only goal is to kill in order to sate the never-ending thirst for blood that animates them all. This is reflected in their abilities : they are utterly unable of performing sorcery, nor can they twist the environment around them in any significant way, or alter people's perceptions beyond increasing their rage. On the battlefield, they charge blindly toward the enemy, trusting their speed, resilience and daemonic regeneration to keep them incarnate until they reach their foe and can begin the carnage. While they excel in the slaughter of weak prey, and can empty a trench of mortal soldiers in a handful of seconds, Astartes can match them in strength and speed, and sufficient firepower, like a las-cannon or plasma weapons, can inflict enough damage to their incarnated bodies to shatter their link to the material plane and cast them back into the Warp.
As they did before the bargain that allowed them into the Materium, the Daemon Vessels grow stronger on bloodshed. The energy they gain from inflicting death or being around it can greatly enhance their powers, but this boost is only temporary, and fades almost as soon as the battle is over and there are no more enemies – or allies to weak to defend – to slay. The Forsaken Sons thus mainly use the Daemon Vessels against inferior enemies, hoping that by the time elite forces arrive the daemonhosts will have grown strong enough from the slaughter.
Unbound
During the Exodus, the Astartes aboard the Hand of Ruin took considerable casualties. Of the thousands of warriors rescued from the Siege of Terra by the Commander of the Sons of Horus, barely more than a thousand survived. While many of the dead were destroyed by demonic fire or tainted beyond salvation by plagues or mutation, the gene-seed of hundred of Legionaries was collected by dutiful Apothecaries, still carrying on their task even as they fought for their lives as fiercely as any other soul aboard the ship. These priceless organs were stored in one of the vessel best-defended rooms, for they contained the warband's hope for the future.
After the conquest of the Mulor system, Arken commanded the Apothecaries amongst the Forsaken Sons – who had renamed themselves the Fleshmasters – to begin the process of creating a new generation of Astartes. The youths of the system's three populated worlds were taken for genetic testing, with an especially plentiful bounty coming from Mulor Secundus, where the evolutionary manipulations of Jikaerus made use of the time-dilatation of the world to breed stronger, more gifted specimens. Several thousands of these innocents were taken from their families and submitted to merciless training and testing. Those who survived both were implanted with the organs that would transform them into Astartes, and buried within life-preserving caskets while the transformations took root in their flesh. Through Warpcraft and genetic manipulation, the time required to transform these boys into transhuman warriors was drastically diminished. After several months of agonizing transformation, the first Unbound emerged from the Fleshmasters' laboratories, ready and eager for war. They were equipped with the weapons of the dead, assigned Astartes leaders, and thus was born one of the most ruthless and devastating forces under Arken's command.
While most Unbound are traditional Legionaries, there are some differences. First, the Unbound haven't gone through the indoctrination process that was designed to keep the first Space Marines loyal and unquestioning. They have gone through the hypno-training required for them to function efficiently as part of the warband, but have undergone no brainwashing of chemical nature. The ways by which Arken's servants ensured the loyalty of their creations are far more subtle. During their transformation, the Unbound relived some of the memories of the warrior whose gene-seed was implanted within them, as well as collected and edited recollections from still living members of the Forsaken Sons. This, coupled with the teachings of the Dark Gods that they received while still human, ensure that none of the Unbound will refuse to join the warband.
A second difference is that some of the hormones flowing through every Legionary's bloodstream have been strengthened within the Unbound. This creates more sanguine and brutal warriors, who feel no fear and take greater pleasure in battle. The sensations of war are also amplified for the Unbound by the absence of proper discipline in their ranks. They go to war in packs, pointed in the direction of the foe by their older overseers and attacking with relentless savagery. Without the rigorous training that shapes a young man into a Scout, then an Astartes, Unbound are exactly what they appear to be : teenagers with the strength of demigods and the opportunity to use their might against inferior foes. Their lack of discipline makes them an unreliable force, but Arken considers that they are still young and will grow out of it in time. Supporting that theory is the handful of Unbound that act more like Legionaries, following orders and not losing themselves to battle-joy. These are often pack leaders, imposing their will over a group of their kindred through sheer strength and cunning, as well as through the superior weaponry that is entrusted to them by the Forsaken Sons' armorers.
The Unbound who were taken from Mulor Secundus often display unique characteristics, resulting from the cultivation of their bloodlines by Jikaerus. Heightened senses, strength and resilience accrued are only the most visible of these talents, with some of them having been lost to the inevitable randomness of genetics or erased by the Ascension of their carriers. For those who retain the gifts that enabled them to survive on the lightless world, these peaks are an edge that can allow them to similarly thrive in their new environment. Still, the Fleshmasters are curious, and observe their creations on every battlefield where they are deployed, looking for flaws to correct in the next generation – one that will be even deadlier than the current one.
Half-Breeds
The secrets of the Emperor's great genetic project have, ever since the beginning of the Great Crusade, be a source of endless curiosity despite all the risks involved in even the slightest research. Apart from the Master of Mankind Himself, the adepts that worked alongside Him to create the Primarchs and the first Astartes, and the Apothecaries that are tasked with preserving this genetic legacy, almost none in the Imperium or beyond have the tiniest ideas of just what the Space Marines and their god-like fathers really are. During the Heresy, many sought to unlock the mystery of Astartes' genetics, and while few managed anything beyond the creation of deformed monsters, there was one Legion that accomplished something none would have believed possible : the creation of the Half-Breeds, beings standing between Homo Sapiens and Homo Astartes on the evolutionary coil.
It is unknown if the Alpha Legion already possessed the secret of partially transforming the DNA of human agents into that of Space Marines before they turned against the Emperor. There were many rumors about the Twentieth's operatives, but as with many things about this Legion, the truth remains obscured. Even when the Apothecaries among the Forsaken Sons that hailed from Alpharius' bloodline revealed the secrets of hybridization, they either didn't know when that knowledge had first been discovered or refused to tell. Regardless, the Fleshmasters were delighted at this new avenue of research, and many of them began to study it and try to adapt it to the rest of the Astartes bloodlines. They used prisoners from the Mulor system and samples from the vast stocks of gene-seed aboard the Hand of Ruin for their experiments, perfecting the process a little more with each catastrophic failure and half-baked success until they could reliably turn a human being into what is now called a 'Half-Breed' with various degrees of scorn from the true Astartes and terrified respect from the pure-strain humans. Even now, those who undergo the surgical and genetic modifications have only a fifty percent chance of surviving it at best. Despite these risks, many volunteer for the procedure, eager to share the transhuman power of their masters, even if it is only a fraction of it.
In most cases, it is difficult to tell a Half-Breed from a human, which is precisely the purpose behind their original creation by the Alpha Legion. However, depending on which Legion's gene-seed was employed, physical signs can betray the alteration done to the subject biology, though those could always be attributed to cosmetic surgery or the touch of the Warp. The Half-Breeds act as intermediaries between the Forsaken Sons and their mortal slaves, forming a privileged caste in the warband's organization – though they still aren't as valued as slaves with technical skills, and are generally seen as little more than freak lab experiments by the Astartes not belonging to the Fleshmasters' ranks.
Half-Breeds have enhanced speed, strength, and reflexes. They also display the physical traits of the Legion's gene-seed, such as white hair for those carrying Third Legion's blood or black eyes and pale skin in the case of the Eighth. It has been noted that they tend to have character traits as well, but whether this is due to the gene-seed altering their brains or to a pre-existing compatibility with such behavior is still unknown. The gene-seed of the Emperor's Children create self-serving men and women who can more easily gather servants around them and lead them into battle, while Iron Warriors' blood makes them more taciturn and intellectually oriented. Other Legions also produce specific effects, though not even the Fleshmasters have tried to use Fourteenth Legion's gene-seed in these experiments. What passes for a progenoid gland in a Plague Marine is a nest of corruption and disease, and, by order of Arken himself, using them in the Hall of Asclepios is strictly forbidden.
Breakers of Tarox
Now that the lies of the Imperial Truth have been exposed, Mankind is slowly learning the true horrors of the galaxy it inhabits. One of those lessons is that the Warp changes all things, not just according to the random whims of its gods, but following the inner nature of those who are exposed to its mutagenous touch. Such was the fate of those who are now called the Breakers of Tarox.
Before the Warp Storm engulfed Parecxis, Ledean Tarox was a captain of the Planetary Defense Forces, leading a hundred men in battle against the various threats to the planet – and in those days, with the Heresy still recent and the galaxy-wide Scouring ongoing, there were a lot of such things. He and his men were deployed on more than one occasion against pirates, rebels, and the occasional xenos opportunist, but most of their battles were waged against the very people they were sworn to protect. Despite the Emperor's final victory against the traitors, fear and confusion were still rife across the Imperium, and many were unable to cope with the new reality they found themselves in, where angels could fall and daemons were real. The first time Tarox was called upon to suppress an apocalyptic cult in Santorius, he did all he could to avoid civilian casualties, but he and his men were soon surrounded by frenzied fanatics crying out for the ritual suicide of all Mankind. He ordered them to open fire, slaughtering thousands and unwillingly marking his soul in the eyes of Khorne.
The event left a bitter taste in Tarox' mouth, but before he could deal with it, the Warp Storm unleashed by the Forsaken Sons dragged the Parecxis System halfway into the Empyrean, and the duties of the PDF began even darker. As they had proved their ability to deal with such matters, Tarox and his men were sent to suppress the other cults and panicked mobs that arose with the coming of the storm, killing civilians and heretics alike by the thousand. With the skies filled with the power of Chaos, this had consequences beyond the raving of their consciences. They came to enjoy the massacre of weaker enemies, to relish in their martial superiority, and to thirst for more. Accidents began to happen – civilians unrelated to the riots being found dead, or soldiers from other units going missing after joint operations with Tarox' troops. At the same time as their minds were slowly twisted, their flesh was tainted by the Warp. Tarox, out of loyalty for the men he commanded or seeking to save his own skin, did all he could to hide the mutations from his superiors, all the while fighting his own degeneration with a will of iron. However, keeping the secret soon became impossible, and he led his men to the underhive of Santorius, leaving behind him a bloody trail as he tore his way across the hive's upper districts. There, he and his men ruled over the lesser mutants and wretches that made up the hive's lowest classes.
It was at that time that he was contacted by Dekaros, the Alpha Legionnaire sent by Arken ahead of the Forsaken Sons to prepare the ground for the incoming invasion. The Lord of Shadows promised Tarox a cure for his condition if he would turn against the Imperium – something that his mutations had already forced him to do anyway. The mutant lord accepted, and on the Forsaken Sons' arrival, he and his Breakers – as the increasing army of mutants that followed them – burst from the underhive and took part in the conquest of the city. In return for his services, Tarox received a temporary cure for his condition, that would prevent him from devolving like the rest of his men, and a position in the future new ruling order of Parecxis, as imagined by the Accords of Dekaros.
The Breakers are hulking mutants the size of an Astartes in Terminator plate, wearing the remnants of their torn PDF uniforms or new 'clothing' bestowed upon them by the masses of lesser mutants that follow them to battle like dogs. Their skin is the color of blood and tensed tight by the bulging muscle beneath, and their faces are distorted into a predatory mouth that they can never close, exposing rows of fangs dripping with saliva. Such is their strength that they can rip a human being apart with their bare hands, and their vitality allows them to shrug off lesser wounds. Although Tarox can control them and prevent them from turning on those who fight alongside them, he cannot do anything to stop them from running off in pursuit of the foe, or feeding on the dead once the battle is over. Whether there remains anything of the men the Breakers once were is uncertain. They never speak, and probably can't, and psykers feel nothing from them but burning rage – but then again, they feel little else from the World Eaters Legionaries.
Puppeteers
The Chaos cult known as the Puppeteers appeared on Parecxis soon after the coming of the Warp Storm. As confusion and anarchy spread across the system, a group of nobles and factory-owners of Parecxis Alpha sought to keep their employees and servants calm and under control. What began as a laudable attempt to prevent mayhem and destruction was, however, quickly twisted by the malevolent influence of Chaos. Priests brought in to soothe the workers' concerns failed to rise in them the same faith that kept many millions sane during these nightmarish months, speeches about the need for calm and unity blared through a thousand megaphones did nothing to keep the madness at bay, and ultimately, the members of the group turned to darker methods. They spiked the food and drinks of their employees with chemical substances known for their calming effects. It worked : calm reasserted itself, and the productivity of the group's Manufactorium returned near its level prior to the arrival of the Storm. The fresh influx of goods helped keep order on a global scale, and the example of these industries gave courage to many others.
But the Warp cares not for the intent behind such gestures. No matter how noble their purpose may have been, the leaders had still deliberately manipulated their fellow man, robbing them of their free will and risking their lives by making them ingest potentially unsafe compounds, and the consequences of that sin began to appear in their own flesh and soul. Seeing their success, they sought to push their questionable methods further, thinking that if they could apply them to the entire planet, Parecxis would be safe no matter what horrors the Empyrean threw at it. They began to experiment with other, more complex chemicals, digging up ancient texts from the Dark Age of Technology and studying the works of some of the worsts tyrants of the Age of Strife. Soon, rumors began to spread across Parecxis Alpha : tales of dead-eyed men and women walking the streets, going from work to their home without speaking a single word to anyone they met.
In time, the Imperial authorities on Parecxis discovered the deeds of those who would be called the Puppeteers, and the wrath of justice fell upon them. Their headquarters were attacked by a massive force of Arbites and Guards alike, led by officers to give them discipline and preachers to give them the strength to face the husks of human flesh that defended their tyrannous masters. All but one of the cult's fortresses were razed without any survivor, but in their keep of Santorius, the Puppeteers had been working on yet another chemical agent, this one involving Warp-sorcery to bind the very souls of those exposed to it. In the battle, the fabrication devices were destroyed, causing an explosion that killed almost all those involved in the fight and poisoned the ground.
Forced to flee, horribly scared by the chemicals that had been released by the explosion, the surviving Puppeteers completely lost what remained of their sanity and humanity that day. When Dekaros reached out to them, they accepted his offer without hesitation, seeing it as a chance to get revenge on a society they believed had betrayed them without reason. When the Forsaken Sons arrived in the Parecxis system, they rose from their hiding places, leading armies of mindless thralls that served little purpose beyond wasting the loyalists' ammunition and break their morale with the horrible spectacle of rank upon rank of slack-jawed, empty-eyed humans. In return for their service, they became part of the Accords, and were given relics of xenos origin, gathered by the Sons of Horus in the glorious days of the Great Crusade. They do not worship any particular Chaos God, although it is obvious to all who meet them that they bear the touch of the Warp. Their corruption cannot be attributed to any of the Ruinous Powers : it is instead the inevitable consequence of their deeds reforging their flesh in accordance to the truth of their souls. Now, the Puppeteers only seek to increase the numbers of slave under their command, and to prove themselves as superior to all other humans.
While their slaves are almost useless in battle, the Puppeteers themselves are a force to be reckoned with when they deign join the battlefield. Clouds of colored smoke emanate from their bodies, driving those who breath them mad or destroying their wills. The use of chemicals and the wounds taken in the battle of Santorius have ravaged their bodies beyond what even the Forsaken Sons' tech can repair, forcing them to wear isolating suits at all times. These suits both protect them from the outside air and intravenously feed them the various substances needed to maintain their powers and life. They are also reinforced to protect their wearers from more conventional dangers, but are cumbersome and difficult to move, forcing the Puppeteers to rely on vehicles or, in the case of some extremely vain cultists, palanquins carried by slaves into battle.
Priests of Mutability
The past of Parecxis is a dark one, and despite the Imperium's best efforts to erase all traces of the Sha'eilat atrocious reign, there were still those who found the remnants of the corrupt Eldar's cruel empire. Fragments of technology preserved by adepts of the Mechanicum with a fascination for xenotech, pieces of lore and recollections of the war fought against the Sha'eilat : these were few and far between, but entire rich bloodlines spent generations and millions of credits collecting them. In most case, the only reason behind this quest was idle curiosity, a desire to know the past of their homeworld, or a guilty pleasure in the transgression of the Imperium's edict that all things related to Parecxis' past be destroyed. Certainly, none of the original collectors had imagined what their hobby would ultimately result into.
These collectors – rich families, adepts of the Mechanicum, and scholars – were tied together in a loose circle, secretly exchanging news of their discoveries and acquisitions. It was a mostly informal group, with actual gatherings beyond two members meeting within one's mansion being exceedingly rare. When the Horus Heresy was declared, however, the members of the circle fell to paranoia. They feared that the knowledge they had accumulated would be discovered and used to brand them as enemies of the Imperium. Each of them secretly thought that the others were going to denounce him in order to hide their own sin, and in their desperation, all turned to the very lore that had the power to seal their doom. No mortal power or influence could save them from death if their crime was discovered, not with the climate of suspicion that permeated all of the galaxy in these darkest of days. But perhaps, they thought, another type of power could. If they could master the secrets of the xenos breed that had once ruled Parecxis, and use it in defense of the Imperium, then surely their crime would be forgiven. Calling upon those of their brethren they yet trusted, they formed small groups of researchers, and began experimenting with the knowledge gathered by their forebears and themselves over more than a century.
But the secrets the collectors had gathered were those of the Sha'eilat Gene-Lords. There had been a reason why the Imperium had decided to eradicate even the memory of these foul alien overlords. The lore the collectors possessed was fragmentary, but it still bore the mark of their evil, and as the light of the Imperial Truth faded and older, darker truths reclaimed their hold over reality, the mark of Chaos spread to those who carelessly handled that which it had spawned. However, Slaanesh had neither time nor concern for those humans dabbling in the secret arts of His dead children, and it was another God that saw the experiments and decided that these foolish mortals could be of use. Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate and God of Change, marked the collectors as His own, and by the time the Warp Storm had arrived they were already more cultists than misguided loyalists. When Dekaros learned of them, they had begun to call themselves the Priests of Mutability, worshiping Tzeentch and seeing the reforging of living flesh down to the genetic level as a sacred act.
The Priests of Mutability have long shed their humanity, endless alterations to their bodies and brains cutting them off the rest of Mankind at a deep, primordial level. Now, their only goal is to evolve even further, to learn the secrets of the Sha'eilat from those who were brought back to life by the Forsaken Sons. Some seek this only in pursuit of knowledge, fascinated by the mechanisms of genetic forging; others do so for power, desiring to reshape their forms into beings of ever-greater power. Whatever their motivations, they are dangerous both in the battlefield and outside of it, for all of them were once influential people, and are used to keeping secrets.
Outwardly, the Priests appear human, disguising their deformities and mutations under heavy, broad robes. Unlike the Sha'eilat Gene-Lords (and most of Tzeentch worshipers), they enjoy going into battle themselves, testing the might of their reshaped bodies against their foes. Some fight from afar, other in close combat, each depending on how he or she has reforged his or her flesh. To them, only through constant trials and experimentations can they keep enhancing themselves. That is not to say that they go into battle alone : their faction has many serfs under its command, made of those who served the Priests before their betrayal of the Imperium. They also have under their command a handful of mindless monstrosities, that are unleashed in the general direction of the enemy when subtlety is no longer necessary – those of their own number who failed to keep their mutating flesh under control and were destroyed by the very gifts they sought.
Hitmen of the Cartel
When the Imperium reclaimed Parecxis from the darkness of Old Night, it brought with it not just the ideals of the Great Crusade and the technology of the Mechanicum, but also hundred of thousands of colonists. Although the system already had a human population, it was a fearful and submissive lot, made that way by generations of merciless selection at the hands of their alien overlords. They were also ignorant, knowing nothing beyond farming and serving as toys for their xenos masters. They needed leadership, and the skills that would allow them to take their rightful place amongst the planets of the Imperium.
But not all of these immigrants came willingly, nor with the best intents. With the ascension of the Emperor and the instauration of His rule, Terra had become a dangerous place for many of the more unsavory elements of its society. While the techno-barbarians of Old Night and their accomplices had no hope of escaping the hammer of Imperial justice, lesser criminals took advantage of the need for colonists to escape the investigations of the Administratum before their own sins were revealed. Pooling together their resources, several such families came to Parecxis, and took advantage of the planet's state to build a true empire of crime : the Cartel.
For decades, the Cartel ruled Parecxis' underworld. Its masters grew rich on the traffic of drugs and forbidden relics, taking refuge in the shadows cast by the Emperor's Light. They took great care to remain hidden from the eyes of Parecxis' governing body, restraining their activities to the under-hives, the dark alleys and the private domains of rich and debased patrons. While the Great Crusade was an age of illumination and progress, there were many who were discontent with its new reign of law, desiring to continue indulging in the now forbidden pleasures and superiority their foresires had enjoyed. The Cartel gave them the opportunity to taste these things, for a steep price. Bordellos and drug houses were hidden and supplied by networks of professional criminals who had never known any other life, many of them raised from birth by the Cartel.
Then came the Heresy, and the Cartel found itself divided, not along lines of loyalty to the Imperium – for criminals had little interest in whatever side won the war – but of more personal allegiance. Various crime lords sought to take command of the Cartel for themselves, disposing of their peers and ruling unopposed. This gang wars lasted for all of the Heresy, causing much chaos and confusion across Parecxis, until at last one victor emerged – now the master of a hollowed out Cartel, almost bled dry by intern conflict. It was only with the help of Dekaros that this individual was able to maintain the Cartel's influence and rise to become one of the faction lords of the new order preached by the Lord of Shadows.
Spread across the entire system, the Cartel had several hundred hitmen at its disposal. Although many of them died since the coming of the Warp Storm, or refused to join the Forsaken Sons and had to be disposed of, there remain enough of them to make the Lord of the Cartel a significant threat, and all of them are remorseless killers, who have proven their new allegiance to the Traitor Marines by taking part in the fall of Santorius. These individuals have no habit of working together in large groups, and are ill-suited to take part in open warfare, but they are skilled infiltrators and can serve as scouts for the other forces on their side. They use varied weapons, depending on their training, habits and personal preferences. Those who used poison and other subtle methods, however, have found themselves ill-adapted to survive in the new chaotic state of Parecxis, and have either changed their ways or met unseemly ends. Now, the hitmen of the Cartel either shoot their targets from afar using sniper rifles, or stab them in the heart or brain up close using specially crafted blades.
Wyrds
Ever since Mankind first became self-aware, there are been those amongst its ranks blessed with the ability to wield the power of the Warp. These individual, capable of seeing and reaching beyond the veil of reality, have known many fates across the centuries – hunted down and burned at the stake, enslaved by powerful warlords, consumed from within by uncontrolled gifts, or, in a few rare cases, ruling over those without psychic talents with unchallenged might. There are many names for the psychically awakened : witches, sorcerers, shamans, abominations, psykers, wyrds. Although most humans use them to describe the same, to those with some knowledge of the Art, each of these titles carries a subtle nuance in how the practitioner approaches his work.
Wyrds are those psykers whose gifts are primitive and untrained, cloaking their ignorance in a shroud of superstition and mysticism either due to honest belief or in order to deceive those even more naive and ignorant than themselves. Without the rigorous training of an Imperial bound psyker, they lack the subtlety and nuance to truly weave the Warp, and are instead limited to the most brute applications of psychic power – to push, to burn, to tear. Exposing their souls to the raw energy of the Warp without the mental wards of a trained psyker also makes them especially vulnerable to daemonic possession. Madness is common among wyrds, and this makes them hard to control – only those with a bright enough soulfire can do so, their presence serving as a focus to the wyrds' shattered psyches. Wyrds are usually dirty individuals, caring little for their physical body as their minds float in the Sea of Souls. Many of them use an item of some sort as a focus for their power. Some of these items have genuine psychic properties, but most are simply tokens of their owner's past existence, having no ability beyond that which their wielder's mind believe them to have.
Unlike most types of psykers, who usually possess their powers from birth, wyrds can appear at any age. When a soul is exposed to the Warp, it is either consumed by it, does all it can to forget the experience, or open to it – thus becoming a wyrd. Thus it was that when the Warp Storm engulfed Parecxis, hundreds of wild psykers appeared on the planet. Driven mad by the hellish visions carried by the storm, most of these cursed souls either killed themselves or were destroyed by the Imperial forces. However, in the confusion, many escaped the witch hunts and took refuge in their respective hives' slums. It was there that they felt a calling, pulsing at the edge of their tormented minds, driving them toward Santorius. There, whispered the voices that haunted their every moment, they would find salvation. There, they would find a purpose. And there, they found the Prophet in Rags.
Even amongst the Forsaken Sons, none know the Prophet's origins beyond that he is a human male of great psychic power. Dekaros himself, who recruited the Prophet as one of the first members of his cabal of cultists and rebels, was unable to unearth any detail. What is known is that he first appeared soon after the arrival of the Warp Storm, and reached out with his mind to those who shared his gift. In his lair, he bounded the feral psykers to his will, altering their very souls so that they would obey him – in a fashion not entirely dissimilar to the process by which Imperial psykers are linked with the Emperor Himself on Terra. At the time of the Arrival, the wyrds allied with other cultist groups, lending their psychic abilities to the mundane forces under the Forsaken Sons' command.
Under the leadership of the Prophet in Rags, dozens of wyrds came together, and pooled their piecemeal knowledge of the Warp. They formed circles, linking their minds to share their strength and mental resistance. These circles usually comprise between five and ten wyrds, and the connection between them is strong enough that it is frequent for one of them to finish another's sentence. Sorcerers of the Forsaken Sons' Coven have theorized that these circles are actually slowly merging together, becoming one single entity sharing several bodies at once. Several circles have already been marked to be brought back aboard the Hand of Ruin, so that the Sorcerers can observe them for a longer period of time than the warband plans to remain on Parecxis.
Techno-Horrors of the Tenebrae Lex
The Warp is infinite. In it dwells every thought every mortal has ever had, and, according to some daemons of the Court of Change, will ever have. The timeless nature of the Empyrean lends some credibility to that claim, but all who know anything about the nature of prophecy and visions also know that the future is not written. It is in permanent flux, and the Warp is filled with the echoes of what may yet be. Daemons feed on such yet-to-be thoughts and emotions, growing fat and strong, only to be annihilated when the fates realign and make it so that their source of nourishment never existed. But some echoes are stronger than over. Some nightmares can never truly be banished, some facts can never be overwritten. And so it is for the Warp entity called the Infinite Darkness by the corrupted tech-priests of the Tenebrae Lex.
Many millenia ago, the scientists of Old Earth studied the mysteries of the Universe. They did not look into the Warp, but focused their research on the Materium, seeking to understand its nature, origins, and possible fate. One of the laws they discovered was that entropy is both unstoppable and irreversible. One day – billions of years from now – all energy in the universe will be exhausted, leaving only cold matter hanging in the void of space. Other species had made that discovery before – some rejecting it in favor of other theories, other shrugging it off as something that would likely never concern them. But no species has left a mark on the Warp the way Mankind has, except perhaps for the near-mythical Old Ones. The Infinite Darkness is the possibility of that future, echoing across an unimaginable span of time into our epoch through the knowledge that it may one day become true. This daemon is an enemy to all lights, seeking to secure the future that birthed it by plunging the universe into eternal obscurity.
It took advantage of the Warp Storm to reach toward Parecxis, aiming for the minds and souls of those the more vulnerable to the concept of its existence : tech-priests of the Mechanicum, who are the only denizens of the Imperium with a knowledge of physics beyond the rudimentary. Specifically, it touched those who were tasked with maintaining the systems of Hive Santorius. A hive-city is more than just a concentration of buildings : it relies on many different devices to keep its air at a breathable level, purify its water, and supply its inhabitants with power for their habs. Such devices are truly titanic in scale, buried deep beneath layers of buildings, and require constant, careful maintenance, far from the eyes of the public, or even those of the rest of the Mechanicum. Dozens of tech-priests and thousands of servitors toiled there, their work unnoticed but vital to the continued existence of Santorius.
Like plague, the Infinite Darkness spread its influence among them. It turned their augmetics against them, altering the flux of chemicals and electrical signals of their brains, driving them to madness. Once the priests's minds were lost, their bodies began to change too, and open war was declared between the newly formed Tenebrae Lex and their former brethren. For months the two factions battled, while the surface world knew nothing of the underground war. Ultimately, it was the corrupted who won, with the help of the Lord of Shadows. Now, the Tenebrae Lex rules over the depths of Santorius, praising their otherworldly master and plotting to plunge the whole world into physical and moral darkness.
Although they do not appear to be much different from traditional scions of Mars, beyond the sigils on their robes, there is nothing human left in the former tech-priests, which are now called Techno-Horrors by those who know of their existence. Their souls have been consumed by the dark power that brought them to ruin, replaced by an inexhaustible hatred for the universe as it is now. When someone looks under their hood, he can only see pure, absolute darkness – not because there is nothing there, or of some trick, but because his very soul rebels against what his eyes are seeing. In battle, the Techno-Horrors can turn their enemy's equipment and even augment limbs against them, and broadcast a constant stream of scrap-code and daemonic screams that render any vox unusable. They lead packs of altered servitors, having used the mind-wiped slaves as receptacles for bound daemons – lesser shards of their own patron. Their presence unnerves even those who serve the Ruinous Powers, for though the Infinite Darkness is but a weakling wraith compared to the might of the Dark Gods, its ultimate end is anathema to Chaos itself.
Children of Woe
When the Fleshmasters were first formally assembled, they were given a single order by Arken. The Awakened One commanded the former Apothecaries to investigate all the avenues of research, regardless of their morality, and to bring him the weapons he would need to bring victory to the Forsaken Sons. All of them took this command at heart, but none such as Pareneffer, the creator of the Children of Woe. Once belonging to the Fifteenth Legion, Pareneffer attempted to recreate the Emperor's greatest genetic project : the creation of the Primarchs. However, even the son of Magnus knew his limits, and rather than seeking in vain to emulate the results of the Master of Mankind, he instead decided to combine the power of Chaos with what he knew of the Primarchs to create monsters cast in their images : the Children of Woe. To avoid being slain by one of his own brothers, Pareneffer limited his research to the genetic material of loyal Primarchs, acquired at great personal cost from the other Fleshmasters in the warband. Even then, he worked mostly in secret, only sharing the truth of his work with a handful of brothers, and not even with Arken – though he suspected that the lord of the Forsaken Sons knew anyway. What he managed to create were ignoble parodies of the noble Primarchs, reflections of their grandeur in the warped mirror of Chaos.
Only a handful of these creatures exist, the result of many more dying horrible deaths during their growth in cloning tanks. So far, they haven't been truly tested in battle – the only trial they have seen was to be unleashed on a handful of slaves deep inside the Hand of Ruin, and the specimens which took part in these massacres have long since died. Now, as the battle for Parecxis comes to its climax, their maker is preparing to unleash them upon the defenders of the last city standing against the tide of Chaos. Unlike others of the Forsaken Sons' feral allies, however, the Children of Woe are completely mindless, and cannot be controlled – only pushed in the direction of the enemy while everything valuable is pulled out of their path. They are haunted creatures, their blood carrying the memories of their originals, but as twisted as their flesh. Only when asleep in their containment pods, heavily warded against the Warp's willful touch, can they know a measure of peace – their every waking moment is a nightmare from which there is no escape, for their very existence is the horror they seek deliverance from.
The name of the Children of Woe is a calculated, deliberate insult toward loyalist Astartes. When looking upon them, anyone carrying the blood of the Primarchs feels a sensation of kinship, no matter how horribly difform they are. Since almost all of the Astartes currently living have, at some point in their lives, beheld one of the twenty Primarchs, they also recognize them as what they are : hideous parodies of their foresires, twisted by the dark powers they fought all of their lives. Most Traitor Marines laugh at the spectacle, their hateful hearts taking a dark joy at the desecration – while those whose heart have remained true feel only fury and repulsion. Those few renegades whose dying conscience stirs against such blasphemy have no choice but to accept it, and see it as nothing more than one more weapon in their war against the Imperium.
On the field of battle, the Children aren't even a shadow of the Primarchs' glorious might. There was more to the prowess of the Emperor's sons that strong flesh and genius mind – each of them was an avatar of martial apotheosis, distilled into a mortal frame by the Master of Mankind. Nevertheless, the clones are still a threat to be reckoned with. Unable to use weapons, they can use their inhuman strength to tear even a Space Marine asunder, and their fluctuating genetics grant them abilities that change from one moment to the next. When they are awake, the raw agony that emanates from them can force psykers to their knees, and the visceral horror of facing them can make even the bravest of humans turn his back and flee. Even non-psychic Space Marines can feel the horror of their condition, and this will only amplify their rage in the face of such sacrilege.
Pareneffer is eager to see how his creations fare against the Sons of Calth – but, unbeknownst to him, he is far from being the only one …