Index Traitoris: Brothers of the Feast

[Punchymango]

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Brothers of the Feast

 

Clearance Vermillion

 

++ Duty is its own
reward ++

 

This traitor warband has been sighted repeatedly in the Sardis sector in recent months. While the Warp's effect on the passage of time is notoriously unpredictable their presence here appears to be a new phenomenon.

 

The Brothers of the Feast are a warband dedicated to the God Slaanesh, which may explain their revolting practices.

 

Origins

Very little is known of the warband's origin; what the Imperium does know about the forces of Chaos suggests that while a few legions remain largely coherent, most did not, and their ranks have been further swelled by renegade marines or even entire companies or chapters in the ten millennia following the Heresy.

 

It is likely that the Brothers of the Feast originated following the scattering of the Emperor's Children traitor legion in the aftermath of the Battle of Skalathrax. With formal legion organizations broken down, most of the traitors who survived the battle came to follow particularly strong, charismatic renegade marines, forming loose warbands which pursue their own goals.

 

Practices

 

The Brothers take their name from their abhorrent practice of eating the fallen after a battle. Indeed, the Brothers' military campaigns can be best understood as an unending quest for new and exotic fodder for their debauched post-battle feasts. In addition to seeking out novel forms of life to consume, the warband's human slaves are made to put great effort into decadent preparations for these feasts. If consuming a foe the warband has eaten before, the slaves will attempt to cook or season the meal in a novel way, or present it in an inventive light.

 

Being Slaanesh followers, these traitors crave novelty and greater heights of sensation above all else. It is common for the warband to pursue targets of no military value solely to procure the flesh of a species, planetary ancestry, or loyal chapter of astartes they have not eaten of before.

 

Additionally, these feasts are more than lavish meals. All manner of hedonistic practices take place at these events; strange drugs are imbibed, live captives are tortured or forced into sadistic choices, bizarre and cacophonous music is performed, each act of excess a gesture of devotion to their terrible patron.

 

One particular practice is noteworthy. Demons of Slaanesh often appear to support the Brothers during battle, and it is common for Daemonettes and other servants of the Dark Prince to participate in the feast that follows victory. During these feasts, members of the warband who distinguished themselves in the preceding battle may have the opportunity to enjoy the company of a handmaiden of Slaanesh for the evening. Traitor marines will strive to perform impressive or inventively violent deeds in the hopes of earning such a favor from their demonic allies, and even the human cultists every traitor warband seems to attract in numbers will fight with unholy ferocity in hopes of such an opportunity.

 

It is a fatal thing the human cultists strive for; while the traitor marines have the superhuman stamina and resilience of an astartes, an unenhanced human cannot hope to survive the experience of coupling with the demonic embodiment of lust and desire. Captured cultists have repeatedly used the phrase "die having tasted perfection," and while this does much to explain the seemingly suicidal courage frequently displayed by the Brothers' human followers, it also underscores just how thoroughly insane such heretics have become.

 

Organization

 

The Brothers of the Feast are not organized in any traditional sense; their structure bears almost no resemblance to the immaculately disciplined Emperor's Children whose members presumably founded the band.

 

While the specifics of the band's organization are hard to know, it seems likely that an unknown but small number of the strongest, most perversely
devout and merciless warriors make up an inner circle; these ruthless, debauched warriors are known as Lords of the Feast, and it is they that direct
the warband and lead its members into battle. Sorcerers, Dark Apostles, and other powerful individuals seem related to this structure but it is not known exactly how.

 

The most experienced and devout traitor marines form a corps of shock troops commonly called the Huntsmen: equipping themselves for close quarters fighting, these fallen marines have come to savor the sound of chainswords tearing through flesh and armor, the taste of spattered blood, the moment a foe realizes the moment of their death is nigh. Huntsmen commonly take to the field guided by a Lord of the Feast using demonic power to appear on the flank of an enemy force, or armored in terminator armor and making use of foul sorcery to appear in the midst of the enemy. In either case, their goal is to cause and relish as much death and mayhem as possible.

 

A more numerous and less experienced core of traitor marines fight more in keeping with traditional astartes tactics, advancing in rhinos or making use of heavy weapons to support the advance of the warband. It appears that newly inducted members of the warband begin their careers in this way. The Lords of the Feast commonly use these to form a battle line against which the enemy can be smashed by the flanking forces they themselves lead.

 

Human cultists follow the Brothers in great numbers; exactly where they come from or how they come to serve the Brothers is not known, but the Brothers never seem to lack for numbers of them. They are used in the same manner as traitor warbands the galaxy over use their human thralls; thrown into the teeth of enemy guns to draw fire or exhaust ammunition, or used to secure objectives so that the chaos marines can concentrate on killing the enemy.

 

The Brothers make extensive use of demonic powers and allies, both in the form of demons of Slaanesh, as well as demons forcibly bound to metal shells.

 

Notable Engagements

 

The Brothers of the Feast do frequently fight as part of Black Crusades and similar large scale engagements. During the Gothic War, several documented actions of the Brothers attacking Imperial worlds, as well as slaughtering and consuming cities to the last man, woman and child were noted. Their most infamous act during the 12th Black Crusade, however, was the massacre aboard the Star of Rammos. During the mutual hunt and evasion prior to a pivotal space battle, the Lunar Class Cruiser Star of Rammos disappeared. The battle turned out to be a decisive victory for the Imperials, but still there was no contact from the Star of Rammos. A patrol discovered the vessel adrift and seemingly dead in space nearly a week following the battle. Boarding parties discovered the ship entirely lifeless: whatever had happened had left not a single survivor among the crew. The only clues to their fate were the remains of an incomprehensibly lavish feast strewn across the great central chambers in the heart of the ship; the boarding party was sickened to realize that the bones and remains they saw heaped upon platters and scattered across the floor in these chambers were human.

 

Additionally, whispered rumors held that a small fleet of traitor vessels including a ship flying the Brothers' colors inflicted considerable losses on Eldar pirate vessels during the Gothic War.

 

The Brothers were also sighted fighting on Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade. Based on their actions, and the interrogation of prisoners taken during the fighting, it appears that Abaddon or his generals more or less turned the Brothers loose as marauders, correctly assuming that the warband would cause great havoc if left to pursue their cannibalistic impulses. Defending Imperial forces on Cadia suffered severe morale problems related to the Brothers' activities; rumors of the terrible fate that awaited those taken alive in battle spread through the ranks following sightings of the warband, testing the ability of the Commissariat and Imperial propaganda to keep fighting spirit high.

 

Threat Reassessment

 

The Brothers of the Feast appear to be attacking targets in a more militarily coherent manner, which coincides with an apparent change in leadership in recent years. Hosts of Brothers of the Feast have been sighted being led by marines wearing the emblem of the Emperor's Children, suggesting that veteran traitor marines have begun exerting more influence in the warband of late. Their perverse ferocity and terrible appetites appear undiminished; this recent change could signal a decidedly elevated threat from this unholy cohort of warriors.