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Hello folks - I just finished my initial base for a Codex Demiurg for 9th. Based on the lore and references from the HH and 40k sources. So to be clear these aren't squats but a xenos race with a similar sci-fi/fantasy trope. Right now its mostly expanded lore, units and weapon profiles with point and power ratings. I think after I get some feedback I'll then think about the next phases for Stratagems, Warlord Traits, Relics and then the later work on Crusade rules (which revolve around the whole mining, technocratic and mercantile ideas planted here). Any thoughts please fire away. Presently no artwork so don't take that against me! LIBER XENOS HORRIFICUS CODEX DEMIURG The Demiurg are an ancient race of miners and techno-artisans who reside on the far Eastern Fringe of the Milky Way Galaxy and the Ultima Segmentum. Once the Brotherhoods of the Demiurg operated an almost galactic wide commerce network with many other xenos civilizations and empires. However, after the genocidal campaigns made by the Imperium of Mankind during the Great Crusade, many of their client species were wiped out of existence. Though they will freely trade with human worlds, the commerce fleets of the Demiurg are still an uncommon sight in the Imperium, despite the number of sightings of them having increased over recent centuries. They are an almost purely space-borne in their massive and majestic commerce vessels. Though prone to avoid unnecessary conflict, the Demiurg are capable of aggressive actions when protecting their fleets, mining operations, and production quotas. This document contains all of the rules and additional datasheets that you will need in order to fight battles as the forces of the Demiurg Botherhoods. This is intended to serve as a fan-made Codex to compliment those rules presented in the 9th Edition Warhammer 40,000 Core Book and supplements. Where and if such overlap occurs those parent rules & datasheets will be found in that parent volume instead of being republished here, except in those circumstances where such reproduction is of benefit to the completeness of the Codex. In such instances the rules common to those described below are referenced in the Warhammer 40,000 Core Book as well as in any of the unique datasheets presented here. THE LIBER XENOS HORRIFICUS: CODEX DEMIURG XENOS HORRIFICUS PROFILE: HISTORY The Demiurg reside on the far Eastern Fringe of the Milky Way Galaxy and within the Ultima Segmentum hinterlands. Once more wide spread throughout the Milky Way, their trading networks with numerous other xenos civilizations and isolated human colony worlds collapsed with the arrival of the expeditionary fleets of the Great Crusade. The Demiurg were still until recently an uncommon sight outside of the Galactic East and the Imperium, though sightings of their Commerce Fleets within Imperium Nihilus have increased since the Waning of the Imperium’s influence and the arrival of the Great Rift. The Demiurg are an almost purely space-borne race, traversing the void in their massive and majestic commerce vessels. Known to readily establish trading agreements and commerce rights with numerous other civilizations, they have most recently made alliances with the T'au. Serving as economic allies of that newfound races’ Empire, they were initially introduced to the T'au via their mutual relations with the Kroot xenos. From the Demiurg Brotherhoods of Srry'Tok the T’au gained the knowledge of Ion Cannon technology, which is now used heavily by the T'au in their armies and fleets. The Brotherhood of Thurm is known to have joined the T'au Empire outright in exchange for numerous Asteroid mining rights and fabrication contracts, whilst being provided T’au military support for the protection of such operations in hostile neighbouring Imperial space. The history of the Demiurg, known in the T’au Lexicon as the "Bentu'sin" or "wise-gifted ones", is long and sometimes cryptic. Hailing from an unknown area, likely within the Eastern Fringe, the Demiurg were a technologically mid-level civilizations beginning to explore the void immediately close to their Homeworld. However, this changed with the arrival of an advanced fleet of elegant starships led by the entity the Demiurg would later refer to as Thawl’l, as well as by the other titles of ‘the Great Maker’, ‘the Teacher’, and ‘the First Artisan’. According to the Demiurg, who by nature of their unique silicon-based physiology have an almost eidetic race memory, Thawl’l came to the worlds surrounding the Demiurg’s cradle for resources to begin the Great Imperative, and nurtured the ancient Demiurg in the means by which to harvest and shape the extensive ‘Nightstone’ deposits of which their worlds were plentiful. The Demiurg, in awe of such great scientific and artistry gladly began to assist Thawl’l and his kind in the Great Imperative, craving up their home world’s resources, and those in the neighbouring system, loading the precious Nightstone cargo into the great vessels and transportation gateways of Thawl’ls fleet. However, only shortly after the initial completion of the Demiurg’s efforts, Thawl’l and the fleets of his kind vanished, leaving the Demiurg alone and without a stable homeworld. Seemingly abandoned by Thawl’l and their servitor races, the people of Demiurg decided to follow their teachers’ example and reach out into the wider galaxy. Shouldering the mantle of Great Imperative that they were handed the Demiurg built enormous interstellar Strongholds, robust void craft from which the newly founded Brotherhoods could survive. From these fleets, comprising all the necessary forges, factories and processing plants, and required, the Demiurg and their Ghola mining machines would seek to harvest the resources of the galaxy, and turn those raw materials into marvels with which to trade with the other races they encountered. Where possible the Brotherhoods would teach the knowledge to other species and civilizations in the ways to harvest their own resources and continue to ways of building and craftmanship. And so Thawl’ls Great Imperative would continue until completed. BIOLOGY The Demiurg are a race of short stocky humanoids, with an unusual biochemistry. Evolving on a long-forgotten world of great mineral wealth, the Demiurg have a silicon-based biology meaning that they are composed of a diversity micro-crystalline blockcells and quasi-neural networks. When replicated under certain electromagnetic conditions these crystals can form complex organo-fabricated structures which perpetuate in a mutualistic manner similar to the various cells and organ types in bio-organic lifeforms. The manner by which such silicon-based species and lifeforms evolve are poorly understood by the carbon-centric lifeforms of the universe. However, other such species have been well documented by Imperial scholars, including the parasitic xenos Nekulli Necro-worms and the titanic Void Kraken monstrosities which plague multiple sectors of space. The Demiurg, for example, are known to be exceptional robust in their biology owing to this geo-organic evolution, and appear to be practically immune to many of the poisons, toxins, radiation types that prove exceptionally deadly to bio-organic matter. In fact, it appears that the exposure to certain types of radiation and electromagnetic forces is a necessary component to the life history and reproduction (or more appropriately replication) of the Demiurg species. The Demiurg are a genderless species, in that they reproduce using geo-organic replication of their tissue-like crystalline blockcells and neural structures. Usually, events which require a Brotherhood to replicate further descendants from their original lineages, meaning that reproduction to the Demiurg is never unplanned but a facet of their unending schedule of ore extraction efficiency and the meeting of production quotas. Such events include the loss of multiple Brotherhood commerce clans, such as via mining accidents or armed conflicts, or when a new mining operation of immense size is required that needs new Demiurg Brotherhood clan groups to oversee and operate. However, such replication used by the Demiurg is not cloning however, as the resulting Demiurg produced by the electromagnetic excitation of its progenitors crystalline ‘cuttings’ is never a complete identical copy. As the Geo-organic structures grow and weave together, a number of influences factors be they radiological, electromagnetic or even gravitic can lead to micro changes in the growth of any single Demiurg’s mass, composition and even its silico-crystal neural complex or ‘brain’ in organic terminology. In particular it is the brains of the Demiurg which are very unique even by Silicon-based life-form standards. As the Demiurg reproduce through self-replication they are able to manipulate the silico-crystal matrices that constitute their species memories. As such the Demiurg as a race have a shared also eidetic memory of their past, or at least the past of the particular Brotherhood lineage they are replicated from. Ever focused on the practical over the emotional, the Demiurg have removed information deemed ‘necessary’ from their race memory where it holds no useful place in serving Thawl’ls Great Imperative. Though the Demiurg can remember the past quota schedules and mining acquisition tithes to almost perfect recall from their ancestors, they have forgotten basic historic facts. Such as the location of their home sector, the fact that they previously had more genders which they evolved away from, and the way of life that the Demiurg pursued before the coming Thawl’l and the Great Maker’s Fleet. The Demiurg appear as short solid humanoids with grey ‘skin’, reflective gold-amber eyes and outcrops of bluish fine hair-like crystals that form around their temples. As a Demiurg ages, these outgrowths of crystalize further forming clumped together nodules which steadily crown the head of the individual in a mass of prismatic callosities. Capable of living, if a rock can live, for periods of time measured on the geological rather than organic temporal scale, those Demiurg Overseers, Grandees and Arch-patricians often appear to be unable to stand or walk correctly due to the weight of these massed crystal callosities which serve as a mark of the individuals great age and wisdom. As their bodies are shaped by the silicon-based processes began on their long lost homeworld, the Demiurg mindset is also greatly affected by the same traits of their geo-organic forms as well. Individual Demiurg think more pragmatically than empathically, and will carry on with their decided and planned course of action in the face of other logic forms presented by other species. Many a world has been mined-hollow by the well-intentioned Demiurg Commerce Fleet even in the face of that planets population’s outcry to stop. The concept that any civilized race or culture not wanting to completely harness a planets mineral wealth to further Thawl’ls Great Imperative is completely alien and somewhat beyond a Demiurg’s comprehension. It is also this reason that the Demiurg are particularly resistant to the influence and corrupting power of the Warp and outward Psychic manipulation. This is not by the fact that they actively resist it but are ill-equipped to even perceive it correctly in their rigid stone-like logic. How Thawl’l was able to convince such an innately stubborn and mentally rigid species as the Demiurg towards the Great Imperative is a complete mystery. However, it may have been exactly this quality that made the Demiurg exceptionally suitable for mining the large Noctilith or ‘Nightstone’ deposits required during the ‘War in the Heavens’, which necessitated the start of the Great Imperative in the first place. SOCIETY Currently, it is unknown how many of the Demiurg’s commerce fleets and attending Brotherhoods are full members of the T'au Empire. Either in the capacity of allies, mercenaries or advisors. What is known is that they are involved heavily in commercial and economic relations of the T'au and in particular those relating to the extraction of resources and mass manufacture of technology. The Demiurg have abandoned almost all need for terrestrial interactions in favour of the use of their immense spacecraft. They are known to avoid Imperial space unless invited in by a sector governing body, or an opportunistic Rogue Trader, making them an uncommon sight beyond the edges of the Imperium. Often described as defensively-hostile and non-militaristic, the Demiurg view armed conflict as a necessary facet of the Great Imperatives undertaking. Though the Demiurg will undertake all efforts to establish contact and mutual understanding with other cultures and species, it is the case that there will always be certain factions which misunderstand the ways of the Great Imperative. When conflict does erupt, and a fleets Brotherhoods see the abandonment of their intended mining-resource deemed unacceptable they will turn their immense arsenal of mining machines and automated Ghola constructs upon their enemies with brutal if not workman efficiency. The Demiurg have organized their society based on the structure of related lineages, known by the term "Brotherhoods", which share a heritage with the first Demiurg explorers who set out from their home system countless millennia ago. Each of the surviving Brotherhood lineages represents the skills and specializations, that have been retained via the unique eidetic race memory of the Demiurg, from one of the first explorers. Therefore, these Brotherhoods themselves will be specialists in a given area of the Demiurg’s array of scientific and operational knowledge. For example, the Brotherhood of Srry’Tok trace their lineage back to ‘Srry’Tok the Spirited Armourer’ who was expert in the crafting of Ion technologies, whilst the Brotherhood of Vozlok trace their lineage back to ‘Vozlok the Wise Operator’ who was expert in the crafting and use of Ghola Automatons. There are many such Brotherhood which have survived to the present era due to the fact that the Brotherhoods spread their members out across the Demiurg Commerce Fleets, their members taking up the mantle required for the smooth running of the mining and manufacturing operations required for the Great Imperative. Though there are a variety of Demiurg vessel types, commonly the Bastion-Class and larger Stronghold-Class vessels are the most regularly used, each holding a number of Brotherhood Clan Groups required to undertake that vessels primary tasks. Usually only one Brotherhood is typically present upon a given Bastion-class Commerce Vessel as these usually only undertake one specialist activity if required, whilst two to three specialist Brotherhood Clan Groups are present on the larger Stronghold-class Commerce Vessel. It is usual that these larger Stronghold vessels undertake multiple types of operation, from deep-space asteroid mining to the whole scale manufacturing of new machines, weapons and merchandise for their willing trade partners. When new Commerce Vessel or Fleet production is agreed amongst the Demiurg Brotherhoods for undertaking new opportunities in opening sectors, whole new Clan Groups are produced via their replication technologies from the necessary Brotherhood lineages to maintain, operate and oversee those new vessels. The Head of a Brotherhood, known as the Arch-Patrician, is the oldest surviving member of his Brotherhoods lineage. These greatly encrusted ancient individuals are often unable to move of their own ability, the marked callosities of their age making them like statues of glowing crystalline growth. However, their minds have the oldest intact silicon-matrices and so have the most complete memory architectures dating back to the beginning of the Thawl’ls Great Imperative. They may have also seen first-hand the likely galactic events of Mankind’s first ascent to the stars and its war with their own failed attempts to create artificial servants, as well as the Fall of the Eldar race. Under the Arch-Patrician there are numerous Grandees who are the eldest member of their past Clan, they and their Brother Grandees now the heads of dispersed Brotherhood Clan Groups and their operations. The Grandees too of great age, are often unable to walk of their own ability, so often use hovering Thrones kept aloft by electromagnetic manipulator fields as they inspect the work of their descendants in the Clan Group. The Clan Group is further divided into smaller tasked work groups, kept in check by the directly replicated brothers of the Clans Grandee, known as overseers, as they undertake the various roles of miner, manufacturer, artisan, planner, administrator, prospector, operator and astrotechnician. Though the Demiurg are very capable of defending their interests, be they a deep-space mining operation or a planet-based extraction colony, through the weaponizing of their standard (and exceptional potent) mining machines and cutting beams, they will often seek the martial services of other races and mercenaries to protect their endeavours. This is due to the fact that sometimes when dealing with hostile biological organisms, one needs an allied biological organism to be effective in their dealings. Whereas the Demiurg mind is rigid in the pursuit of furthering the Great Imperative, the Brotherhoods often perceive organic carbon-based lifeforms as often more erratic in its emotions and actions, so gaining advice and council from trusted intermediaries can be of great benefit in avoiding unnecessary conflict and reducing impact on important production quotas. It is not uncommon to see all manner of other xenos species, as well as occasional Imperial renegade bands and non-Imperial humans, within their fleets as advisers, guards and mercenary soldiers. For example, the Kroot seem to have acted as a long-term associate race to the Demiurg and facilitated their meeting and trade negotiations with the growing T’au Empire. Other less commonly recognizable xenos races to even the most experienced Rogue Trader and Ordo Xenos Inquisitor including the mercenary packs of the Tarellian Dog-Soldiers, Piscean Warrior Cohorts, Morrallian Deathsworn, Nekulli Corpse-Harvester Clans, and Scythian Kill-Squads. Most blessed to the Demiurg are those Brotherhoods who boast to have drawn the attention of Thawl’ls own children, the ingenious techno-nomads of the Jokaero of whom the Demiurg hold great honour and praise, which is even more surprising to other non-Demiurg onlookers who have likely never seen a Demiurg quite as animated before then. TECHNOLOGY When the Demiurg abandoned their homeworld, after stripping it bare of all resources to build their initial exploration fleet, they created and invested a high level of technology in their majestic vessels since they are required to perform a number of tasks; Stronghold-class vessels, for instance are often used as the base of a particular endeavour, containing vast factories facilities and processing units, whereas Bastion-class starships are more often configured for use in prospecting for resources, direct asteroid mining, and searching for prospective trading partners. The direction of these fleets’ actions is most likely driven by the opportunities for commerce generated by manufacturing items on-location in the starships is very lucrative when dealing with multiple client species and for resupplying their mining operations with fresh supplies of mining machines and equipment. Of the technology developed, adopted and utilized by the Brotherhoods, three key areas are most unique to the Demiurg race. These include the use of devices which can control and manipulate electromagnetic forces; the manufacture of ranged mining beams and rays which can be turned into effective weapons when the needs arise; and finally, the semi-sentient automatons and mining machines known as ‘Ghola’ which they employ in truly vast numbers across all sectors of the Demiurg’s operations and way of life. When first setting out from their home sector of space, most likely in the Galactic East of the Milky Way Galaxy, the original Demiurg Brotherhood explorers were both thrilled and overwhelmed at the diversity and extent of the resources the wider Galaxy had to offer them in the pursuit of meeting Thawl’ls Great Imperative. Knowing full well that they, a long-lived and slowly replicating species, would likely be unable to undertake the task purely of their own manual power despite the technological advances they had made since the visitation by the First Artisan and the Old Kind. Again, taking guidance from Thawl’l example the Demiurg would create their own servitor race of semi-sentient machines, much like the biological servitor races employed by Thawl’ls own empire. However, the production of such bio-organic lifeforms was beyond the understanding, and even comprehension, of the early Brotherhoods, so instead used their own unique crysto-cerebral neurology to create synthetic minds similar to their own. Thus, the Ghola were first created and have faithfully served the Demiurg since those earliest of times. Though sharing a common synthetic neural-architecture to the Demiurg themselves, comprising great lattices or complex crystalline matrices, the outward appearance of these robots vary to a staggering degree. This is due to a combination of the Brotherhoods personal preferences, the precise operational environment to which the machines are designed to operate within most optimally, and the material resources most available to the Brotherhoods in charge of that Ghola Clades manufacture. From giant hulking multi-limbed monstrosities to small hovering drones, clinker-shelled, comprised of reflective precious metals. Those Ghola most associated to Asteroid Mining and low gravity environments have the appearance of large bulbous arachnids, equipped with multiple stiletto legs, powerful pulverizing jaws and cutting beams of high intensity. However, other designs and models can appear vastly different, from hunched stomping mockeries of early Terran primates glad in golden carapace, to tentacled squig-like cylinders moving on cushions of electromagnetic force composed of clear diamond hard synth-crystal. Usually, these Ghola are not directly controlled by the Demiurg themselves, and operate in a practically automatous manner. This is likely due to the relatively few Demiurg in a given Clan Group’s population in comparison to the huge Ghola workforce they oversee and direct. Furthermore, through great techno-artistry, the Demiurg will often install a workforce of Ghola into an Asteroid or rogue Planetoid to work completely in isolation away from the Commerce Vessel. Ingenious use of Electromagnetic ‘Shunt’ Networks and Conveyor Stations, operated by similar Command-Ghola constructs, propelling these resource-rich interplanetary bodies from prospecting fields to their intended destinations. Sometimes these operations take hundreds of years, a blink in the eye to many Demiurg, but by the time the asteroid arrives in-system the automated mining machines have excavated and processed the arranged shipment of mineral-resources. Though armed specifically to undertake their intended tasks if attacked, and the intended shipment was in danger, these Ghola will activate automatous logic engines and respond in kind. These machines use a territorial logic when left to operate in such extended periods of operation, possessing a territorial logic to protect their masters prospecting rights and acquired resources. The Demiurg are true masters of the development of various forms of energetic manipulation and control. In particular related to the use of high-intensity laser, radiation and microwave-fusion technologies used to excavate their sort after resources to fuel the Great Imperative. However, it is their masterful use of devices for the manipulation of Electromagnetic forces, one of the principle governing forces of the universe, in which they have truly excelled compared to other races and civilizations. From handled manipulators to their largely automated Demiurg vessels, these devices can be used to delicately move matter and energy in precise surgical ways, or brutally force such matter to travel at great speeds. The large commerce vessels of the Demiurg often use such giant Electromagnetic Field Manipulators or ‘E-Mag’ drives to scoop up interstellar hydrogen, which is then compressed inside the vessel and ejected towards the rear, creating a form of fusion ram-jet engine. The engines of Demiurg starships are relatively slow in comparison to Imperial starship technology, however a combination of the robust geo-organic bodies of the Demiurg and the complex shielding systems required to maintain these insitu E-Mag field generators allow the vessels to travel at truly fast levels of acceleration when engaged, compared to Imperial sub-warp engines, that would normally pulverize purely bio-organic lifeforms. Therefore, Commerce Fleets are relatively slow compared to the vessels of other races, lacking any technologies or psykers to utilize any form of effective warp-travel. However, the Demiurg concept of time is greatly different to that of short-lived species, such as humans, and as such this slower yet more purposely accurate form of propulsion more than adequate to the Demiurg’s requirements. Another key piece of technologies developed by the Brotherhoods of the Demiurg is the creation of Ionic Shielding and weaponry. Though to be one of the Demiurg’s earliest technological achievements, these devices are wholly used for the personal defence and armament of the Demiurg’s fighting forces when required. Such technologies, though effective over larger ranges than most of the Brotherhoods arsenal of mining technologies, can still be unstable if used ineffectively, especially by soft-bodied organic lifeforms. As such these are commonly employed by expendable Ghola soldiers manufactured in bulk as required but also traded to other races and civilizations in exchange of aid and potential mining and manufacturing rights. As already shown in recent times, the Demiurg are only too willing to share their Ionic-based technologies to other developing races, such as the T’au, in order to garner allies in their pursuit of Thawl’ls great imperative.