Inspirational Friday - 24/10/2014

[Tenebris]

Hello my fellow heretics and welcome back to Inspirational Friday. This week was awesome and the stories about battles always inspire a good servant of the Ruinous Powers. I keep saying that the quality of the writing is increasing each week, with more and more elaborate and interesting posts every Friday. 

 

But we have a winner too. 

 

This week's reward goes to Cormac Airt and his Colvin Crusade. Not only he utilized some stunning 40k art in a creative way but the battle account was very well done. It had numerous factions, great characters and a certain flair which I describe "epicness" which is perfect for any 40k narrative. 

 

Thus Cormac Airt, step forth and claim your reward.

 

http://shrani.si/f/e/r4/KG83M5z/5/friday-award.png

 

A honorable mention goes to Tdf4638 and Marshal Sampson of Terra. Both narratives were interesting, the first because of the part about corrupting the faith and as for Sampson... The Cleaved rulez... really both deserve to be mentioned. 

 

 

Now for this week hmm, let's see... yes I got it... this will be awesome;

 

 

Inspirational Friday - 24/10/2014 - MINOR DAEMON OF CHAOS

 

Say it, all self respecting chaos warlords sooner or later get a sort of daemonic sidekick. It can be a daemonic weapon, a spell familiar or even a nice Nurgling gnawing at our power treads, but we can all agree that no chaos warband is complete without one of this minor daemons. 

 

The 40k lore is full of them, some are ancient tutelaries of the Thousand Sons, some are minor warp spirits which possess the marines, some can be just daemons who entered in service or were summoned by their lord but there are also so many more examples out there. 

 

For this week I would love us to take a step away from power armor action and recognize the minor daemons which curse or bless our warband or our characters. The daemon takes many forms and here I want to see you go wild with imagination. Really, anything goes, from a daemonette to a nurgling, from a spirit to a bound daemon, I would like to see you write about one of such creatures. 

 

In specific I would like to read how the daemon entered in service to your warband or character, what form it has, what purpose and nefarious scheme it plays. It is an ancient and wizened creature or is a naive being, it is lock in the nature of his daemonic patron or is a wild card... also it will be great if you can write about their powers, the relationship with your chaos space marines and so on...

 

In short write about a minor daemonic entity which can have any form and role in your warband. I am eager to read your contributions.

 

 

Now be inspiring!

 

 

Tenebris

[KingBlanco1994]

Hekarti the Eater of Souls

Hekarti the Eater of Souls is bound in one of the Sons of Slaanesh Defiler Daemon Engines named Corpse Maker. How Corpse Maker came about is a rather amusing tale the Chief Warsmith Lucian likes to tell his acolytes.

 

There was once a Daemonette named Hekarti she deemed herself to be perfect in all forms having being gifted with a alluring beauty hyper speed and deathly caress. However for all her gifts she was rather arrogant and believed no one could beat her. That was until she challenged our Lord Sigvald the Lucious.

 

Hekarti wandered across the sweet smelling glades of the dark princes realm staring longily at the seeker mounted Daemonettes riding their fine seeker steeds. Oh how she longed to ride one and be one with the wind.

 

As she stood there watching a plan formed in her mind she would make a deal with Slaanesh that if she could best the so called Sons of Slaanesh grand master he would grant her a seeker steed.

 

The dark prince agreed to this and sent her to the Sons of Slaanesh's home world. Many of the marines stared at her then got back to their training their purple armour with its golden trim gleaming in the sun. As she stepped up to the entrance to the chapters monastry she informed the marine standing guard of who she was and that she had come to challenge Sigvald.

 

He accepted her challenge seeing it as a way of coming closer to perfection. As both of them stood opposite in the arena she saw his armour for the first time it was light purple like the rest of the chapters but he also had alot of gold finery on his armour. His cloak a bright pink. In his hand was a fine sword silver but it bore a dark purple glow.

 

"So Sigvald are you ready" she said giggling to herself. "Yes you wretched Daemon having the nerve to challenge me a weakling like yourself" Sigvald said rather calmly. As the insult left his lips Hekarti let out a roar and ran at him jumping into the air then slaanesh at him. Quickly raising his blade go catch the Daemons blow.

 

This continued for a few minutes til it became clear to Hekarti that Sigvald was just toying with her and it was clear he was getting bored. As she prepared to swing at him with her claw again Sigvald swung his sword twice each time cutting one of her clawed hands off.

 

Screaming in both agony and pleasure Hekarti yelled at him "You got lucky this time next time il be better prepared". He chuckled watching as she began to try to flee back to the warp nodding to the hooded sorceror who simply raised his hand and waved it at her conjuring shackles and chains made of warp energy to bind her.

 

"What is the meaning of this" Hekarti screeched in shock "I am a Daemon of the Dark Prince your master". "You wish to know the meaning Daemon il make it clear you came here to challenge me you lost now you shall be bound within a Daemon Engine as your eternal punishment" Sigvald said with an air of authority.

 

As she was dragged off to the worlds Daemon forge all could be heard was her screams of defiance but it was all for naught.

[Conn Eremon]

First of all, thanks a lot for the recognition, I'm glad it was so well-liked. If anyone is curious about the characters and setting, you can find them in the Liber Cluster thread of the Liber Astartes subforum. There is a lot of good stuff in there, much of which blows my own contributions out of the water. You haven't been entertained until you have read 1000heathens' introduction of the Sereiki Lions.

 

Secondly, I'm not sure what I want to write about for this week. On one hand, I can continue introducing one of my as yet unposted DIYs. But do I write about a dragon-soul of the Jade Brotherhood, or a star-beast of the Nam Uggae? Or do I stick with some already introduced, with a court-fiend of the High-born, or go back to the Eyes of Tivan and do the minor blood god Tivan himself?

 

So many choices.

[Dizzyeye01]

Grats to Cormac. This subject shall be an interesting one to do.

[Kierdale]

Congratulations, Cormac! Good work.

 

A daemon? This I think I can do.

[TDF]

Many thanks for the honourable mention, Tenebris. I'm glad you found it interesting.

 

Now, for this week I have something I've been thinking about for a while. It kinda stretches the definition of chaos space marine warband, but I hope it'll be good.

[Soldier of Dorn]

 V’neru of the Marrowblades felt the summoning. He felt it throughout his entire daemonic spirit, the call of the masters, bathing in blood. It was always different, the tug of the mortals. Still, it was always recognizable, when the Marrowblades were called to war. The Marrowblades. Yes… Eightfold eightfold eight Daemons of Khorne, bonded to the Warband of Cain. The personal army of Dek’val’rax the Ascendiarch, the servants of holy Slaughter.

 The Warlord had sacrificed eight captured Astartes, the sacred number for a ritual summoning of this sort.  Something was wrong, though. As V’neru observed the material universe about him, he realized that the eyes he looked through were not formed of his own incorporeal substance, but instead were a complex assemblage of brass and red-tinged glass. He looked down at his clawed hand, expecting to see his hellblade, crafted of immortal bone and brass, but instead he saw only a cannon of splintered skulls and blood iron. He screamed, expecting the mortal Astartes to quake in fear, but instead the cannon mounted on his carapace fired, gouging a hole into the bulkhead across the hangar deck.

 Betrayed… The daemon knew, one day, that this day would come, but he had not expected it to be so soon. The engine he found himself trapped it would serve as a conduit for his rage.

 The daemon willed himself to move forward, but grew even more incensed as he found himself bound to the ground.

 Looking about him, he saw that he was not alone in this cavernous hold. Rank upon rank of daemonic machines struggled against their chains, but none escaped.

 Above them, three figures stood on a viewing platform, along with the bodies of eight loyal Marines of Ultramar.

  ‘Hmm.’ Said Zekeriah Cain, Lord of the Mark. Turning to the cultist equerry beside him, he spoke once more.

‘Tell Warpsmith Atovan that the ritual was a success. The daemons were successfully trapped in their ironforms. We will have daemon engines.’

 ‘And what of me, Zekeriah?’ This came from a large figure, draped in the shadows. A pair of malevolent eyes gleamed from under the daemon’s helm.

 ‘Ah, yes, Dek’val’rax. I thank you for your service.’

 ‘Those were mine. They were oathbound to me, the Ascendiarch of Khorne. They were not yours, not yours to do with as you chose.’

‘War requires sacrifice, as you well know. The Warmaster has declared a Crusade, his Thirteenth, and we require materiel for the assault on Terra.’

‘Terra?’ The daemon prince seemed confused. ‘Then it is nearly over?’

‘Yes, my brother. The Long War’s end is nigh.’

The daemon smiled beneath his helm, exposing yellowed teeth.

‘Then let it be so.’

[Tenebris]

Tlaxu'Minx - Chaos Defiler "Engine of Unchange" - The Immutable Changeling 

 

Tlaxu'Minx was one of the myriad of Horrors, the daemons of minor order in the legions of the Lord of Change. He was unbound, free to change, free to laugh and annoy the serious Blue Horrors, ever changing, ever merry. His fate was sealed when he and his host displeased their new master, the Lord of the Arrogant Sons, the Blind Archivist, the Unseen, Lord Tenebris. In one of the many conflicts with the putrid ranks of the Lord of Flies the Horrors were shamefully defeated by a much lesser order of the plague daemons. Their constant bickering and perpetual fastidiousness angered their Sorcerer lord, grated at its nerves and a punishment was in order. 

 

Tlaxu'Minx was chosen by a lottery, his Lord unwilling to dispose even of his lesser servants but an example had to be made. The lottery was held in the dark halls of the Arch of Creation, the manofactorum part aboard the mighty Arrogance, the ship of the Arrogant Sons. The names, the true names of this lesser daemons were cast into an enchanted rune, bound by contract and by essence to this magical artifact, runes were cast, the invocations of Change were uttered, Tlaxu'Minx knew that he was chosen when his eternal essence was summoned into the body of his unwilling host. 

 

Warpsmith Kalanthrox smiled at the profane torture he was about to inflict upon this ever-changing creature, the pain and insanity he was about to bind with his thin silver chains. The former Iron Hand savored the sheer cruelty of the act, the utter profanity which he will cast into this new weapon for the Warmaster. Kalanthrox learned about the Defiler daemon engine during his journey to the daemonic forge of Xana II, where Abaddon summoned his technomancers in order to cast the image of his new engine of death. 

 

Oh how Warpsmith Kalanthrox enjoyed when he brought Brother Dalemon of the Emperor's Children forth, the Slaaneshi deviant roaring in fits of pleasure as the brimstone shackles bit deep into his naked flesh. The Immutable Changeling was to be the first Defiler to enter the service of the Arrogant Sons, a new technology which sent the cabals of the technomancers into heights of inspiration and creativity across the Empire of the Eye. Abaddon was building his first host of daemon engines to unleash upon the Imperium of Man and the Arrogant Sons would be there, contributing as other did to the Warmaster's vision. 

 

Brother Dalemon's body was interred in the coffin recipient of the Immutable Changeling, the unholy ritual calling the covenant of artificers to bind a mortal host with the immortal daemon. As the shrieks of the Emperor's Children marine became feverish and unbearable the Warpsmith invoked the technocant of his order and the aspiring sorcerers summoned the essence of Tlaxu'Minx. The conjoining of daemon and mortal went without a hitch, the host was once a powerful marine, lost in the throes of insane cruelty and depravity when he walked the fields of battle while the daemon was a Horror, a creature of eternal change. Both were cast in the image of different gods, both walked beneath different stars, one had the acuity of geneforged martial might, the other the everchanging faculty of the minor orders of Tzeentch.

 

The cruelty inflicted upon this two beings, upon this two so different souls, resonated in the arcane hull of the Immutable Changeling, the soul of the marine was devoured and the essence of the daemon was bind, for eternity. Initially Warpsmith Kalanthrox considered the ritual a failure when the engine did nor respond to his summons but slowly, oh so slowly, an anguished wail echoed from the unholy creature. The despair of the daemon could be felt by anyone in the Arch of Creation, the horror of its fate, the anguish of his destiny. A minion of the God of Change was for evermore cast into immutable iron, never again to morph his body into a form more pleasing to its creator, never again to feel the glory of his master and the caress of his flames, never again to know joy, happiness and the merry embrace of his fellow Horrors. The changeling became a being of entropy, of eternal stillness, of a single form and purpose. Truly not even the most horrible tortures by the hands of the Thousand Sons sorcerers could compare to such fate and the Laughing Host quickly fell in order when the gaze of the Blind Archivist fell upon them. 

 

In this deliberate act of defilement the Arrogant Sons triumphed, order was established but more important of all Warpsmith Kalanthrox proved to his patrons that his knowledge and services were indeed a boon for the warband. Among the Arrogant Sons few liked the taciturn Iron Hand but the patronage of the higher circles of the Warband was returned twice over and a vault was consecrated to the use of his compact of technomancers and dark magi. 

 

As for Tlaxu'Minx his union with the eternal adamantium body of the Immutable Changeling proved to be a great success for the Arrogant Sons. The poor creature was driven insane by his eternal form, by this unholy eternal stillness, and the result was a daemonic engine which surpassed in height even the madness of the servants of the Blood God. When the Immutable Changeling is unleashed in his wake only destruction is left, the hails of anguish that echo from his vox grills are said to drive his enemies insane while his only expression is the unspeakable carnage this engine of woe is able to unleash.

 

In the following centuries the Arrogant Sons came to perfect the dark arts of Defiler creation, though only the rare occurrence of the destruction of enemy astartes walkers, helbrutes and dreadnoughts offered the animus strong enough to shape their forms into a Defiler. While the warband can summon several of this mighty engines from the Tower of Arrogance their deployment in battle is often considered only when the utter destruction of the foe is mandatory.

 

It was on Urthwart when the Warmaster unleashed his new Defiler engines upon the foe, Tlaxu'Minx among them. The Warpsmiths of countless warbands observed with pride their creations rip across the imperial ranks, butchering all in their wake. That day the destruction of a world was glorious to watch and many more templates of the Defiler engine were perfected from that day since. The Immutable Changeling has a long list of honors to his name, the engine even contended for the third place in the Games of Brass upon Genzat XI, a daemon world where many Warpsmiths unleash their creations for the amusement of their patrons and the Dark Mechanicus, though fell short in the contest when was pitted against the acclaimed Child of Sin created by Warpsmith Elanon of the Emperor's Children. 

 

Still the Immutable Changeling is considered an ancient and proven daemonic engine, its daemon now beyond despair and recovery, insane and eternal. Warpsmith Kalanthrox is often seen in the company of this, his firstborn engine and it is amusing that only he is able to recall the daemon from the slaughter. Lord Tenebris on the other hand parades the Immutable Changeling before the ranks of the Laughing Host when he suspects that discipline is lacking or any second motifs are discovered. Tlaxu'Minx has become a walking proof that to the defy the Sorcerers of the Arrogant Sons is a grave mistake and that eternal torture is a concept well within their reach...

 

And what of Tlaxu'Minx ... the poor creature is broken, no longer changing, no longer laughing. Its animus is incandescent and his temper foul but unlike other, lesser daemon engines, he is a faithful dog, knowing full well that when his master gazes upon him he should, he must bark. Needless to say that his fellow Horrors are very well cautious to test the patience of their Sorcerer lords thus they only play with poor Tlaxu'Minx when he is bound in his silver chains... and he is unable to "play" with them. 

[Slaanbull]

Haha, that is a grim fate. Poor daemonspawn. ;)
I enjoy reading these challenges, it is awesome inspiration for my own warband and the campaigns I should run with my buddies.

[Tenebris]

I imagine Tlaxu'Minx running around the battlefield, crying in his his strident, Joker like voice and willingly going to great lengths to damage his hull only to inflict a little bit of change upon his form. Change which to his eternal dismay is diligently repaired by the warband serfs after the battle... In short a horrible, horrible fate for a Horror. 

[Slaanbull]

Change is a lot of things: 

Though his master probably wouldn't reward the selfharm with a new exciting limb. ;)

[TDF]

The Realm of Chaos
The daemon sensed something permanent. It turned its head, attempting to locate the source. There! The distinctive scent of a psyker’s soul, calming the churning energies of the warp, creating a stable path into the mortal realm.

The daemon followed.

Kai
The binary chanting soared in volume and intensity as the fabric of reality tore open and the neverborn spilled out. At the appearance of the eighty-eighth daemon the dark magos cut the psyker’s throat and allowed the blood to spill down onto the adamantium floor, completing the binding pattern. The daemons reacted immediately, angrily testing the strength of the wards keeping them in place.

It was many days until the magi were fully satisfied in the binding and began the next stage of their work. The walls and floor were fully sealed and the chamber was flooded with a molten alloy of steel, brass and bone. The screams of the neverborn echoed throughout the facility for many days, but the bone and the binding prevented them from returning to the warp.

When the screams had fully faded the molten metal was extracted and cast into the guns that world was infamous for. On their completion they were sold to the Warmaster for 200 throne-slaved psykers.

The process began anew.

Levant VIII
The daemon fed on the hate of the Black Legionnaire and purified it. It fed the pure emotion through its circuits and chambers, focusing it into a tightly bound beam of warp energy. The beam erupted from the barrel and speared through the air towards the grey-clad lapdogs. The pure hate cut straight through a space marine and continued into his brother, killing both of them instantly. Inside the Kai gun the daemon laughed. It reached out for a fresh burst of hate...

...and found nothing. Belatedly the daemon realised it had fallen to the icy ground. It could sense its wielder lying dead on the ground beside it. The grey-clad loyalists approached and the daemon dared to hope that it would freed at last, after so many millennia trapped inside its metal form.

It was not to be.

Armageddon
The Relictor captain focussed on his hate for the ork scum and the Kai gun spat a crimson beam that scythed down half-a-dozen of the beasts.

He silently cursed the short-sightedness and hypocrisy of the Inquisition and the Adeptus Astartes. They preached of the potency of pure hate in the arsenal of humanity, but when shown a weapon that would make that statement literally true they rejected it as heresy. But not the Relictors. They understood that it was not the source of power that was so important, but how it was used.

Inside the Kai gun the daemon smiled.

[Kierdale]

Nal'eru of the Peris

 

 

Brookwood flexed the fingers of his right hand, resisting the urge to rest his hand atop the holstered bolt pistol he wore day in day out upon his hip. Was it the heavy leather and silk robes he wore making his brow sweat? The cloying sweet perfume emanating from pendulous censers suspended from the obscenely carved pillars? Or the fact that his mission neared its climax? He could feel it in his bones, and the Emperor’s tarot had indeed indicated that that which he sought was soon to be fulfilled.

After inquisitorial agents had uncovered the corruption on the Stygian Guard homeworld of Fulcrum they and astartes had served the Emperor’s wrath upon the fallen: both Guard and the general populace. Debauched wretches all.

With daemonic assistance many of the renegade astartes and hordes of their thralls had escaped, though countless more had given their lives to slow the loyalists.

The nature of their corruption now known, Ordo Hereticus inquisitors such as Brookwood himself had been tasked with hunting for possible influences in surrounding systems. Fulcrum had been a trade and religious hub for its subsector and it was believed that sects and offshoots of the libertine Exalted Fecund cult might have taken root. Thus Brookwood had delved into dens of iniquity on Leras III and Sarph Prime, had spied on brat gangs in the southern hive clusters of Steuson and caroused with the nobility of Milcani`nkar. Most of his investigations had turned up acts deeply immoral, despicable and base, the majority illegal by the laws of each planet, yet in none did he sense the touch of the infernal powers. Chaos.

But now, here on Phenora-6, investigating clubs, religious sects and the lowliest houses of ill repute: the Amethyst Pillar, Six Ways From The Sabbath, the Order of the Crimson Cave, the Glorious Many and more, he felt the tendrils. He was sure of it. As he followed the rumours, from society to society, cult to cult, he had climbed the ladder of Phenorese society. Oh the vile acts he had had to indulge in in order to gain the trust of these madmen! Upon returning to his rented domicile (when he was able to make his excuses and escape!) he had chanted mantras of purification, redevoting both spirit and body to the Master of Mankind. In recent weeks such prayers had failed to cleanse his mind of the images and thus he had taken to flagellation, scouring his back and loins. His accursed associates had looked favourably upon his scarred flesh when he had next attended their meetings.

And now, clad in the garb of a well-to-do rogue trader, he was being lead to meet the head of the cults on the planet.

The den, nay palace, lay nestled within a tower atop Taniphei hive, second only in height to the residence of the hive’s own baron. An exclusive club, to which the other cults he had passed through paid fealty, it had cost him a pretty penny to walked where he now walked, though currency was nothing to the Inquisition. The cost to his very soul worried Brookwood more and mentally he recited a sutra to gird his discipline, distracting himself from the scents filling the corridors, and the erotic imagery mosaicked on the walls and carved into the marble flagstones.

Once more he resisted the urge to put his hand to his hip. No good would it do him for all left their weapons at the door and he was now armed with only the single shot of the Jokaero needle weapon built into his signet ring.

He was flanked by a pair towering gene-bulked eunuchs whom he had been told could feel neither pleasure nor pain: their nervous systems having been voided. What feat of willpower it must have taken these devotees to maim themselves in such a way while serving within an order devoted to the satisfaction of every whim? Or perhaps it was the very epitome of masochism?

The brutes pushed open great gilded doors, revealing the master of the cult within.

It took all of the inquisitor’s willpower to continue his stride unbroken, for the individual reclining upon a vast divan before him was of such proportions that they could only be astartes. That post-human form, the gigantism, the musculature. Clad in a roseate toga, what flesh Brookwood could see was pale as alabaster, and lined like fine marble. As he approached the renegade - for what other reason could one of the Emperor’s Angels of Death could be found in such a place? - the human could see that the lines upon the marine’s skin were scars: those from the installation of the 19 implants, battlefield injuries and ritualistic patterns which hurt his eyes to gaze upon.

And before the divan, carved into the marble, was the mark of the Exalted Fecund: an ellipse vertical within a downward pointed triangle. He felt as if the ellipse were an eye scrutinizing him, though he knew it represented something more carnal.

The astartes smiled and stood, towering over even the gene-bulked guards, before bowing deeply before the agent of the inquisition.

“Lord Chasest. You honour us with your presence, and exalt us with your most generous gifts.” The smile widened. “You are no doubt aware of why you have been invited, my lord.”

“She…she is here?” Brookwood’s investigations had indicated that the Exalted Fecund, or at least its branch here on Phenora-6, was headed by a chief courtesan. The mistress of the seraglio. A beauty of such exoticism that only the most devout of the cult were blessed with a glimpse of her.

The renegade marine nodded and stepped aside, gracefully gesturing with an outstretched arm toward a portal at the rear of the chamber which the inquisitor had not noticed upon entering.

As he cautiously approached, the pink curtains parted to reveal darkness within. Believing himself tricked, Brookwood was about to pivot on his heel, raise his Jokaero weapon and execute the renegade. Kill the master. Decapitate the cult. But he trembled.

He had come so far.

That first stage of his initiation months before in which he had faked such greed, such a desire to enter the sect.

The second in which he had engorged himself along with his fellows upon the finest victuals imported from across the sector, many of which he had exerted the influence of his cover as a rogue trader to acquire.

And here he stood upon the threshold of the third rite.

There came a jingling from the doorway and the light from the chamber illuminated a svelte thigh and waist clad in crimson tinted leather and encircled with a belt of coins, each stamped with markings of circles and arrows interlocking. A hand emerged from the darkness, enticing him closer.

Locks of mauve hair.

What beauty lay behind that mask of jade?

His heart now racing, his breathing shallow and limbs heavy, all thoughts of the accursed astartes were forgotten, as were those of the licentious deeds he had perpetrated to arrive at this point.

All would be eclipsed by the ecstasy offered within…

 

The Psychopomps, and their thralls the Exalted Fecund, make use of daemonic allies not simply in their hunt for the Eldar and their frequent raiding upon Imperial worlds, but also in their corruption of the Imperial citizenry and the covering up of their acts and presence.

One such neverborn is the daemonette Nal’eru, who poses as the chief courtesan of the Exalted Fecund upon Phenora-6. Only those in too deep to be redeemed are `rewarded` with an audience with Nal’eru, after which their loyalty - indeed their very souls - are guaranteed.

Nal’eru herself was summoned alongside dozens of her sisters from the palace of the Dark Prince, in a ritual on the homeworld of the Psychopomps (formerly the Stygian Guard). While some were ensnared and chained with sorcery, bound within infernal engines of iron, some assisted in the creation of horrid flesh golems from the bodies of the willing cultist, Nal’eru and more came to teach the worth excesses beyond imagination and, in time, were called upon by lord Sophusar and chaplain Angra to assist the cult’s spread.

In exchange for such services, the Psychopomps made a pact with the herald leading their daemonic allies: the Peris (as the beautiful fiends became known) would receive a regular bounty of captured Eldar and their spirit stones.