Heretek Perfection

[Polaria]

Introducing my Warband of Slaaneshi Hereteks:

 

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The Descent

Imperial Classification: Forbidden World
Celestial body type: Planet
Planetary Day: 32 hours
Planetary Year: 869 and 1/3rd days (652 planetary days)
Day/Night Cycle: 32 hour standard day/night cycle.

Weather Patterns: Daily rainfalls and weekly thunderstorms are typical, especially during the evenings and nights. There is very little seasonal changes, although rain and thunderstorms are more usual during the last third of a planetary year.

Indigenous Life: None.

Introduced Life: Imperial colonists have managed to introduce dozens of trees, plants and grasses into the equatorial zone, forming a small ecosystem. Several species of insect and birdlife are also present. The hives have large colonies of insects, mice and rats.

Imperial Presence: The planet has a population of 9 billion humans, located in thirteen hives across the globe. The capital hive, Tenebra Maze, has a total population of 900 million. There has been extensive Imperial Navy supply and refitting facilities in the orbit, but most of them have been destroyed or abandoned long time ago. After the planet-wide rebellion the new government called the “Council of Dust” has systematically disassembled imperial institutions and looted the former imperial infrastructure.

Traitor Presence: Several heretek cults and sects have representation in the Council of Dust. There are dozens of cults on the planet, but the most powerful seem to be Excessa, Bulletmaiden, Iron Witch, Gunlords, Clockworks and Iron Revenant. The leader of the council is Extasiarch +++[DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS]+++ a former agent of +++[DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS]+++.

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Tech-witches of Descent

As the Imperial Government of Descent was swept away by rebellion and civil war the Adeptus Mechanicus was forced to hastily evacuate the world, leaving many of its servitors, devices and tech-temples behind. With the gun servitors and skitarii gone, these holy places of Omnissiah worship were quickly taken over by frenzied mobs of the Iron Revenants who looted the temples in search for mystical secrets of the virtual immortality. What was left is now in possession of the Tech-Witches. The Tech-Witches are a loose collection of hereteks and self-taught machine-mystics of the Cult of the Iron Revenant. Very few of them have true ability to perform the Mechanicus rituals, their knowledge being a mix of rote practicality and mysticism, either tortured from Mechanicum adepts, deciphered from fragmented remnants of Adeptus Mechanicum texts or learned by-rote from other hereteks. This does, however, make them only more dangerous. Having no skill to design or engineer some of them have delved deep into forbidden rites, scavenging what devices they find and power them by any ritual possible, including making human sacrifices and calling for powers of the warp to augment what they can't fix themselves. For every tech-witch who has sworn his or her soul and blood to the rites of Dark Mechanicum there are hundreds of envious junk-foragers. In fact at times it seems every cultist of the Iron Revenant is a dabbler of some sort in tekheresy and mechanical mysticism. Some of them have set up small shops inside the Maze City where they peddle their wares and so-called skills. Some can indeed perform lesser labour of tech-adepts while most are just wishfull mystics with little or no knowledge. All of them mumble curses and blessings on devices, casting auguries on smashed components and scavenge the hives and battlefields for scraps of devices. In fact in the war-wrecked economy of Descent this is actually a rather lucrative occupation for a common man ensuring the Cult of the Iron Revenant an ever increasing supply of new converts.

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Lady Afrit “The Voice of Gods”

A former throne agent of the Inquisition, Afrit was sent to spy on the Cult of Iron Revenant on behalf of the Ordo Hereticus. She was later reported to be slain by Warpsmith Efer but has now been sighted to lead the cultists alongside her slayer. Reports suggest that most of her original body has been extensively augmented by heretek cybernetics. She seems to be a firm believer in ascendancy through heretek technology and has been seen preaching this heretek ideology to cultists.

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Clockwork Cohort

The Clockwork Cohort are elite heavy infantry composed of heavily augmented renegade space marines. Dressed in ancient, baroque power armour of gold and silver and carrying assortment of weapons they march into battle led by their lords, feeling neither fear nor pain. Where they originated from is a mystery, but it is known that they have all been permanently integrated into their armour and fed with an arcane cocktail of oils, steroids and combat augmentation drugs in order to create a “perfect warrior”. The few individuals captured by the Imperial troops were found with very little of the original flesh inside the armour. Most of their bodies were almost entirely mechanical and utilized intensely finely detail clockwork mechanisms. Furthermore not one of the techpriests examining these mechanisms could figure out what was powering them. It seemed like the complex clockwork bodies of these space marines were moved by an unknown outside force or perhaps powered by the residual will of the marines still inhabiting what little was left of their flesh.

* * *

Gunlords

Gunlords are the fully weaponized servants of the Dark Mechanicum. A step above the mortal cultists because of the awesome firepower built into their heavily armoured bodies they are afforded independence by the Tech-Witches and some even take part in the Council of Dust. However, as the Gunlords have hardwired most of the brains directly into their weapons and are unable to feel any emotion which does not involve the use of weapons or violence they are rarely interested in the politics of the Council and only show up when combat is inevitable.

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[Polaria]

 

+++URGENT+++

 

+++C’STHAL SYSTEM UNDER ATTACK+++

 

+++ENEMY UNIDENTIFIED/ASTARTES+++

 

+++DEPLOY IMMEADEATLY+++

 

+++GO WITH EMPEROR+++

 

Captain Saraken knew what it was. Carcharodons. Again. For the last year the grey-clad sharks and the Mantis Warriors had been playing hide-and-seek across the Endymion sector and there was no sight of the end of it. The Carcharodon tactic was brutally simple: They attacked one system at a time, demolishing the planetary infrastructure and leaving the inhabitants to die of starvation and exposure in the bombed ruins of their world. The Mantis Warriors would respond, of course, engaging the Carcharodons on the ruined planets, killing a few and taking losses until the grey-clad sharks would again retreat. The Mantis Warrior dominion was dying. Bite-by-bite, man-by-man, world-by-world. When the Carcharodons would be gone and the Mantis Warriors were left with a few less warriors and a ruined world that only strained their already diminished resourced. And the Carcharodons would be back, maybe in a day, or a week, or a month… but eventually they would be back to kill another world.

 

The weary captain assembled his company in the Hall of Visions. His staff was first to arrive. Frater propheticus Azhira his white Sigil of Prophesy attached to his armour and an ugly smile permanently fixed on his face after a Carcharodon chainsword had opened his face cheek to cheek. Frater astrotechnicus Damaskan, a sour looking techmarine that kept their ships flying. Apprentice astrotechnicus Lanius, a green-clad techmarine apprentice that was pilot of their only surviving Stormtalon gunship. And, of course, Veteran Sergeant Audamus. The cold-eyed killer who had slain hundreds with his two blades. After the staff entered the rest of the 6^th company. All thirty seven of them dressed for battle. The power armours were all recently painted, the yellows and the greens crisp and clean, but underneath Surabaya could see the subtle signs of a war that had been going on for too long. Many of the power armours were dented, many parts were mismatched due to being looted and pressed into service quickly and most of the rest looked like there was more repair cement than original ceramite. Even the seven terminator armours the 1^st company veterans wore looked like they could use a total refit. Still they looked hungry for battle.

 

That was the battle which changed everything the old captain thought as the memory faded into the reality before him. After that day nothing was the same again. As the captain now looked upon his company through the mind-twisting augmentations of the warp-mutated hull of a dreadnought he was interred in his staff looked very different than it had been on the eve of that battle. Azhira was now also interred into a dreadnought hull like him, transformed into this barely tolerable existence of a Warmancer machine. Sergeant Audamus was one of the resurrected Clockworks, more machine than man. Even Lanius was lost in the machine now. He had, perhaps, taken the greatest risks and paid the greatest price for them. As their strike cruiser had fled towards the Maelstrom, the Carcharodon strike cruisers and escorts in hot pursuit, it was Lanius who had risked his Stormtalon day after day, almost living inside the cockpit, scouting for a safe way through the places where realspace bent into warp. Ultimately, it had bent him too and now he was truly one with his machine, his body and Stormtalon fused together into a nightmarish beast. Sometimes Surabaya wondered if there was anything of Lanius left inside that fire-breathing drake.

 

As the strike cruiser had limped away from the battle its decks had been filled with the wounded and the dying. Of the forty-two that went down on the surface of the C’Sthal thirty had returned wounded, most of them already dying by the time they got to the ship. Twelve had not returned at all, at least not in person, their geneseed harvested and stored to wait for implantation. Techmarine Damaskan and the three apothecaries had done their best to keep them alive, interring both his captain and his prophet into Dreadnought hulls, but in the end the best he could do with the rest was to keep them barely alive, comatose and wired into the complex medicae machines. Later, when the company finally found a renegade port big enough to bring in their cruiser for repairs, they had started the painstaking process of healing, but many were left so badly damaged that extensive cybernetics and bio-therapies were needed to put them back into fighting condition. By the time the 6^th was operational again the Badab War was over and the whole chapter of Mantis Warriors was being brought into a trial by Inquisition, their future uncertain. Soon enough after the renegade port was taken by the surviving remnants of the Astral Claws and the 6^th company found itself sharing space with their former comrades-in-arms, now declared heretics and traitors to the empire.

 

Maybe then the 6^th company could have still left and returned to the Imperium, but lacking the resources they would have had to sneak away, abandon their wounded to the Astral Claws and run. They might have bought their way back into Imperiums favour by giving up the location of the Astral Claws and the renegade port but that would have meant betraying both their own wounded and their former comrades-in-arms. That would have been truly unacceptable.