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INDEX TRAITORIS: THE HIGHBORN WARBAND For several centuries of their own time, these relic warriors of a forgotten age of darkness have waited. The Imperium exiled them. The Imperium forgot them. The Imperium will remember, when they return to claim what is theirs by right, the right of conquerors over the conquered. Blood will flow, a sector will burn, a hero will fall, and the Highborn will have their revenge. The Foundations of a Dynasty O C C I D U N T P O V A L I I -- scrawled in blood on the walls of decks 12-13c, aboard the Tyrrhese The Highborn did not leave the ranks of the Emperor’s Children easily, nor bloodlessly. Though the Emperor’s Children were not alone among the Legions of the Eye in fracturing apart, they were among the more resistant to such hemorrhaging. Achlectur Priamne, once Lord Commander but now simply, plainly Lord, refused to remain a part of his former Legion. However, he was made of far sterner stuff than those of weak will who had begun to doubt and regret their oaths to the dead Warmaster. Indeed, he was more than willing to remain allied to his former brothers in the persecution of such cowards. Eventually, there was little reason left to remain, to hold strong the oath of legion, the oath of father. The Lord and his Highborn were perhaps fortunate, in that they did not need to risk censure by leaving the domains of the Third and ignoring all calls to return by the ever-dwindling core of high command. Many was the would-be warband that arrogantly declared its independence, only to find itself unable to battle its way free. The Highborn were no less arrogant in their declaration, but fate or divine will conspired to assist in their departure: Abaddon had come to claim his birthright. It was perhaps this coincidence of events that led to the Highborn’s first entanglement with the forming Black Legion. So much of what the upstart Warmaster envisioned was in keeping with the Highborn’s own needs. The drive, the purpose that held them together as the Warmaster That Failed rebelled against the Emperor was duplicated within the Black Legion. It was might, hard and cold, not the soft decadence the Emperor’s Children had begun to wallow in. It was more than a marriage of ideals to the Highborn, for though they would never recognize it as such, they were in need of the Warmaster’s help. To bind such a force together, to gather the disparate, the independent and the disillusioned, into a singular, cohesive Legion, required oaths to be sworn by both sides. In return for the Highborn donning the black of Abaddon’s own, the Black Legion pledged to support the Highborn in pursuit of vengeance, and the return of that which had been recently stolen from them: their flagship Tyrrhese. This alliance benefited the Highborn greatly; however, their pride did not long allow them to remain under the command of another. Shortly after the fierce struggle with the Iron Warriors and the reclamation of their ship, the Highborn once more demanded independence. Removing themselves from the Black Legion proved more difficult than the Emperor’s Children, and in the end was only accomplished under the severe binding of the Highborn to the Warmaster’s cause in what was to be the 4th Black Crusade. To spread the forces of the Imperium thin, the Highborn were tasked with razing the Erinn Sector, deep within the Segmentum Pacificus. This Sector was the breadbasket for a small swathe of the Segmentum, and it was expected that the Imperium could ill-afford its corruption at the hands of the Great Enemy and would defend it accordingly. To the misfortune of the citizens of the Erinn Sector, the wider Imperium apparently felt it was an acceptable loss in the face of another of Abaddon’s terrible wars. The Highborn had a near uncontested reign over the Erinn Sector that lasted decades longer than the Black Crusade itself. What planetary defenses that stood against the Highborn were readily overthrown by this elite force. Token battle-fleets of run-down vessels stalwartly resisted the warband, yet the ancient, powerful ships of the Highborn made short work. Their numbers prevented them from simply laying claim to the entire Sector, but they were a constant presence, like distant feudal kings sending raiding parties to claim the taxes of their vassal provinces. Many petitions were sent from the Erinn Sector, the planetary governors begging for support and relief. Attempts were made, outer systems bound by oath to come to their aid, ultimately fruitless. No concerted efforts were made for nearly two centuries. The resources the Imperium needed from Erinn were still exported in sufficient quantities, and those were the only numbers they cared to know. The Highborn, already arrogant, had grown careless in their dominance over the Erinn Sector. Because of this, the resistance of the world of Tara against their demands of resources and slaves infuriated them greatly, and needed to be crushed. Both warships orbited this verdant world, and unleashed the entire warband upon its hilled plains. The Taran people were strong and full of defiance, refusing to surrender or give in the fight. The Highborn were mightier, and so the great stone keeps were sundered and the iron-bound mortals dispersed or slaughtered. However, the Imperium had finally responded. A Founding of Space Marine Chapters, seventh of its kind, had only recently been concluded. In response to the centuries-old pile of pleas for aid, one of the newborn Chapters had been tasked, accompanied by a Great Company of the Space Wolves Chapter that had, itself, decided to answer the call. These forces had entered Sector space scarcely before the Highborn had unleashed themselves upon Tara. As the resistance upon Tara finally began to crumple beneath the heavy tread of the Highborn, finally Imperial retribution appeared in the night sky. The Highborn would stand firm, but were unprepared and outnumbered. When Achlectur Priumne, Lord of the Highborn, fell beneath the blade of the commander of this child Chapter, the Highborn were mortified, nearly overcome with shock that anyone could not only stand against them, but hurt them. The Highborn fled. Far from won on Tara, the Imperial forces would hound the Highborn across Sector space for many years before the warband would make the plunge back into the hell that is the Eye of Terror. The Highborn would be furious at this change to their destiny. They would stumble for a time, bereft of anchor and succor, until coming across the dead xenos world of Cel and claim it as their own. Cel had a revitalizing influence on the Highborn, who would once more seek out the Black Legion and other allies. They would keep themselves apprised of the Erinn Sector. They would know that the newborn Chapter would claim the planet of Tara as its own, and would begin calling itself the Emerald Tigers. They would follow the flickering numbers that would reveal everything about the Sector. Where its militant might lies, where its food is grown or raised, where its citadels stood strong and where the walls had grown weak. The Highborn would use this information, when the time came to exact revenge. Noble Vengeance “Hit them with the portside barrage, damn you! Do you want them to take this ship? Fire! Fire!” The Tyrrhese Shipmaster screams, pistol aimed at the head of the man at the monitor. Far below, gun batteries sit silent as two slave-tribes wage war. Nearly seven hundred years after the Highborn had first been banished to the Eye of Terror, or late in the 41st millennium to those who resided in realspace, finally the Highborn had what they needed. Their time with the Black Legion had earned them an alliance with the Eyes of Tivan, a warband filled with the enraged sons of the daemon Angron. Their ships were fully repaired and stocked with powerful munitions. Their slave-crews had grown immense in population, and had been trained for a dozen generations in the sole pursuit of war. Oaths of fealty had been made to dark powers, their demand the sacrifice of a Chapter’s worth of gene-seed. The time was now for the Erinn Sector to burn once more. For a handful of decades, the warbands prepared for their assault, as agents seeded insurrection and heresy across a number of worlds within the Sector. When the Highborn reappeared in the Erinn Sector, the Eyes of Tivan alongside them, their forces were spread across a wide front. Soft targets were selected and attacked with abandon. Hive towers became tinder for global conflagrations. The crops and herds of a dozen agri-worlds spoiled and rotted at their corrupted touch. The warbands struck without warning, but quickly drew attention to them. As the Imperium recoiled, the Highborn, led personally by Lord Achsantre Aivas, conquered the feral world of Buoyan. As the Emerald Tigers reacted, their companies sent to assist beleaguered worlds, the Highborn unleashed Cel upon Buoyan. Ancient green woodlands became forests of spears of ice, the very oceans froze solid, and continental glaciers formed overnight. The immense surge of Warp sorcery and the cry of planet-death would scream through the void. Astropaths across the Sector would fall into fits of seizures, and even the Emerald Tigers lost their fair share of psyker-warriors. The Chapter would respond immediately. Chapter Master Cormac Airt would lead three full companies in assault of Buoyan, anticipating an early end to the conflict if the Highborn leader could be slain. However, he would only be leading them into a trap. The icy wastes of Buoyan obeyed the very whims of the Highborn, suddenly forming canyons or shattering mountains. Lord Aivas isolated their Chapter Master, and unleashed the venomous Warpkin upon him. The Emerald Tigers were isolated from each other, the shifting landscape too dangerous to fight upon, and were forced into retreat, dragging the limp form of their Chapter Master behind them. The Chapter was suddenly thrust into a change in leadership, the fall of their Chapter Master being a terrible blow. The one who would rise to the occasion and command the Chapter, some Captain of the Emerald Tigers, was accomplished, masterful, but uninspired, and the Highborn would use this against the Chapter. Under this new leadership, the Chapter would hold the lines far along the edges of the Sector, preventing the Highborn and the Eyes of Tivan from spilling further into the Imperium’s unprotected worlds. The warbands’ efforts on the fringes were but a diversion, intended to get the majority of the Chapter’s forces off their home world of Tara. With much of the Chapter’s fleet scattered across the Sector, when the main force of the Highborn and Eyes of Tivan entered Taran space there was simply not enough to oppose them. With all target of all the Highborn rage buried beneath Taran soil and the Eyes of Tivan aching to meet their foe face to face, the warbands forsook orbital bombardments and instead released their warriors upon the surface of the world. The mortal populations remained as they were all those thousands of years ago, tribal and feudal, with little technological advancements. The warbands slaughtered the inconsequential armies of Tara’s clans, razing entire island-continents, their advance slowed only by the hosts of Chapter serfs. No Chapter home world may be easily taken, and in conjunction with the formidable defenses surrounding the Chapter’s fortress-monastery the warbands found more than expected. In response to the rising state of rebelliousness, the Chapter had temporarily tripled recruitment rates in expectation of their forces being thinly spread. While the full force of a Chapter was deployed along the outskirts of the Sector, within the Taran fortress-monastery were three hundred more, ranging from fresh Scouts to newly promoted Battle-Brothers. Though young and inexperienced, they held against the besieging tide. Aiding them was the host of awakened Dreadnoughts, chief among those that had remained on Tara was Conn Eremon. Their ancient High King and greatest martial hero, it was the War Ender who had slain the first Lord of the Highborn, long ago in a different life. His presence upon the battlefield had a visible impact, the young Marines rallying behind him to equal exploit and the Highborn hungering to be the one to spill the blood of him who defied death. Even still, with all the forces arrayed against them the Emerald Tigers should not have been able to resist as long as they did. With the very fabric of reality tearing about them, unleashing daemonic cohorts upon Tara, their doom was certain. That they lasted as they did is a testament to the capabilities of their Chapter Master Cormac Airt. Though ravaged in mind and body by the attack on Buoyan, and heavily weakened still, it was he who led the defenses. Even still, the battle weighed in the warbands’ favor. When Conn Eremon, the mighty hero who had ended a hundred wars, was shattered from his dreadnought chassis by the sword of the Red King, the mightier lord of the Eyes of Tivan, the death knell to the Emerald Tigers had sounded. Deep within the hallowed halls of their own fortress-monastery, the Emerald Tigers fought their last battle. In orbit, the warbands’ ships, nearly empty of its warrior crew, were far into the rituals that bring forth their daemon-fathers. The Highborn had planned this attack for centuries, and they were on the cusp of total victory. Perhaps it was the whims of the dark gods, or the terrible, uncaring nature of fate, that would see their plan crumble. The attack took too long, and Tara’s sons returned to her aid. The ritual on the Tyrrhese was interrupted, as the veteran First Company of the Emerald Tigers boarded her. The cultist crew, though aided by their magicks craft, could not resist such a foe. The Highborn flagship would shatter into two, as nuclear-grade demolition charges along the ship’s spine were detonated. Much of the First Company, including its Captain, had failed to remove themselves from the vessel before detonation. The destruction of their flagship effectively ended their orbital supremacy, a blow to their assault plans that was felt immediately. With the lessening of orbital bombardments, and the welcome return of reinforcements, the Imperial Astartes rallied. Though the Taran invasion had breached their fortress-monastery’s inner walls, the Emerald Tigers began to push back. Pockets of resistance across the globe, so close to being snuffed, began to expand and connect. The Highborn let out screeches of rage at the turn of events, but still they pushed on. Even as their own numbers began to dwindle in pace with their enemy’s, there was yet hope for a pyrrhic victory. As ever, the galaxy despises hope, and that hope was crushed alongside the Red King, his body lying broken under several hundred tons of permacrete and adamantium wreckage. One of the greatest killers to have ever slain in the name of the Dark Gods, snuffed out. The Highborn sounded a retreat. Though the assault and fighting retreat cost the paired warbands nearly half of their manpower, the cost they extolled upon the Imperium was far greater. An entire Sector was at war with itself, even without their immediate presence. A home world to a Chapter of Imperial Space Marines had burned; the temporary playground of the Ruinous Powers. Their greatest hero, murderer of the Highborn’s first lord, had been witnessed as a coward, clinging to a half-life he did not deserve, and so was forcibly taken from it. Their enemy had survived, but only barely. They would not survive the next time. First, the Highborn must recuperate. Their resources must be replenished. And the Warmaster wants them, for one last crusade . . . Beliefs “I can almost admire them, both of them, for their audacity and their initiative. Look, here, you can see it. This is the moment that the Campanians knew they were already dead. You can see it, as if their eyes suddenly dim and their arms are suddenly heavy.” Meleacr Amphare, prince of the vid-archives, stabs an armored finger at the flickering recording. The Highborn have rejected their former Legion as it became, but they have never erased their devotion to what it once was. The Emperor’s Children were devoted to the path towards perfection, and they had proceeded further along that path than many of their cousin Legions. Corruption set in the Legion, during the times that the rightful Warmaster sought to depose the False Emperor. Soon, perfection became a state of sensation to experience, rather than a pursuit of an ideal. The Highborn were far from complicit, their own degeneration into devotion to Slaanesh self-evident. Like many of their brothers, a hunger for something more grew within them, but for them it was not a hunger that could simply be satiated by experiencing further extremes. This cold emptiness would gnaw within them, leading to a frustration and eventual, violent split from the Legion. It was their arrival upon the world of Cel and the bleak scene set before them on that desolate planet that provided them, finally, with the means of satisfaction. There, they found perfection. It was there but for a moment, and in that moment bound. This put their eternity of hunger into startling clarity, and began the obsession that would hound them as any addiction of their brothers. Perfection could be attained. It was always there, just beyond reach, but you could grasp it for just a moment. The Highborn became obsessed with hunting down these moments, finding perfection in even the smallest of matters and desperately making all attempts to freeze them in time. The world of Cel would not just provide them with the focus of their obsession, but also the tool to achieve it. Organization “They may not have operated at my command at that time but they are mine. The Povalii are mine,” Lord Phersatunis growls the last out to the assembled lords of the Dodecadomi, his hands gripping the hilt of his blade tightly, as the fate of the Povalii for their transgressions is determined. The 3rd Millennial that would become the Highborn had once been led by a Lord Commander, his command divided among a small handful of capable Captains. Much of this structure did not survive the passage of time. Though their former Lord Commander stood at the helm still in their earliest days, only Achsantre, future Lord of the Highborn, remained of those lesser officers. To say that the Highborn did away with the Company division would perhaps be inaccurate; there simply wasn’t one. The remaining squads of varying size formed the Dodecadomi, the council of twelve. Each noble Highborn leading a squad of his brothers would soon grow great in power and responsibility, lords over stretches of the earth of Cel and masters over ship-borne domains. The remaining Captain would be named the Lord’s Champion, his second in command, captain of the warband’s second ship, and his successor. The Emperor’s Children had long ago mastered squad-based combat, and the Highborn have held onto much of those ancient Legion doctrines. The existence and use of their pair of ships means that the Highborn can, and often are, organized into two large organizational groupings. However, the persecution of war is almost entirely given over to each squad to determine for themselves. In battle, they retain an imperfect resemblance of the combat doctrines of the III Legion. Overlapping fields of fire, staggered marches, and complementary tactics. Each squad is filled with trained, elite veterans from those ancient days, the Highborn having taken in no recruits since the fall of Horus. Yet, their growing individuality, pride, and the changes made to the chain of command, has weakened the militant bond between the Dodecadomi. Coverage is missed and gaps in the line are formed. Rarely do these weaknesses prevent them from achieving their objectives, but against powerful, adaptive foes, they can readily set themselves up for failure. Such adversity reawakens within the Highborn that need for perfection in battle. An adaptive foe may hold them back once, but rarely twice. Far outnumbering the Highborn is the slave-crew. These vassal mortals, descendants of the tens of thousands stolen from the Erinn Sector, appear unaffected by the warped passage of time within the Eye. In spite of the passage of millennia beyond the limits of the Eye, the Highborn have only experienced the passing of centuries. Yet their mortal crew seem only affected by the natural progression of time. Generations have lived and died within the space of a Highborn year. These great ships have witnessed the rise and fall of tribal civilizations within their iron shells, and wars of conquest waged between its decks. While these extreme variations in time-progression would be noticeable to an observant outsider, neither the slave societies nor the Highborn seem ill disposed by it. How the Highborn are able to effectively command their slave-crew, or how the voidborn tribes are capable of performing the tasks given before them would be a mystery. Yet when the Highborn order, the ships respond. Home World “His men are yours. His slaves are yours. His citadel is yours. Failure to keep and maintain them to my satisfaction will see you meet the same fate as he,” His Manifest Illustriousness announces Moghan Nuor of the Blades as heir to the domains and rank of the late Lord Phersatunis If the Highborn had ever maintained a domain within the Imperium, in the age of the Emperor and their time as the 3rd Millennial, it was long lost to them and forgotten. For an age, their only homes were the Tyrrhese and the Trasena. Even while so many of their brothers would lose themselves to the power of extreme sensation upon the world of infinite pleasure claimed by their father the Highborn remained aloft. While they held claim over the Erinn Sector, with so many Imperial worlds relinquishing all authority to the warband in return for continued life in servitude, the Highborn stayed above their dirt and toil. It was after their banishment from the Sector and journey through the Eye of Terror that this would change. On the outskirts of the Eye, sitting near opposite the Gate, a planet sat, frozen in the cold void. Like many of the worlds captured by the Warp’s embrace, it had once been a member of the dead Eldar kingdom. A prison world, in fact. As their kind tumbled closer and closer to damnation, still there were those who had somehow gone too far by their ever-fading morals. The birth of the Prince, their She Who Thirsts, put an end to this debased empire. Those imprisoned remained, frozen in time by that which was to be their cage and their gaoler as one. The stasis-prison, wrought into existence by Eldar magicks, had readily relented to the velvet touch of Slaanesh. Their forms remained, cold statues upon a featureless landscape, but their souls had long escaped imprisonment to be devoured by the newborn Chaos God. Though long forgotten, nonetheless the Highborn could hear its name whispered to them from the cold mists, Cel. Whether this was the name of the prison or the warden, the Highborn did not know. Perhaps there was no difference. The icy wastes of Cel spoke to the Highborn. The statues of the dead, captured at the moment of species-death, in spite of their kin who struggle still, were objects of beauty. After ages of fruitless searches for perfection, finally the Highborn had come across a true example. A moment of perfection, forever bound in time. Many of the Highborn still bear the scars upon their faces, remnants of the frozen tears when they had so openly wept. The slaves bound to their ships were forbidden to make planetfall. Those that had already come were sacrificed. The Highborn had come upon something exceptional, and it was to be theirs alone. Cel changed them greatly in such a short period of time. Soon, the words they spoke to each other were of some foreign tongue, the sound cold and raspy. They became the Celsclaran, the sons of Cel, and Cel accepted them as her children, the very landscape pliant to their touch. The hot blood that pumped through their hearts in time would give way to ice water. Though the Highborn would spend far greater time on their ships than they would anywhere else, Cel would forevermore be their home. Battle Cry A cold death to usurpers! Original post is hidden: Hidden Content After the Emerald Tigers, the Eyes of Tivan and Highborn are my first DIYs, and were created specifically to provide antagonists to the Emerald Tigers. It took a long time before they became something with real depth, but I'm really pleased with how the Eyes of Tivan and the Antecruorian have turned out. Hopefully the Highborn will be similarly well-received. Now, the Highborn started off extremely derivative. They were originally called the Winter Court, and were based on the Winter Court of the Dresden Files. Eventually, I had decided rename them to something a tad more unique, so they became the Hybernan, which came about by me literally just tossing 'winter' at Google Translate. Over time, I took the Hybernan (and the Summer Court's Aestivan) and messed about with it until I had the Highborn (and the Eyes of Tivan). For a few years, this was all there was, minus a color scheme, as below: http://i.imgur.com/pablyaf.jpg Like with both the Emerald Tigers and Eyes of Tivan, the only real expansion this Warband got was when I got access to Fantasy Flight Games' Rites of Battle, and came to the realization that its Chapter Creation rules was just fun. I eventually came across a fan's attempt to Chaosify those random tables, and utilized that to create the first real expansion of the Highborn character. Quoted below are the results of those rolls. That reference to Magniat is about 4 years old, by the way. That's the last time this notepad file had been modified. Hence my super-squee moment when Magniat ended up referenced by Forge World as part of the 30k Ultramar Realm. So that provided the base, the framework around which I intend to build an Index Traitoris article. It's more than possible that none of that will remain in the finished article. The point of it is just to provide a base to build off of. In addition to a randomly created framework to build off of, I also make a mad collection of random tidbits and themes that crop up as ideas I want to implement in the finished article. I use that as my focus, referencing it as I modify and build off of the above framework. Quoted below is the tiny little bit I have so far. And this is what I will begin to use to create the Highborn article for this month's Liber Challenge (and the 20th Liber Experiment). At the moment, the only thing else I have to provide is a small piece I had written for a previous Inspirational Friday over in the Chaos forum: And here is a member of the Highborn, as recreated in Space Marine: http://i.imgur.com/p1GIrhV.jpg