++Inspiration Friday (Chaos Icons. Until 12/18)++

[Kierdale]

Would you mind if I used one of the icons from my homebrew codices?

I wouldn't mind at all! I look forward to it.

Be sure to include a link (for those who haven't seen it yet). :tu:

[Teetengee]

Thanks, will do. (Also, link is in my sig, if anyone is interested now.)

[Scourged]

...eh, it's alright. Not among my better work, to me at least. As others have said: this was a difficult challenge.

Step forward Scourged and Teetengee to claim your rewards!

Well... that'll teach me to doubt my own work again, heh. Thanks for the award, and congrats to Teetengee as well! Now then, off to my lair to see what fun I can whip up about an Icon of Flame, or something equally Tzeentchy.

[Teetengee]

In case anyone is interested in writing about any of the icons from my homebrew dex (which I can't really take full credit for):
Tzeentch

Khorne
Nurgle
Slaanesh

 

(Each of the 5 codices also has a relic banner, if that piques your interest)

[Teetengee]

Standard of Fecundity, or Old Dothan's Work:

Hidden Content

Old Dothan sat upon a vast mushroom before a rotted desk grown from an ancient tree. He cracked arthritic fingers with a smile; he loved his work.

A seven inch centipede crawled out from the side of the desk, a bone sewing needle clasped in its pincers. It moved quickly, deposited the needle in Old Dothan’s outstretched palm and, upon receiving a thankful pat, returned to its home within the workspace. Children’s screams mixed with giggles as two bloated tiny daemonlings began to tease and tear the fabric from a chained “donor’s” back. But Old Dothan didn’t hear them, for Old Dothan was deaf; instead he held the needle to a the spinnerets of one of the grey spiders nested in the ceiling. The spider looped silk through its eye and Old Dothan brought his hand back down to the surface, now ready with rabbit fur and skin.

Old Dothan felt for the edge of the two fabrics and lined them up under the light of the friendly glow worms. He stitched them together slowly, taking care that each stitch would hold. Though of an extremely advanced age, he did not tire quickly, and worked long into the night and well into the next before stopping to pause. He put down his work where it lay, the centipede storing again his needle. Old Dothan gripped the edge of his desk and shakily forced himself to his feet with a toothless whistle. Doubled over, he grabbed his femur walking stick and hobbled slowly to his bed of rotted leaves. He sat effortfully and creaked as he lay down. A blanket of beetles and flies formed over him, sipping at his sores to keep him warm. Old Dothan grabbed one of the fattest and licked it with an oozing black tongue, its legs flailing impotently. He crushed it in his mouth and sucked at the sweet juices which poured from it, though many leaked out his cracked and bleeding lips. Old Dothan slept, and Old Dothan dreamed.

When Old Dothan woke, he made his creaking path back to his mushroom seat and rotted desk, work precisely as he had left it. He once again went through the ritual of the needles and thread, and he once again sewed long into the night of the next day. Each day for over a week was the same; each day added foot after foot to the fabric. Finally, Old Dothan grunted. He was pleased with the completion of the first stage, but as always disappointed that he must upset his routines.

He reached up into the bow of the rotted tree from whence his desk was wrought. Tugging sharply on a piece of bark, he was quickly drenched in a short deluge of green brine. From the hole in the branch fell into his lap several pigs uteruses, leathery from long immersion.

Taking up his needle and silk once more, Old Dothan began the bottom fringe, chanting as he sewed. The leathery flesh was tough, and Old Dothan huffed with the effort each time he thrust the needle through it. But Old Dothan did not complain; he loved his work. For days more he continued, until the bottom edge was complete, still resting infrequently and enjoying every part of his routines.

Old Dothan rested then for a whole day, but soon enough, small rodents began to drag the skeletons of their dead to his station. He took their ribs and hooked them into the top of his work, binding them fast with sinew and silk. Each loop of bone often took multiple ribs, but the holes to sew them together were ready made by green osedax worms while Old Dothan dozed, and for this he gave thanks to the Lord of All. Old Dothan sewed, and Old Dothan slept, and Old Dothan did both again, and finally the rings were done, thousands in a row and each two inches in diameter. Once again Old Dothan slept, for his eyes were tired, and his work was long from over yet.

Upon waking he once more went to his desk, but on this morning no kind centipede brought him a needle, no beneficent spider offered him thread. Instead, Old Dothan reached deep into a bromeliad growing from the corner of his desk and brought forth a slick bone quill, sharp and sturdy. He centered the top left piece of the banner on his work surface, the rest splayed out over his lap and pinned it to the table with long rusted nails. Placing his left hand flat on the corner, he dipped the pen in the pus of the wounds on its back and began to write on the banner, digging deep to tattoo the runes into the mottled flesh. And while he wrote, he sang.

Old Dothan sang of growth and of life. He sang of the ever fruitful gifts of decay. He sang of the blessings of disease and the separation of flesh from mind and mind from sanity. He sang of the refusal to accept the rule of others and of the predations of the flesh proving to one that they are still alive. And whilst he sang he worked, and whilst he worked he did not sleep, for his joy was too great to contain with that change. He had no need of working ears to know the words he sang, because Old Dothan heard the words in his slowly beating heart.

When at last Old Dothan completed the final runes, the whole of the banner was covered, front and back, inch by delicate inch in his tight script. He looked upon the red, white, yellow, and green and smiled, for the Grandfather was good, and this was his work. But he grew weary, and once more took up his cane and went to rest.

For two days Old Dothan slept, and for two days the rotted tree once more bloomed with life. Its leaves fed upon the light of the glow worms and its roots upon the flesh of the dead. It grew two mighty branches, though the first ended much longer and thicker than the second. When Old Dothan rose upon the third day, he saw but the brown leaves of fall upon the floor below these branches, but he grinned at knowing its blessing. He took up a saw, rusted orange with age, and dragged it slowly across where the branches met the trunks, gradually worming his way through their thick new growth. The two branches fell separately, but alike, both with a thud and a crack of wood on wood onto Old Dothan’s desk. When the second fell, he sat upon the mushroom stool and waited.

The two nurglings returned, carrying with them a long length of thick sinew. Old Dothan tickled them gently before they dropped the sinew and ran, tripping over each other with glee as they left. He threaded the shorter of the boughs through the bone circles at the top of the banner, each scraping slightly as he dragged it further and further over the frame. When the banner was fully set upon its pole, he crossed the larger bough across the gap in bone at the center of the smaller. Taking up the sinew, he lashed them together tightly, whistling tunelessly while he wrapped, pulled, and tucked.

At long last, Old Dothan had completed the banner. He propped it against his rotted tree and sat heavily on his stool, forcing it to release a cloud of tacky spores that settled over everything nearby. Old Dothan leaned upon his desk and snored, insects feeding upon the rot in his teeth and the dirt in his hair.

The rusted metal door to his chamber slid open, revealing the glow of the hallway beyond. Crushing the thick undergrowth underfoot came a giant in rust and ceramite, covered from head to toe in a bright green moss. A skeletal face leered unhelmeted from out between two massive pockmarked pauldrons; skin hung in flaps and shreds from its faintly glowing eye sockets. Old Dothan woke to it standing above him and simply nodded to his master. The astartes took the standard and held it aloft, admiring the heft and craftsmanship. Suppurating sores, grown from runes in the patchwork skins, dripped life giving pus onto his exposed bone, and the flaps of skin crawled back into place, clinging loosely to their former junctions. He gave a gruesome smile and a stilted nod before taking the standard and striding slowly from the chamber. Old Dothan smiled too. Old Dothan loved his work.

[Carrack]

Of Saints and Angels

 

"A wanderer is not always lost, sometimes they know exactly where they are" -Lord EeshiOh M40

 

Moon of Odeanta, Odeanta System. Vanicor Sub-Sector. Planetfall +2.

 

Author's note: Sorry about the length.

 

 

"Saint" Tiam reared his horned helm back and roared, "Blood for the Blood God!" The other Chosen of Lord Carrack echoed the cry throughout the rhino, as they had done countless times before. The rhino, Carratuge L'ull, ended its long, careening jump over the chasm below with a series of dissatisfying light bounces. The low gravity of the moon had made the jump possible, but robbed Tiam of the thrill with its weak landing. He wanted to slam, he wanted to bite his lip and taste the blood, he wanted the feeling of exhilaration to stir his soul before combat, but deep down, he knew nothing would. Nothing save the blood of his enemies, nothing pleased Tiam save that which pleased the Blood God. Like the death defying leap over the chasm, fatal even with the gentle gravity, all other thrills had lost their appeal over 10,000 years of war. Even his "sainthood", no longer brought a smile to his cadaverously grey lips.

 

For Tiam was truly an Imperial Saint. In the early 37th millennium, on the most holy shrine world of Ophelia VII, a Ministorum movement took hold with the aim to canonize all individuals known to have performed a personal service to the Emperor, prior to His Ascension. This movement was called the "Famulanati", and was responsible for canonizing several hundred saints. The movement uncovered records of the pacification of a planet now called Maroon. Luna Wolves and Blood Angels had quickly brought the world into compliance, while being led personally by the Emperor, a rare, but not unheard of occurrence at that stage of the Great Crusade. Following the victory, fleet command voxed down to relay a message to the Emperor. Tiam took that message and delivered it personally to the Emperor. The careless remembrancer who wrote of the incident, recorded Tiam as a Blood Angel, and thus Tiam, now a Black Legionary, was made an Imperial Saint. For hundreds of years, Tiam had taken great delight in revealing his sainthood to the followers of the False Emperor, to relish their shock and doubt in their last moments. But like all other joys outside of spilling blood and collecting skulls, it too, like so much uncared for gold, had lost its luster.

 

But joy was soon to be had, Tiam and the Chosen were about to board an enemy vessel, and in the cramped quarters of ship fighting, the confines of the Zone Mortalis, blood would surely flow, his or his enemies, Khorne cared not. Boarding actions were the true crucible of battle. They were the operations that Astartes were made for. In truth, which in spite of his abundant arrogance, Tiam still recognized, mortals could equal the might of marines, if they had sufficient numbers. Paltry lasguns, while insignificant on their own, could bring down a demigod if enough of them were brought to bear. Conversely, Tiam's own weapons, his bolt pistol, boltgun, even the bloody staff of his wrathful icon, could only slay so many, many, mortals, but mortals could bring more bodies than he could slay. It hadn't happened yet, but it was theoretically possible. In the close quarters of boarding actions, the narrow halls, cramped cabins and stations, the individual supremacy of an Astartes could not be matched with numbers, there simply wasn't room for it. It was the form of warfare where the deadly advantage of the genetically enhanced super-soldiers was most obvious. Tiam loved it, cherished it the way lovers cherished reliving their favorite encounters. It was the same for the rest of the Chosen of Lord Carrack. It was why their echoing cries were still as potent and passionate as Tiam's own.

 

This boarding action was to be unique in its entrance. They were not screaming through the void in boarding torpedoes or dreadclaws, but driving to the enemy ship in rhinos. The lances of the Bitter Revenge had hobbled their prey, which had been hiding in a ravine, by collapsing an avalanche of Quartz and frozen Hydrogen atop the enemy's vessel, but then, the Bitter Revenge was forced to hide in the same ravine to avoid detection from the Imperial world below, and for the same reason, did not wish to risk more traditional boarding methods.

 

Carratuge L'ull came to a stop at the buried prow of the Ocultis Chartis, the warship of the enigmatic Wanderer. The other rhinos of the boarding party pulling off to either side of the ravine in a herringbone pattern, and the Black Legionaries dismounted. The last rhino, that of the Chain Maker, Warpsmith of the Black Maw, drove directly up onto the buried prow, via a natural ramp of fallen debris. The back hatch opened to reveal a pair of heavily augmented mutants, each bigger than a bull ogryn, crawling out while dragging a sinister drum, easily capable of refueling all of the party's rhinos, if it was filled with mere promethium. It wasn't. It held a Rock Worm from the daemon world of Vaska. A two meter wide worm that chewed through the flesh mountains of the Kasta range for nourishment. Like the big mutants, this worm was fitted with augmetics as well, control spikes were sunk deep into each segment, it's eyes, all six of them, were covered with armored blinders, and it's six hinged mouth opened into a magma cutter. The mutant thralls placed the drum, top down over the buried prow and crawled back to the rhino. As they entered, the drum blew apart and the worm screamed silently in the vacuum of the void. A mechandril snaked out of the gunner's hatch of the Chain Maker's rhino, to caress the nubs of the control spikes, and the worm went to work, digging through ice, crystals, and then hull. A breach had been made. The Chosen of Lord Carrack were the first into the breech.

 

As Tiam dropped through the breech, he saw the remains of the worm thrashing on the deck below the deck they had scrambled to land upon. It had melted its head off with the heat from its own magma cutter. He left it to die as he followed his champion, Vinno down the corridor towards the center of the ship. Alarms were blaring through the ship. Good, thought Tiam, there would soon be blood.

 

As the Chosen made their way down the corridor, Tiam took in his surroundings. If he had to guess, the Ocultis Chartis was most likely a strike cruiser, the layout of the prow deck was a familiar one. Yet it was obviously tainted. Sparkling motes of dust hung in the stale air of the ship's corridors, but unlike normal dust notes, the ones aboard Ocultis ChartIs moved on their own, without the propulsion of gusty drafts from the life support systems, seemingly with intelligence. The bigger, more sparkly motes would occasionally chase into the smaller motes, devouring them and growing larger, as if they had the sentience of a predator, and swarms of smaller motes would gang up on larger ones, breaking them down into a scattering of tiny flecks of dust that shined in the light. Side passages were sealed with mirrors, just as durable as a more typical armored bulkhead, but reflecting back shocking images. Tiam had seen himself warped and twisted, overcome by the gifts of the gods in one mirror's reflection. He had seen a barely remembered version of himself as a child in another. Inhuman howls echoed from behind the sealed doors. Tiam wanted to break through the seals, and slaughter those within. He could feel the icon pulling him towards the

crowded cabins of the prow gun crews, auxiliary magazines, service stations, and fire control shrines. All were no doubt filled with prey, yet secured behind armored blast doors as part of the ship's counter boarding measures. They would have to be ignored for now.

 

Contact with the enemy was soon made. Contact that would provide the first chance to spill blood onto the decks of the enemy ship. As the Chosen navigated through a "Z" shaped break in the corridor, a defensive measure to limit line of sight and fields of fire for boarders, a gang of mutants were pounding on the door to their cabin, caught outside before the ship had secured its doors. Tiam counted 15 of the mutants. Once human, but like the ship they served, tainted. Mutation would inevitably take its toll on mortal crew of a warship that frequented the Eye, Lord Carrack's own flagship, Bitter Revenge, had few crewmen who served aboard her without some obvious sign of the attentions from the gods, however, these mutants were more tainted that the worse of Bitter Revenge's still functioning crew. Eyes protruded from stalks, tongues, and tentacles, those that weren't recessed into arms, claws, bellies, and backs of heads. Few had two arms, two legs, and a head, some had many more, and others less. Faces were sloughed of to the side, inverted, or had migrated to new positions at the whim of the gods. Skin had hardened, sprouted feather or scales, changed colors, or left their owner completely. Wretches, one and all. With timing honed over Millenia of war, Vinno and Tiam slid to a knee on either side of the corridor, crouching low, with Vinno's power sword and Tiam's Icon against either wall, low and protected. As the Champion of the Chosen, and the Bearer of Wrath, let loose a few shots into the mutants with their bolt pistols, the whoosh of Harold's and Bassi's flamers rushed over the kneeling Legionnaires to set the majority of the mutants aflame. With a nod from Vinno, Tiam shouted, "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" To the echoing response of the Chosen. Tiam then ran forward, firing his bolt pistol and holding the icon aloft,

 

 

The icon borne by Tiam was a blasphemous cold-forged iron standard. From lance head to butt spike, the icon was twice as tall as an Astartes. Affixed to the top third of the haft, was a brass rune of Khorne, which radiated a palpable evil, and was forever stained with blood. Skulls were mounted on the rune, hung from from chains, and were pierced through by both butt spike and lance head. Physically, the icon was little more than a spear or bludgeon in battle. Spiritually it was much more. The icon was their flag, it proclaimed their allegiance to Khorne for all to see. The icon was their focus of worship, the witness of their bloody deeds done in the service of their god. Perhaps its greatest importance with the Chosen, was as a symbol of honor. The icon would never be abandoned, it would never fall. It was carried by Tiam by the unanimous consent of the squad, not by orders from their champion, or any other. Tiam was judged the most devout to the Blood God, the most worthy to carry the squad's symbol. Yet Tiam knew, the day he fell in battle, another would quickly pick it up. The Icon carried the legacy of their squad, and it would live on past the life of its bearer. Tiam knew, because he was not the first with the privilege of bearing it for the enemies of the Blood God to see its cursed rune and lament. He raised the icon high and led the charge. Ancient warriors screamed their rage as they followed their icon into battle once again. The bangs of autopistols, and swings of claws and heavy wrenches were ineffective against the rush of ceramite clad demigods. Demigods of war, with weapons that were bloodstained from a multitude of worthier foes. The blood of the mutants ran the deck red, misshapen skulls were held aloft in offering to a thirsting god who cared not for the quality of the blood being spilt, only that it was.

 

Tiam was alive! He felt the power coursing through his veins and pooling in the icon. The power of the rawest of emotions echoing through the warp, spilling down well worn paths into the rune of Khorne. Hate, anger, bloodlust. They fueled him and the other Chosen of Lord Carrack, propelling them again and again into work gangs of mutants. Until they met real resistance, until they met cousins of an older era. They had just butchered their way through a hasty barricade thrown up in the corridor, bulling through slabs of hull patches and overturning a belt-fed stubber. At the end of the corridor, a squad of black armored Astartes had taken position before a set of blast doors. A pair of plasma gunners out front, prone, supported by a pair of kneeling, and a pair of standing marines with boltguns aiming down the corridor. Behind them stood their champion, bareheaded and holding a power mace, along with another trio of marines behind him. They opened fire as soon as the Chosen of Lord Carrack cleared the barricade. A searing beam of light struck Marbas behind and left of Tiam, another scouring into the wall to his right, revealing a bizarre arrangement of tiny daemons spitting energy into one another, rather than more mundane cabling. The plasma blasts were accompanied by a barrage of mass reactive bolts exploding against the armor of Vinno and Tiam. Their armor held, but Marbas lit up like a green torch as the plasma burnt through the loose ties between his soul and reality, hellfire pouring out of the flexible joints at his neck, elbows, groin, and knees. Whatever denizen of the warp that lay claim to Marbas's soul, would soon collect the insufferable bastard.

 

It wasn't the first time Marbas the Revenant had been slain, not by a long shot. Marbas had attained an immortality of a sort long ago. During Abbadon’s 2nd Black Crusade, Marbas found himself engaged with Eldar from Craftworld Ulthwé. The victorious Eldar completed banishment upon the dying Marbas and sent his soul to the warp. A century later a Black Legion sorcerer discovered a way to reverse the banishment for a short time and bring back Marbas from the warp, in order to bolster the ranks for key battles. A few months later the sorcerer worked out a way to permanently bring Marbas back from the warp but his squad members murdered the sorcerer and destroyed this knowledge so they don’t have to spend any more time with Marbas then they have too.

 

The Chosen fell back behind the wreckage of the barricade. It was too long a corridor to charge into determined fire. Part of Tiam, or perhaps just the influence of the icon he carried, wanted to rush the corridor anyway, damn the losses, just get to grips with the foe and rend and tear. But Tiam had not survived The Long War, by recklessly charging every foe. Vinno dropped a melta bomb a few meters away and pulled and primed a frag. The melta bomb began spewing forth heat that could melt the front armor of a tank, at a junction of floor panels and the supporting beam beneath it. When the section of floor gave way, the frag rolled into the hole exploding in midair in the bay below. The Chosen followed the frag, dismayed that they had entered an empty maintenance bay for refitting void fighters. They sprinted beneath the corridor to the other side of the blast doors, where Obbo and Casper unloaded an alternating series of meltagun shots into the support beam above, with similar results. Vinno's frag this time, did not explode into an empty room, but sent shrapnel scything through a captain's antechamber and a dozen black clad Astartes, armed with a range of power weapons, bolt pistols and boltguns. The Chosen of Lord Carrack leaped with servo assisted legs into the antechamber above, weapons brandished and the cries to the Skull King once again on their lips.

 

The initial charge hit the enemy marines hard, particularly the lethal work of Vinno's red glowing power sword and Paimun's power fist, but the enemy took the losses and gave back just as good. Bassi went down, a power mace crushing his helm and the skull beneath it, Cannil lost a leg at the knee to an energized axe strike, and dove for the safety of the bay below. The rest were suffering minor wounds and armor damage at a pace that could not be sustained. They were being overwhelmed. Tiam ignored the tides of battle, lost in the throws of a duel, exchanging strikes with his heavy icon with the combat blade of an unhelmed, robed, Astartes. It wasn't that he was lost in the rage of the moment, although it's pull was undeniable, it was the face of his opponent. So familiar, yet so startling. The Astartes swung a blade with an octed pommel, other emblems of the gods adorned his spiked armor as well, but that face, green eyes staring down a patrician nose, framed by long golden hair. A fallen son of the Lion.

 

The Fallen Angel darted in after jumping Tiam's leg-sweeping strike with the icon. As Tiam struggled to recover his over committed swing, the Fallen found a seam under Tiam's arm, and rammed the blade through armor, carapace, bone, and flesh to puncture a lung. Tiam took the damaging blow, and instead of twisting away to trap the enemy's blade, lashed out over handed with a bolt pistol weighted fist. The Fallen Angel sat down abruptly as his skull cracked at his crown and he bit through his tongue. Tiam kicked out with his armored boot, shattering the Son of the I Legion's jaw in a shower of teeth. Tiam glanced over the rest of the battle to see brothers being brought down by paired Fallen, one Fallen would stay on defense, only launching predictable, but deadly swings. As the Chosen of Lord Carrack were forced to deal with the frontal attacks, another Fallen would be waiting in the wings, ready to exploit the tiniest chink in the Black Legionaries' defenses. Tiam loosed a few bolts into the back of one such assassin and drove the butt spike of the icon into the chest of the Astartes at his feet. With that strike, the tide of battle shifted quickly in favor of the Black Maw.

 

It wasn't the coup de gras of the wrathful icon driving into the primary heart of the Fallen foe. ;) it was what happen next. As the icon drank deeply of the enemy's lifeblood, a clarion call sounded through the warp from the icon, proclaiming loudly who the blood flowed for. Away from the Ocultis Chartis, further down the ravine on the bridge of the Bitter Revenge, the icon's call reverberated through the warp to land in the ears of another of Khorne's favorites. Lord Carrack heard the call. Not fully understanding how, the Chaos Lord and his terminator retinue called for a teleport. Lord Carrack was well aware of the dangers of teleporting into the guts of a warship buried in tons of Quartz and frozen Hydrogen, but teleported anyway, directly into the raging battle of the antechamber. The lord of the Black Maw and his guard landing in a circle around Tiam's icon. Before the waves of nausea and rush of displaced air accompanying the teleport strike left the antechamber, the Chaos Lord set about the Fallen with barely controlled swings of his great axe. His retinue, also clad in ancient terminator plate, added to the carnage with claws and axes of their own. The Fallen backpedalled to the far blast door forming a loose semi-circle to protect their backs from the rabid terminators. The doors slid open and revealed the Wanderer. Reality ripped asunder with his entrance.

 

The sparkling of the dust notes, and their perpetual civil wars, grew in intensity to an eye searing brightness. They swirled around the vague shifting form of the Wanderer, each violently jockeying for his attention. The Wanderer ignored them. The Wanderer himself was once an Astartes, but had long since transcended that classification. It was difficult to get a clear view of him, the bright lights surrounding his form and the rippling in the air caused by his mere presence was enough to distort the vision of even the advanced optics of Tiam's armor. What he could see was something far from human, far from mortal. Four arms sprouted from a scaled trunk, further protected by pieces of black power armor. Two arms ended in 8" claws, one had a short tentacle coiling around a scroll case, and the last arm held a twisted staff, dangling fetishes, charms, and bags of human skin. One leg was that of a heron, long and skinny and ending in a talon, the other was that of a marine, fully armored with spikes at the knees and a silver spur attached to the boot heel. The neck of the wanderer was easily as long as his body was tall, its movements resembled that of a serpent, yet instead of scales, blue and green feathers, like those of some tropical bird, sprouted in bushy clumps. The head of the Wanderer was reptilian, massive jaws promised a lethal bite, and caged-in a pair of tongues, one pink and one green, both long and forked. One eye was the dull yellow of a reptile, yet the other was a glowing green. Both eyes turned independently to take in the surroundings.

 

The fighting had paused at the arrival of the Wanderer. Both leaders stared challenges as their warriors began to clear space for a duel. Lord Carrack had the look of a feral beast about him, his third simian arm pounding its claw against his chest in a threat display. The Wanderer had the look of a cruel intelligence behind its mismatched eyes, and was clearly assessing the likely outcome of the coming fight. The moment passed. Lord Carrack bellowed an animalistic roar and the elite of the Black Maw charged. Before their blades crossed with those of the Fallen, the Wanderer waved his staff in a short arc, opening a hole in reality that pulled him and his followers through. The impossible colors of the warp could be seen within. The hole abruptly closed, leaving Lord Carrack slashing through the empty space in a frothing rage. The Chosen and the the terminator guard eased to the corners of the room, having witnessed their Lord's rages before. Hopefully this one would subside quickly and without further casualties. They would have to find the Wanderer again. At least now they had laid eyes upon him, and perhaps their would be a clue somewhere on the Ocultis Chartis.

 

 

 

 

This is part of my ongoing fanfic project found here. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/316163-the-wanderer/?do=findComment&comment=4249416

 

What happened to Calebra Hive?

Look here.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/312127-assault-on-calebra-hive/page-4?do=findComment&comment=4223736

[Scourged]

NIce work so far, all.

 

So, I'm sitting down to write for this week, already full of ideas, but I find I'm having to do research... not just on icons and other various things, but on my own works. I've written so much, and I've kept it all so interwoven, that I can't keep track of it all in my head anymore. Thus, rather than start with the story today, I'm actually spending my efforts first on creating a Primer for myself to keep track of everything.

 

Any of you find yourself in similar situations? How do you all go about keeping track of the vast wealth of fluff you've all created?

[Teetengee]

GW doesn't care about fluff contradiction, why should I? ;)

[Scourged]

GW doesn't care about fluff contradiction, why should I?

Hah! Well, to me, that's the exact reason I feel so adamant about being to meticulous - somebody should be. That, and I firmly believe I can write Tzeentch better than they can.

[Kierdale]

I found writing a Liber article (mine is here) really helped me. At the end I try to keep the links to IF articles up to date but, doing a new one pretty much every week, I know it's behind. I'll try to update it in the winter holidays.

Now I think about it, I'll add a simple list of names marines so far and their units/former companies. That'd help me keep track.

That and a basic timeline helps a lot.

[Teetengee]

GW doesn't care about fluff contradiction, why should I?

Hah! Well, to me, that's the exact reason I feel so adamant about being to meticulous - somebody should be. That, and I firmly believe I can write Tzeentch better than they can.

To be fair, I try my best to present things as reports and similar mediums that can be falsified and doctored to fit in with Loose Canon. Also, considering Escharon has a copy of his journal from the future, even the things that have happened are occasionally subject to change...

[Carrack]

Personally, sitting at a desk with a computer seems like work to me, boring work at that, so instead I type my entries into the basic notes app on my phone, while I'm wrestling grizzly bears underwater, and doing other less work-like activities. (This is the cause of all grammatical errors, the original writing is always flawless, really :) ) I created a folder for this purpose, which sorts the stories by date. I then try to use descriptive titles for each story, not necessarily titles I use when posting, but titles that remind me what the story is about, like "The tattooed girl", for example. After I completed my first story arc, which included about 10 or so entries, I wrote out a little story connecting the disparate entries together and placed it in the sometimes barren wastelands of the fan fiction sub board here. http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/307717-the-doom-of-red-siliquastrum/?do=findComment&comment=4062505

This was really fun, the stories were all vaguely connected in my mind, but since each week's topics covered such different subjects, I struggled to show the connections at times.

 

Another thing that has helped me out was the way I started the background for the Black Maw. As I fumbled through my first attempts at anything artistic since finger paints and elmers glue, I came up with little 1-2 paragraph blurbs for each model. A little bit of grim dark backstory that has helped with the narrative experience. All of these bios are also kept stored on my phone, which has been helpful.

 

 

In any event, Like Teetengee said, contradictions aren't that big of a deal with this setting. In fact, being devoted to the Great Schemer, I would expect more contradictions in your writing.

[Kierdale]

The Icon of Excess

Hidden Content

The gemstone scintillated in the grip of his naked fingers. No matter how may times he handled them, he breathlessly studied the way the light barely seemed to penetrate the semi-opaque bauble, yet it sparkled from within. The surface was exceedingly hard, resilient, and even having been carried through hours of combat, it was flawless. Not even flecked with dust. He smiled as the coruscation seemed to shift, avoiding the sides of the gem where his fingers held it. Could the conscience within sense him? He who had taken the life of the stone’s wearer, and thus driven their spirit within this glassy tomb.

Captain Dophesia, former captain of the Stygian Guard’s 8^th company, warrior supreme and bastard peacock, looked at the thirty five other soulstones his men had harvested from the defenders of this world. Mesusid was as best as the human tongue could do to pronounce the planet’s name correctly. It was an Eldar maiden world, a planet chosen by that ancient race in an attempt to resurrect their once-glorious empire. The Psychopomps, guided by their daemonic allies, had discovered it and descended upon it like Erinyes.

Defilement was intoxicating, be it of a man’s life’s work, of the flesh (one’s enemy’s or one’s own), of arms and armour, artworks...but little came close to that of an entire world and the aspirations of such a venerable race as the Eldar.

The Psychopomps, no two marines clad in armour the of the same form or colours, had stopped in their violation of the planet and its one settlement, to carry out the orders of the sorcerer Holusiax,

Once an epistolary of the Stygian Guard - the chapter the Psychopomps had once been- Holusiax had been thought killed in action on Cyprius III when in fact he had actually been taken captive by the mad cults of that world. When eventually reunited with his chapter they found the psyker had been dramatically transformed, though not per se at the hands of his captors.

The tale he told would have been unbelievable - of his seduction and enlightenment by a herald of the Dark Prince - had the chapter itself not begun a steady descent into Chaos during his absence. His return, and his transformed body, were seen as a blessed omen by master of sanctity Angra: that their new patron now favoured them and had cast off the pathetic worms of Cyprius III. His serpentine body, his additional arms: such daemonic gifts could be nothing less than an indication of His favour. Holusiax had become an idol for their worship. An icon.

The sorcerer, his armour still the blue of his former station though now embellished with eye-searing runes, dictated just how the gathered soulstones be laid out and where. He had lead them to a point not within the Xenos temple as had been expected but rather outside at the foot of a statue which had fallen during the battle, announcing that it was here that the veil was thinnest. Where a symbol of the alien’s pride had been struck down.

Holusiax had slithered across the wraithbone ground, scoring it with the tips of his two scarlet-bladed daggers, one marked with the symbol of the feminine, the other the masculine, etching the mark of Slaanesh into the alien material. Where his knives cut, the wraithbone seemed to peel back from the wound as if the material abhorred the touch of those blades. As soon as he had completed carving the icon in the ground, cracks could be seen forming at the lips of the cuts as the wraithbone seemed to age rapidly, life being sucked from it, like a plant withering in a time lapse vid. Standing back to appraise his work a breeze picked up. He gave a pleased nod before motioning for the assembled marines to put the soulstones in place atop his cuts.

As each was set in place it almost seemed anticlimactic, some having expected the cracking of the ground to accelerate, the stones to be drawn within or melt impossibly, but they simply lay there.
No, that wasn’t quite right. As more and more stones were set in place, sketching out the circle, the radial, the sweeping arms and the crescent at the radial’s tip, the soft glow within the stones first placed began to fade.

“Captain Dophesia,” Holusiax called out as the wind tugged at the warband’s banners.

Dophesia jerked his eyes from the gem to the sorcerer.

“The final stone, captain.”

His eyes drifted back to the stone once more. He swore he could almost see the light squirming within, could almost hear the screaming of the soul trapped within.

The glow began to fade from more stones, the pattern incomplete.

“Captain.”

He snapped out of his trance and strode across to the crescent tip of the Mark, the wind now blowing detritus about. Out of his ornate armour, devoid of bodysheath and even loincloth, the captain was still as tall as his brethren, his body muscular and tall, perfectly formed like an ancient Hellenic hero. He could feel their eyes upon him, the expectation, the thrill that filled every one of them. The urgency they felt. All he need do was set that last stone within the crescent and the mark would be complete. Not any of them, it had to be him. So the sorcerer had prophesized.

He relished the moment and looked from marine to marine, reading the awe on their faces. The jealously. He drank it up, flourishing the last soulstone before them, holding it up to the fading daylight. As the sky grew redder the glow seeped out of the stones already upon the Mark.

“Captain!” Holusiax shouted both in urgency and against the growing wind as it whipped about them. Some of the beastmen began to bray.

He did not deign to kneel as he had been instructed. With a smile he held out his hand above the Mark and released his grip upon the spirit-receptacle above the designated point. He had almost expected time to drag out, to slow dramatically as the stone tumbled to the ground, but even as he had held out the stone he had felt it being pulled toward its place within the pattern by an otherworldly hunger. As soon as it was released it shot toward the ground faster than the pull of gravity could exert. It did not bounce when it struck the wraithbone but splintered the ground beneath it and stood erect with an ethereal hum.

Immediately the thirty-six stones blazed brighter than they had when worn upon their owner’s chests. Red hot as coals now, wisps of smoke began to curl upwards from them and tormented faces could be seen momentarily as the tendrils intermixed. Waves of sorrow and abject terror rippled out from the symbol. The wind grew and the bawling of the Children of Chaos increased, mixed with weeping as they were seized by the anguish bleeding off the captive souls. Dophesia stood unmoving despite the material and aetheric wind, his face a rictus of pleasure. He could see that some of his fellow Astartes were being moved by the effect of the Mark. They were as if immune to fear and the emotions of humanity - they had deliberately gelded themselves of such feelings until their fall - but those of the Eldar were overwhelming. Intoxicating. Ambrosial. Some wept in harmony with the trapped souls, some gritted their teeth against destructive rage welling up within them, while most were like him exhilarated.

He raised his head and met the sorcerer’s gaze as the sky darkened from scarlet to darkest grey as thick clouds scudded overhead.

Holusiax nodded and called out to a pair of Psychopomps off to one side. His words were stole by the gusts now buffeting them, but they knew their part in the ritual. They dragged forth the screaming captive, the sole surviving Eldar, and held her writhing naked form before Dophesia.

 

 

 

Tender perfumes greeted him as he awoke upon emerald grass, tall, violet-leaved hedges surrounding him on all sides, the beauty of their foliage at odds with the finger-long briers protruding from them. The sky above was a slowly twisting lilac miasma, no sun nor stars visible even to the eyes of an Astarte. He was as naked as he had been at the climax of the ritual and struggled to recall how it had ended. He remembered emitting a roar and then feeling as if the ground beneath them, marked out by the symbol of the Dark Prince, had broken and he had fallen through...but this was no subterranean realm, of that he was sure. Wherever he was, wherever this no-place was, he was no longer on Mesusid.

There was no sign of the Eldar, neither footprints nor blood trails in the grass.

He nodded to himself as he stood, looking about. This was the sorcerer’s trickery. For the briefest moment a doubt crept into his mind, that perhaps one of his subordinates had forged a pact with the serpentine wytch and Dophesia’s own soul had become a bargaining chip. Yet his hearts still beat in his chest. Wherever he was, he was alive. If he had been betrayed, he would escape this place, hunt down the backstabbers and tear them apart. He smiled at the thought, picturing one of his sergeants, Physes perhaps, shocked at his return, the shock turning to rage and a rash attack. Dophesia’s own claws taking the traitor’s arm off before his other claws raked open Physes’ belly. Staggering, guts spilling, Dophesia inciting him to attack once again. He breathed deeply of the sweet scents in the air and blinked the dreams away.

He swore and jerked his hand back, hissing between his teeth, upon testing the point of one thorn in the nearest hedge and finding it far sharper than it appeared. Were he to tear his way through it, naked and unarmoured, even an Astartes would be terribly slashed and skewered. The pain would be exquisite, undoubtedly, and proof that his existence here was real...but he did not wish to dull his edge, for he sensed it would be tested before the end. Likewise to climb a hedge in order to see over it would be both damaging and, if his suspicions were correct...

He closed his eyes and let himself turn around, coming to a halt and opening his eyes to find a hedge-walled passage now before him. He smiled once more and shook his head at the childish tricks of whomever meant to entrap him. They did not want him dead, not yet at least. So he would allow them their game.

He found the passage of time was impossible to judge, and the labyrinth wound on and on, he following his intuition at each junction, not letting his temper rise, for he came to no dead ends and was confident in his path. Whether he was truly making the correct choices or he was being let through - his confidence fed - never entered his mind.

As he pressed on, a building became visible over the tops of the furthest hedges. A mansion of sorts. No, a palace. Elegantly curved roofs and balconied towers began to loom over the labyrinthine garden. He immediately recognized images upon its smooth walls. Circles and crescents. This realization brought him to a stop.

This place...he had heard tales of it. Half mad utterances from Zenelaius in his ceramite sarcophagus. The former master of the forge had long consorted and cavorted with one of the daemons and had become entranced by her tales of the palace of the Dark Prince, her making promises to show it to the techmarine. Rumour was that his apprentice Thenaros had, upon finding his master half dead at the Templars’ hands, decided that the old marine would pay for his lack of focus and rather than executing him so that he might be with his diabolic paramour, had sealed him within a dreadnought. The tale brought a grin to Dophesia’s face once more, as it always did.

But now he was here. He had surpassed Zenelaius! Had he been chosen by their patron deity? Had She Who Must Not Be Named ordered Holusiax to dispatch the great captain of the 8^th to his very palace?

He quickened his pace, his confidence leading him through the maze.

 

The daemon, a Q’tlahsi’issho’akshimi in the Dark Tongue, watched eagerly as the man wove his way closer. While the hedges of the palace gardens shrouded him from direct view, one whose pride, nay whose amour-propre burned so brightly, was incandescent to one such as a Despoiler of the Flesh. Slayers of Slaanesh, Feasters of Pain, Base Ones and Great Horned Ones by other names, they were most commonly known by those foolish to delve so deeply into the dark arts, as Keepers of Secrets. Named Ki’ma’gureh, it watched and waited, tittering to itself.

The being which emerged from the maze was no mere human but rather one who had been touched by the artifice of the so-called Master of Mankind. The Corpse-God. Ki’ma’gureh had been there some ten millennia earlier when the Great Betrayer had lead his traitor legions to the homeworld of Mankind. Oh the souls he had reaped that day! The pain he had feasted upon! To one as timeless as a greater daemon it was as yesterday.

The Corpse-God, in those days when he still walked and was confined to his physical shell, had made his twenty sons with power stolen from the Four, and from them his legions of Astartes. Dilutions of his godly blood, that they were referred to as angels was perhaps fitting. And yet, like those who followed the sixteenth Primarch in his heresy, many of these angels had fallen...fallen to the worship of Chaos over the millennia.

Angels no more.

Like this one who now strode through the courtyard of statues.

 

 

Immaculate recreations, all of them. His beheading of the Greenskin warboss on Alsemia, the four Eldar reavers he dueled simultaneously on Otenol III...all were there before him in bronze and marble upon plinths of granite. The exact angle of his chainsword as he had driven it into the chest of the traitor Guard general during the Cleansing of Bryersworld. The look of distain he knew he had worn as he had pinned the man beneath his ceramite boot.

Captain Dophesia found himself wandering through the courtyard, admiring not so much the workmanship of the statuary as his own prowess. He recreated the same pose as the nearest statue, holding an imaginary powersword overhead, ready to cleave it down into the metallic skull of the Necron commander. He could hear the roar of battle in his ears once more, the clangorous noise as the Stygian Guard had coldly beaten the skeletal machines into the marsh they had risen from. He remembered the coldness of that world and shook himself, looking up to the statue to admire it once again only to find he now stood in the shadow of the effigy. In the shadow of that moment.

 

Ki’ma’gureh watched, always out of sight, as the marine’s wandering took him closer and closer to the center of the courtyard, and tittered.

 

Dophesia maintained his proud smile, though deep down he felt his instincts warning him. Nevertheless he continued to stroll about the courtyard. The palace could wait. What could there possibly be within, greater than these images of his own glory without?

With a measure of disappointment his snaking walk took him to the center of the courtyard and what he realized must be the final statue. As he had made his way he had enjoyed a personal game of guessing which of his kills the artist had decided to commemorate in their fine work. They were clearly as fine an artist as he was a warrior. So far he had not been disappointed and every single glorious shot, slice and blow had been exquisitely recreated. Should he ever have opportunity to meet the sculptor, Dophesia mused that he might spare their life.

But what form must this final statue take? He could not for the life of him recall a finer feat of valour than those that had come already.

Finally he navigated the forest of limbs and weapons of the other statues to confront the final image.

“No. No...”

 

“Do you find error with my craftsmanship?”

Dophesia pivoted at the sound, his fists rising to guard. He found, stood where only seconds earlier he had walked, a towering beast before him. It was at once lithe and muscular, like one of the androgynous humanoid daemons which the chapter had come to call upon in recent years - one of whom Zenelaius had consorted with - crossed with one of the Children of Chaos, and far larger in size. Its head was almost bovine, with two sets of horns curving up from its skull beneath which were heavily pierced ears, chains from which hung to its nostrils and down to breasts upon the right side of its chest. Four great arms sprouted from its sides, two ending in pincers he judged could cleave with ease through even terminator armour, while the second pair ended in hands like his own yet that much larger. Large enough to smother a man’s head. Besides the chains, piercings and other items of jewelry which hung from its great frame its only garb was between its two long legs: a loincloth of purples and pinks, embroidered with the symbol of the Dark Prince.

“Do my works not please you, captain Dophesia of the Psychopomps?” The voice was high for a creature of such size, and the tone almost teasing.

“This is wrong!” he spat, his right hand moving from its guard position to point at the final statue behind him, not deigning to give it another look.

“Is it not an accurate representation of your first-“

“That is not what happened!” the marine roared.

The daemon’s voice became sorrowful, sympathetic, “Oh, but I believe it is, captain. I believe it is a flawless portrayal of the way-“

“Lies!”

The beast smiled, pierced lips peeling back from a fang-filled maw that had no place in the visage of a bovine.

“You have been chosen, captain. Chosen by your lord, and mine.”

Dophesia did not respond. In his peripheral vision he examined the nearest statues, judging which he might be able to steal a weapon from. Which statue’s wrists might he be able to smash through in order to arm himself?

“Chosen for a reward. For recognition of your deeds.”

“I need no recognition! I do not ask for your statues!”

“Lies!” the Keeper of Secrets echoed his own epithet of seconds earlier, “You thirst for recognition, do you not? Long did you bridle against the shackles your chaplains put upon your brotherhood of warriors. The enlightenment granted by your master set you free. You are exemplary, captain...and thus worthy of reward,” the beast swept its arms out dramatically.

His attention left the weapons, the statues.

“What manner of reward? I need no statues.”

The roll of the beast’s eyes dismissed his lie wordlessly, “This,” and Ki’ma’gureh extended a finger to point behind him, toward the final statue.

Something in the beast’s tone told him it was not referring to the statue. He slowly turned, uneasy to put his back to the daemon, to behold, draped over the statue, a banner. The cloth was of a deep, rich purple, with the icon of Slaanesh sewn into it in sliver. The haft appeared to be made of fused bone - something deep within him telling him that these were no human bones - terminating in a vicious looking blade at its base. It was topped with a beastly, multi-horned skull he could only assume was daemonic in origin. Two of the largest horns formed the banner’s crossbar.

“What need have I of a standard?” He spat, turning back to the greater daemon, “If you know me then you know how I fight. It would be naught but a hindrance.”

“Take it, captain. Take it,” the daemon repeated, silencing further protest.

"Why hang this albatross about my neck," he muttered as he stepped closer to the statue, its bronze forms hidden beneath the cloth of the standard, and he gripped the bone shaft.

 

He had once consumed one of the soul stones of the Eldar. Had felt the soul’s anguish as he had swallowed it whole and, despite its uncanny hardness, he had felt an invigorating rush as the soul within the stone had been consumed. However the sensation had been fleeting, as was that experienced within the warband’s Infernal Engine, and he had known within his own soul that the alien’s essence had been devoured not by him but by the Dark Prince through him. But, holding the standard aloft, he felt that feeling once again, unending. Power, life itself, seemed to course through his veins. He felt unstoppable.

And as soon as the sensation had come, it was torn from him. Momentarily he thought the boon had again been consumed by their patron deity but no: the daemon had wrenched the standard from his grip. He moaned, he cried out and staggered forward, grasping for it, much to the amusement of the daemon.

“You want this, don’t you captain?”

He nodded despite himself.

“There are but two conditions.”

“Name them!”

“The first: that once you are returned from his realm, you shall never again touch the Icon of Excess.”

He hissed in surprise at this proclamation.

“The Icon, captain, contains an aspect of your very own essence. Your secret,” the greater daemon nodded toward the statue behind the marine.

“It will not be yours to hold, but to grant to your followers. And secondly, should it ever fall, should it ever be broken,” the beast grinned, “the truth will out.”

 

 

EDIT: added in one small line I forgot to put in (about an albatross).

[Warsmith Aznable]

Fantastic, Kierdale!

[Scourged]

In fact, being devoted to the Great Schemer, I would expect more contradictions in your writing.

Oh, you cheeky devil, you! I do love utilizing contradictions in my descriptions, just not plot, heh. Besides, for all you know, I possess the greatest of Tzeetch's powers: the power of the retcon.

 

Anyway, thanks all for getting back to me on my casual inquiry. I just may borrow/steal/reuse your ideas for myself. I did finish my primer, which was fun, as it meant reading all of my past work (and remembering ideas I have long forgotten!). Now to touch up the rough mess that is this weeks submission. Huzzah!

[Kierdale]

Bonus Challenge - Chaos Objective Counters

Hidden Content

Decades had passed since the devastation of craftworld Carth-Lar. The Psychopomps had chased down hundreds of survivors, the Eldar having fled in groups and scattered across the cosmos. But the Erinyes were talented, relentless hunters and they eventually began to successfully track down the Carth-Lar refugees. Some had hidden themselves away on remote worlds while others had sought sanctuary with Exodites and other craftworlds. Such as Biel-Tan.

While the seer council of Carth-Lar had seen the recreation of their race’s once-grand empire as paramount and thus had seeded the galaxy with maidenworlds; a trait they shared with the Eldar of Biel-Tan, Carth-Lar’s seers had sought a peaceful path for their craftworld, avoiding the warmongering races of the galaxy. Avoiding confrontations with Chaos. And they had paid for their cowardice with their lives and their home. Such was not the way with the militant Eldar of Biel-Tan, The Rebirth of Ancient Days.

Those of Carth-Lar who sought shelter on Biel-Tan were accepted with a single provision: that they fight for their new craftworld and its maidenworlds. That they would never again turn from combat and take the easy path. Those who accepted were inducted into the warrior temples. Those who refused were turned away, their pleas falling on deaf ears.

The Erinyes of the Psychopomps followed the Eldar’s spoor and discovered the Biel-Tan world of Éibhir.

Trinehorn Smutgrind - his true name was almost unpronounceable by humans and was known only by the one who had summoned him - was but a minor daemon, and a lowly one at that. Had he been summoned more than forty millennia earlier he would have been a hob, a fay, a gremlin, a tomte or nisse...these latter two, as gift-givers, were perhaps closest to the duty the diminutive daemon was charged with. Whilst he referred to himself as the internuncio of the Naga-lord, he was varyingly called Holusiax’s dispatcher, runner, gofer and drudge by the Psychopomps and other daemons.

Clad in his tattered purple robe, the fuchsia-skinned imp scuttered about the battlefield at his master’s whim. Perhaps of greatest import was the prying of soulstones from the corpses of slain Eldar. This he did with relish, molesting the pompous beings’ torn bodies, tearing at their flawless features with his claws before plucking the stones from their chestplates. As a daemon he could hear their anguished screams as they realized their souls were destined to spend eternity as the playthings of the god they themselves had created. As a child of that god, he sought approval in this duty: collecting and ferrying the stones to the Psychopomp sorcerer.

At other times he was tasked with gathering lore, be it from fallen on either side of the battle, or from libraries and stores discovered during fighting.

Yet other times he bore witness to conjuring and summonings: Octeds carved into the wraithbone ground and filled with offerings of vital fluids, daemons summoned up from the Pit through the ground itself, twisting and corrupting the psychoactive stone.

He had but one rival in his baseborn position: a servoskull created by the warpsmith Thenaros, crafted from the skull of a once-favoured Child of Chaos. Whilst Trinehorn did but scuttle about behind the warband’s lines doing his master’s bidding, the servoskull was tasked with scouting the enemy’s positions, observing them with its scanners and horn-mounted scope. The imp’s jealousy made him even more vicious to the corpses of the fallen. Oh how he longed to fight!

He prostrated himself before the coiled body of his master. The sorcerer held his glyph-marked knives in his upper, Astartes, hands, but in the lower hands of daemonic flesh he cradled a short, wide bladed dagger (only in the hands of a space marine could it be called a dagger! It was as big a Trinehorn was and would have been a sword in the hands of men) with a skull upon its pommel.

“Smutgrind, I foresee that master Angra will have need of this dagger at the front. Seek him out and deliver it to him.”

The imp accepted the weapon carefully into his tiny, claws hands, swiftly turning and excitedly hastening off toward the thickest of the fighting...

[Scourged]

Burning Angel

 

 

Burning Angel

The Prophet of the False walked without passion along his path toward the barracks of Deception’s Call. The Dark Apostle of the Scourged had been summoned, though not by a soul who mattered. The Sorcerer Lord and his sibling were feuding once more, so his counsel was not needed there. No Aspirants or Initiates waited in his chambers, so his duties were fulfilled. Truly, it was his utter lack of obligations to any meaningful tasks that persuaded the apostle to indulge in the paltry summons.

Standing before his destination, Sinschal’ul Bhuramas telepathically keyed the psy-lock in drooling bulkhead’s door-maw. The locks gave way and the jaws parted, not so much to let the Prophet enter but to allow the occupants to leave. This particular chamber was the home of 7th Company’s seventh squad, though any regalia of this former designation had long since faded with the fall of the Seekers of Truth. Now it was only the sealed home of Seventh. The apostle stepped lightly, as a quiet entrance was necessary. The marked marines of Seventh would be meditating in the space, and to disturb their meditations was… problematic.

None among the warband agreed on how best to interpret the Gift of the True Master. A great majority barely function under the weight of the voices, finding solace and relief in only the reaping of punishment upon mankind. Scindus and the like who chastise the path of the psyker despised it. Some, like Sinschal’ul, accepted it as the undeniable course of Fate and felt no good or ill will. Others agreed with the Sorcerer Lord and embraced the Gift and all the dark powers it granted. The members of Seventh transcended from this latter acceptance to an outright zealotry in the name of the Weaver of Fate.

Confined by force to their chambers after battle’s end, Seventh was now seated in ring, their sapphire and crimson armor adorned and covered in the iconic eyes and runes of the Great Architect. Beneath the ceramite, their flesh was no-doubt just as tattooed and scarred as their armor. Their unconscious prayers were a dull thrumming in the background, nearly inaudible over the sounds of Deception herself. Their chambers glowed with a pale cerulean light, emanating from the very runes carved throughout not just their armor, but the floors and walls as well. And each of them sat, consciousness focused, directing all attention at the Icon of Flame levitating at their center.

It was a tall pole and crossbar of perfectly sculpted black chalcedony, adorned with platinum filigree weaving in unnatural patterns, and capped with gold at all ends. Atop the pole was a leering eye of immaculately carved hardwood, stained in the darkest of cherry hues. Eight tendrils of the Eightfold Path wisped outward from the ocular carving, the most prominent of which found at top-center. Regardless of where a man stood the eye would see you - though it would never move - and stare deep into his soul, learning his truths. It was the mark of the Scourged.

From the crossbar hung a long tapestry, an Astartes and a half in length. Though there was no breeze, it billowed in the claustrophobic room. Staring at it now, as he always did when summoned here, Sinschal’ul wondered what the tapestry would show him today. Never once would the design amidst the threads ever remain constant. Though artisans of the mortal realm were the ones who tended to the standard’s construction, it possessed the ephemeral nature of the Warp. But only followers of the Changer of Ways could decipher the impossible patterns cascading through the threads. To the rest, it was a shimmering oil slick rainbow that burned with impossible colors and shapes that fractured the feeble minds of those who cannot perceive the truth of Change.

But the most beautiful adornment upon the Icon was the bichromatic jewel fasted to the crossbar and tapestry. The polished ceramite gleamed with a dark forest green and a bright ivory white. The power armor was a permanent fixture, long confined to a crucified pose. The chalcedony had shifted and pierced the arms with stone hooks and claws, keeping them eternally outstretched. Both feet could not be found, seemingly consumed by the tapestry, as if the fabric truly was a pool of oil and the bound armor was wading within it. Any onlooker would expect to walk behind the Icon and find the feet dangling in the air, but they would only see the smooth fabric.

Locked within the powerless armor was the source of Sinschal’ul’s summons.

“I will hand it to you, Zebechial… in your exhaustive time imprisoned within Seventh’s relic, you do manage to concoct the most creative of deceptions to attract my attention. Today’s was explicitly loud. I gather you wish to have another audience with me, yes?”

Slowly, the green and white helm lifted from its slumped position and addressed the apostle. It moved with an exceptionally weary pace, the trapped Astartes having not power for his armor nor nourishment for his body in decades. Somehow, as they always would, the eye lenses flickered on in an amusing facsimile of one blinking themselves awake from a deep slumber.

“My demand is unchanged. Free me, heretic. Or kill me. End this unceasing torture.”

The voice was weak and raspy. By all accounts, the warrior should be long dead. Was it the magicks within the banner that kept him alive? Or did his defiance override the natural designs to expire? It was an irrelevant question with no answer, but amusing to ponder nonetheless. Still, if he did finally die, it would not be from Sinschal’ul granting him the mercy-killing of which he demanded. That day would never come.

“And once again, Zebechial, as I have told you over and over for a great many decades, I will do neither. Besides, it should be quite apparent that freedom is an option long lost to you. You will remain affixed here. Seventh treasures their Icon far too greatly to waste such a soul as special as yours. ”

The angel coughed, sickly and dry. Or was it an attempt at condescending laughter?

“You know nothing of my soul, heretic! That I was able to refuse your so called ‘gift’ means only I am pure and protected by the Emperor. Nothing more.”

“And that has always been my point, dear Zebechial. None have ever managed to resist the Gift when I grant it to them. It matters not if they swear allegiance to your Corpse God or the deities of the Dark Pantheon; all succumb. Not a solitary soul in all of these centuries as walked away untouched. None, save for you. And I do not mean that you have resisted - those of us with the sentient strength or an adamantium will have resisted. No, Zebechial, you are nothing like any I have touched: I gave you the Gift, and you came away unscathed. So yes, you are special.”

The silence was weighty and thick with disdain. The ensnared Astartes did not agree, nor did he want this miserable fate, but the argument of the apostle could not be denied. Zebechial had watched his brothers succumb to that monster’s disgusting green eye and the psychic torture it forced upon them. All had died, wailing and screaming, except for him.

“And that is why you keep me here? Lashed to your blasphemous standard?”

The apostle began pacing around the crucified Zebechial, as he always did when summoned here. Sinschal’ul could never tolerate being motionless when an aggrandizing speech or sermon was necessary. The weight of his words required the energy of his motions to realize their full gravitas. He would pace, or gesticulate, or pose, and often all of the above. The moments spent in the chamber of Seventh, lecturing Zebechial, were no different. It annoyed the loyalist prisoner to no end.

“Oh, my dear fallen angel, why do you ask questions you have asked so many times before? The answers will never change. But, yes, as I always do, in my bountiful generosity, I will indulge your curiosity once more... We have kept you as our glorious totem for so many, many reasons. Your purity chief among them. While they do not share your fortuitous immunity, your specific breed of Astartes have been long noted for their gene-seed purity. Remind me: what was the moniker of your specific brotherhood again?”

“Angels of Redemption.. you know that already, heretic.”

“Of course I do, Zebechial! But if I must repeat myself time and again, then so must you. I like to believe that if you endure the same repetitive punishment I must, you’ll cease to pester me so often. But once more, I digress. You, Zebechial, called yourself an ‘Angel of Redemption.’ What did you seek to redeem? The sins of your shattered legion? The failures of your primarch? The shame of your brothers you so unwaveringly refuse to forgive? Yes, Zebechial, I know those dark secrets. Listening to the chorus of lies spewing from the angels of darkness, I know full well that the Lion-”

“Do not dare speak the name of the Primarch, heretic!”

The emaciated Astartes found the strength to shout his fury, the bellowing threat reverberating in the metal infrastructure of the chamber. Such a corrupted, tainted individual does not possess the purity and reverence to even speak the Primarch’s name! How dare he insinuate - yet again - that the Lion was anything short of perfect? There are no sins to hide, if the Inner Circle’s words were to be believed. And the words of his elders would forever hold more truth than the manipulative lies of a tainted warpspawn.

“Careful, Zebechial… shout too loudly at me again, and you’ll surely wake Seventh. And we all know quite well what happens when Seventh stirs and brings their minds back to this realm. Even those of us in the warband can find their mannerisms and tactics unsettlingly resolute. Unless… is that what you want? Perhaps you long to reignite your purpose and awaken Seventh. Do you wish to be lofted into battle by our Chaotic hands? Do you wish to burn with the glory of the True Master once again? Then, you needn’t ask my permission! We shall wake Seventh this very moment!”

Sheepishly, the angel replied, “...no. No. I do not want that. Not again. Never again.”

“Never say never, Zebechial. But I will pause my teasing and return once more to our repetitive lecture. The lies of your shattered legion are some of the richest we have sampled since our reception of the Gift. And those of my warband who indulge the the delicacies of falsehoods have gorged themselves on the sins of your brothers. Your deceptions and false-piety reek with a decadence that would bring a rosy flush to the cheeks of She Who Thirsts. This is why we carry you into the fight: to show the universe that your breed - the purest and most devout - is soaked thoroughly with sin.”

Sinschal’ul’s gestures were wild now, arms demonstratively flailing to emphasise every point he made. He pontificated with a measured rise and fall of timbre and volume, pacing himself expertly. Though he loathed the repetition of this particular speech, any sermon presented to an audience was a thrill for the animated apostle.   

“But then, as a joyous bonus to my warband, you hail from the descendant chapter that wishes redemption! Truly, have we not provided you that which you seek? No longer does this angel hide in the dark, where his brothers will never know the transgressions of his namesake. The fires have cast you into the light, Zebechial. What better redemption is there than the endless flagellation of fire we provide you now?”

The apostle finished his circular walk, his penultimate point now punctuated. He paced himself perfectly to find his final step placing him before the bound angel, as he always had and will. The two opposing slaves to Chaos looked at each other with eye lenses glowing red: one a skull that never stopped smiling, the other an emotionless mask of forest green and ivory white. Seventh slumbered still, but any perceptive eye would catch the slight stirrings that their rest would be ending soon.

“This is not redemption, heretic. This is torture. This is punishment for crimes I have not committed. My chapter and brothers are not the souls stained with sin, but yours are! You and your breed are those who are full of lies, not the Imperium! It is you who should hang from this standard and burn for your cause, not I!”

“Stubborn Zebechial… when have I claimed my brothers and I are free of sin? Never once that I can recall, my fallen angel, and my memory is strong. We carry our own guilt. And we know that those who defy the Imperium’s oppression carry their weight in sin, some so old they come from the days when the Corpse God could still walk among his people. And we punish those of our own allegiance, too. You have seen it yourself! None, loyal or traitor, are spared the from our judgmental eye. But within the Warp, our kind embraces its sins. In the resplendent Imperium, you hide your sins beneath the brilliance of the Astronomicon, hoping all that reflects to onlookers is your piety and servitude. This is why we pursue those loyal before those renegade, Zebechial: your sins are louder, amplified by your attempts to conceal them.”

The sermon was finished. The Prophet let his arms hang out with palms open, an unintentional mockery of the crucified angel, for a bloated moment of silence before resting them at his side once again. In emphasis, Sinschal’ul spoke his final thought in a crescendo, his voice climbing to a shout all his own. It rang in the rafters until the silence swept it away, letting the absence of conversation hang for many moments.

“You never answered me, Zebechial. Why am I specifically here this day? Surely it was not just so you could hear my lecture once more.”

“Tell me why I no longer feel the engines pulsing. Tell me why the buzzing of the Gellar field is long gone. Tell me why the inertial compensators have disengaged. Tell me why I hear the thrumming of activity through the decks. Tell me why we have returned to realspace and we are stopping.”

Sinschal’ul Bhuramas did his audience a courtesy and finally removed his helm. The angel was finally speaking plainly, and so would he. The ceaseless smile of the skull was pulled away and replaced with the permanent grin of the apostle himself. Seeing as there were no Aspirants to recruit, his djinni eye was concealed behind a leather patch. This was a courtesy to the squeamish crew and uncomfortable Initiates more so than a comfort for himself. I truth, though, the patch did little to comfort anyone, especially Zebechial.

“Always so perceptive, angel. We have translated out of the Immaterium. We are now approaching the planet Tachylite. It seems your fraternal angels - those of blood, rather than darkness - are attempting to purge this world of our True Master’s influence. The Master demanded with prevent this extermination and defend this world. It seems the devout mortals of Tachylite are to be our allies in the battles yet to come. All part of the Grand Plans, to be sure. It will only be a matter of hours before we make planetfall. The zeal of Seventh has been requested by Lord Dhelmas. You should ready yourself for battle, Zebechial.”

“...no.”

The fallen angel knew what that meant. The tainted beings beneath him would soon be awake. They would rise, and the chanting would begin anew - that endless chorus of falsehoods and sins. It would continue to grow in volume until his ears would ring. They never stopped! Seventh would gather their weapons, and they would circle him. One would walk forward and grab the standard upon which he was attached, and then…

“No.”

“Burn well, angel.”

The Prophet of the False reattached the leering skull helmet and bowed, turning to leave the chamber. Before he crossed through the door-maw, though, he turned to look back at the bound warrior, and the laughter began. On and on he laughed, deep and bellicose, a rich baritone sound. The frozen face of the skull and the amplification of the vox-caster served to make the laughter that much more sinister. It was to mock him, Zebechial knew. In time, the laughter was irregularly punctuated with metallic clangs as Sinschal’ul Bhuramas beat his accursed crozius against the chamber walls. He was waking Seventh.

“No!”

Zebechial shouted at the disgraced chaplain, venting his anger and frustrations at apostle. It didn’t matter; Seventh was waking regardless of his volume. It was pointless gesture. No one cared. Seventh could not hear him, and the apostle ignored him, now long gone out of the chamber. The chanting renegades were awake now, their armor glowing brighter with each passing moment, as if a fire within them burned a candle’s light through the runes they blindly wore. They gathered their weapons, bolter rounds crackling with soulfire loaded in the chamber. They circled their Icon, paying reverence to malevolent spirit which kept Zebechial alive amidst his bondage. They prayed, a cacophony of voices with impossible timbres beseeching a Dark God with languages a mortal’s mouth could never pronounce. They were once more beckoning the Flames of Change.

Zebechial could feel a warmth growing in his core. It was beginning again. Amidst his bonds the angel thrashed, chalcedony spikes with platinum veins tearing old wounds open in his arms, feet kicking though the standard in a dimension unknown to all. It was all pointless, he knew, but the emaciated and atrophied Angel of Vengeance would never stop fighting, not until death. The heat spread through his blood, spreading to ever capillary. No amount of thrashing could help him escape his Fate, though he would always fight.

Hotter and hotter his body raged, skin inflamed and responding with a torrent of sweat. Inside his ceramite tomb the smell of burning hair and cooking meat assaulted his battered senses. Blisters grew and burst from head to toe as he felt his eyes boiling from the inside. Organs seized and failed as fats and lipids melted away from now-charred flesh.  Anguish was not strong enough of a word to describe the ferocity of the pain in Zebechial’s labored screaming. The fallen angel was burning to death, but not allowed to die.

Finally, as it had so many times before, the tortured living-corpse erupted with flame. Green warpfire burst from every seam and joint in the armor and danced excitedly along the surface. Every ounce of Zebechial was now fuel for the blaze burning furiously upon the beautiful standard. Mortal logic would dictate that the elaborate tapestry of impossible colors would quickly be consumed by the inferno, but fire was not bound by the Materium’s logic. The standard grew brighter with the flames, its colors dancing faster and weaving themselves ever more intricately beneath the Icon.

Seventh, with Icon in hand, had begun their procession out of their chambers to await the coming battle. All the while their chanting never ceased, voices resplendent in dialects that should never be heard. Proudly they carried Zebechial’s remains, eager for all to see the Flames of Change. Oh, what a glory it will be! Their angel had burned, his soul the fuel for the Master’s transformative blaze.

In time, the fire would die, retreating to flickering embers within the powerless armor. Seventh would retreat to their chamber, and above the dais their Icon would float. By the Master’s divine will, the angel’s ashes would be made whole again, the corporeal flesh returned to its crucified prison. The angel would bellow his pain once more, as he had every other time his body returned. But was this not the Fate for which the angel had asked? Zebechial and his brothers asked for redemption, and it has been delivered! He is eternally flagellated with the fires of change. The Immaterium’s inferno is the scourge that whips his sinful flesh with divine punishment.

Such is the glory of the Icon of Flame.

 

 

[Kierdale]

It's been a busy week and it's not over yet, so I can't update the thread now.

Hopefully tonight or tomorrow night.

The Chaos Icons challenge is, however, hereby ended.

The Chaos Objectives bonus challenge is, like the Daemon Forge it's linked to, open until Sunday.

[Carrack]

Bonus challenge

 

 

Gelidis

 

 

 

Gelidis had been made by the children of Gurink every year. The children that were given over to the witch in return for her finding the best timber tracks, with the most lucrative grains of wood, rich blu pines, snow firs, and Emperor spruces. Her sight had never failed the village, and their timber proceeds doubled those of other villages. Most of the children would be returned physically unharmed, most. It was a price the village was willing to pay in order to have a chance of surviving famine, fire, and the once a century snow stalker winter. The winter that was so cold that none left their cabins, so cold that game animals either buried deep or froze, winter that forced those great cats, snow stalkers, to break into cabins and devour starving men huddled before their hearths.

 

From a distance, the making of Gelidis appeared as the typical play of children in the autumn snow. They would fashion the rough semblance of a man with a series of large, but progressively smaller snowballs, all the while singing songs. But if you were to get too close to what was transpiring, you would realize that they were practicing fell sorcery. The stacking of the snowballs was done with ritual care. The singing was more like chanting, calling on the daemon Gelidis to once again return to Gurink. It is why the villagers took great pains to avoid the witch's hut, and even the parents of the children selected for serving the witch, would not speak to, or even look at their offspring, until their service was complete. They merely prayed for their safekeeping, and counted the days until they would hopefully be returned.

 

After the ritual stacking of snowballs, came the other preliminary preparations. The arms of Gelidis were made from switches the children were sent to retrieve from the forest when the witch was displeased. Other measures were taken by the children themselves, in a vain effort to warm the heart of the daemon. Buttons from an old coat were placed into the chest of their creation, to symbolize a real coat. As fearful as the children were, they were still unwilling to give up any significantly sized piece of fabric this close to winter. They did relent to giving up a scarf they had stolen from a drying rack next to the smoke shed, where meats and fish were being prepared for the coming winter. But all these simple measured lacked ritual power, and did nothing to appease Gelidis, and nothing to appease the witch. She cracked the door to her hut and cackled, "Finish it my children, finish it now!" Then slammed the door. Hesitantly, the children went to the old helm. Older than they could possibly fathom. It took four of them to lift it, the baroque great helm, black save for a bronze arrow cresting the crown, and with great horns of some beast sprouting forwards, above the ears. Not the long saber like antlers of the stilky bucks, even now dueling to the death as raging hormones flooded their bodies in the throws of the rut, but thick, brutal, horns of a beast that was used to charging headlong into battle, unconcerned with defense, only with killing the victim of its charge. There must have been some magic in that old black helm they found, for when they placed it on his head, he began to slash around. Welts from the switches of Gelidis's arms would never heal, like the hatred pouring from the red eye lenses, they were eternal. Now fully formed, Gelidis boomed across the village, "Death to the False Emperor! We are returned!" The villagers fled indoors, where most of them would stay as much as possible until the spring thaw that would melt the snow daemon. But he would be back again some day. That they were sure.

 

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww256/Carrack1/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpswt2zkfdr.jpeg

 

 

Damn those dogs! I'm a daemon not a fire hydrant!

 

 

 

Edit: what mixes with eggnog? Ive tried everything during this challenge. :)

[Kierdale]

Thanks to those who entered this week’s Chaos Icons challenge.

MaliGn gave us Chapel of Infernal Totems, describing the reliquary of no less than thirteen of the Word Bearer’s icons on Sicarus, dedicated to the Four and Chaos undivided. The ritual pairing of the icons to their bearers, that some bore scriptures from the Book of Lorgar (I particularly liked that none were complete) and that dark apostle Carnak himself had an icon were all great points in my opinion.

Old Dothan’s Work was Teetengee’s entry this week. A fantastically disgusting tale of the creator of a Nurgle icon. I’d rather not say too much, rather I simply encourage you to read and enjoy it!

Carrack’s entry was Of Saints and Angels. I loved the remembrancer’s mistake, for starters. And it was good to see the Black Maw in combat once more. This Wanderer is most interesting and I hope we’ll find out more about this foe soon.

I gave you the tale of one of my warband’s most showy captains and him being rewarded with an Icon of Excess by no less than a Keeper of Secrets who knows the captain’s most dark, hidden truth.

And Scourged gave us `Burning Angel`. Fleshing out the Scourged’s 7^th company, devotees of the Weaver of Fate. It was excellent to read about Sinschal’ul Bhuramas again and this time his conversation with an Angel of Redemption getting just what he deserved sought...

Truly evil.

Our winner this week?

To be honest it’s hard choosing. Some were better written than others though all were well written, with -to me at least- the right taste. Conveniently we had one of each icon too (if I may count MaliGn’s as an Icon of Vengeance)

Part of the reason I have not posted this update is that I have simply been busy the past few days, and another part is that I’ve been mulling over a couple of things. The first is how to judge this week’s IF.

Do I choose that one...or those two...three?...just give everyone an Octed Amulet...? I very nearly gave none, because winning these little things isn’t the reason we enter IF every week, is it?

But, as Christmas is but a few days away...

MaliGn, Teetengee, Carrack and Scourged, you are hereby all awarded Octed amulets.

And here ends the bonus Challenge: Objective Counters.

Sadly only myself and Carrack entered.

Carrack, I love Gelidis!

Another Octed Amulet for you.

The other thing I’ve been mulling over is how to do the judging for IF in 2016. I’m not happy with simply judging it myself, so I thought of a couple of options to present to everyone:

1. The winner of the last IF gets to judge the next one. Or...

2. The entry with the most Likes wins.

Of course, if anyone else has any suggestions for judging methods, please present them here.

I’d like to continue running the thread and being the one to set themes though, if that’s okay I have a lot planned for us for next year.

Inspiration Friday will return on January 8th 2016.

Many thanks for your entries throughout 2015.

Happy holidays!

[Teetengee]

Likes are weird, as those posted toward the end of the week are at a disadvantage, also because we like for a lot of different reasons, and not all of us can read every entry before judgment day.

I like the idea of the previous winner judging though, I don't think we all care enough for it to become some sort of quid-pro-quo thing.

[Kierdale]

Likes are weird, as those posted toward the end of the week are at a disadvantage, also because we like for a lot of different reasons,

That's what bothered me.

and not all of us can read every entry before judgment day.

A very good point, which I hadn't thought of.

I like the idea of the previous winner judging though, I don't think we all care enough for it to become some sort of quid-pro-quo thing.

Yes, personally I'm leaning toward that option.

 

Thanks for your opinion and input, Teetengee.

[Scourged]

Hah, did we really manage to tackle all five icons? I find that far more enjoyable than I should.

 

I, too, support the idea of previous winner. I think it adds a nice little bit of an honor toward winning that week. I would suggest, though, that if that is the case a set of criteria for judgement be drafted up, even if it is simple and brief. That way we all know we're on the same page and looking for the same things when it's our turn to adjudicate.

 

Or, random idea: guest judges. We've got a nice assortment of folks on this board. Perhaps one of them wouldn't mind an invite to pop in and cast some votes. Could bring in some more participants doing that, as well.

[Warsmith Aznable]

I prefer the tyranny of one when it comes to judging. It's a very Chaos Lord way to do things. Come to think of it, so is having the winner be in charge going forward, replacing one who went before.

 

Guest judges could be fun, but I think would work better for an every now and again. It would be hard work in and of itself to find guest judges every week.

[Carrack]

First off, thank you for running Inspirational Friday. Not only do I enjoy reading your stories, but I appreciate your judgement of the contest. My brief pitching in as a temporary judge, taught me that a lot more effort goes into judging the contest, than participating, and with less time to do so. Thanks.

 

As for future contests, I like both ideas of previous winner choosing, and guest judges. Maybe we could do a Chaos vs Blood Angels, Space Wolves, IG, etc... story topic with some of the more active brothers in those sub-forums as judges for the guest judge contests.

 

One thing I would like to see, is more feedback. But, I'm not really sure how to do this effectively. On one hand I would like to get tips here and there about how to improve, and see others as well, but I don't want to discourage new blood with what may be perceived as harsh criticism of what they put their own personal time and effort into doing.