IL XVI - The Drowned

[simison]

The Xantriss Insurrection

 

In the twilight years of the Great Crusade, the Drowned had by this stage built a nigh-on insurmountable wall of secrecy around their Legion. Few Remembrancers remained with them, finding the lack of Army personnel leeched common humanity from the fleets, and the Drowned’s way of making war offered few opportunities to bear witness. To be sure, not all tasks could be done by servitors, but the Legion’s serfs formed their own insular community, and were almost as unwelcoming as their masters. So only a few persisted in their studies of the XVI^th, and we can surmise they proved easy to monitor. 

 

It is perhaps for this reason that the Xantriss Insurrection lingers in memory as one of the few recorded battles offering a vague warning of things to come. The actual Insurrection was a relatively straightforward affair. In the last months of 999.M30, Colonel Curze and his regiment, the Megaran 54^th Phalanx, had abruptly ended all contact with the Imperium a few weeks after securing Compliance on Xantriss.

 

Xantriss was a feral death world, covered in tropical rainforests that was dominated by an inordinate amount of predator species. The human population had been reduced to a primitive state by Old Night and lacked the technology to maintain control of the surface. Therefore, the Xantriss people had endured by burrowing into the soil, creating elaborate underground cities throughout the millennia. It was from these hidden abodes the natives would hunt and retreat, eking out a misery existence until the Imperium's arrival.

 

Although possessing no means to hold off Imperium forces indefinitely, the strategos attached to the War Hounds estimated Compliance would only be achieved after an extended anti-guerilla campaign. Colonel Curze, having no desire to engage in a long and bloody campaign, decided that a show of force was in order. Locating the largest settlement on Xantriss, the Megaran 54^th deployed en masse, specifically targeting local predators and the natives' preferred prey. From there, the carcasses were given to the natives for food and trophies. Awed by the 'sky-people's' might and generosity, the humans of Xantriss devoted themselves to the strangers, raising Curze as a god-king as Curze repeated similar incidents around the planet.

 

At first, it seemed Curze had succeeded in a brilliant strategy completing Compliance in weeks instead of years. Had the story ended there, there is little doubt a promotion would've occurred and a rising status among the Imperial war machine. Unfortunately, Curze abandoned the Imperium at this critical juncture. From the few records recovered in the aftermath, it is now clear to history that instead of stopping the natives' ill-placed worship, Curze embraced it and grew arrogant. Curze forsook his duty and claimed Xantriss, becoming the god-king the natives called him. 

 

The Imperium would not let this stand. For this gross betrayal, ending the Xantriss Insurrection fell to Morro and the Drowned. Of the battle to come, the void war was the most well-recorded aspect as the remembrancers encountered few restrictions as they did their work. It was after the Drowned had swept away Curze's small fleet that the first of the mysteries would begin. In line with their brutal practicality, the Drowned would unleash a six-hour bombardment of the surface, targeting the largest concentrations of the native population and the few surface bases of the Megaran 54^th. Yet, the supposed location of the rogue Colonel, who was based in Xantriss' largest subterranean metropolis, was completely spared. 

Edited June 14, 2017 by simison

[simison]

Instead, the Drowned launched one of their largest orbital drops from their twin Glorianas, Queen of the Damned and Horrorheart. Since no remembrancer was allowed to bunk on either ship, no one outside of the Legion witnessed this undertaking except from a distance. Fighting would last two days as the Drowned scoured the tunnel networks of the Megaran 54^th and their native allies. Forbidden from the surface, the remembrancers did their best to piece together events from overhearing casualty reports, watching for equipment requests, and monitoring additional deployments to Xantriss. From this hazy web of information, it was known that the natives' knowledge of terrain and skill at ambush tactics proved a lethal combination with the Megarans modern equipment even against legionaries. 

 

Expecting nothing less than annihilation from the Drowned, the Curze's devoted followers fought with the desperation of a cornered rat. Natives would lure local predators to attack and distract the Drowned before sniping at them from the foliage. Below, the Megarans would fight costly withdrawals before collapsing entire tunnels to bury their adversaries. In turn, the Drowned gave no quarter. Flamers and promethiums became the Drowned's most used weapon as they burned away the forests and filled tunnels with asphyxiating smoke they were immune to. The final blow would arrive when Morro finally took to the surface to personally enact Curze's execution, smashing through the last of the Megaran's defenses. 

 

A day after the climatic conclusion to the battle, the remembrancers were given leave to see the battlefield themselves. What they found on the surface was a hellish landscape. Promethium strikes still burned and everything seemed to be charred and ash for miles around the landing zones. The Drowned did little to guide the remembrancers as they reaped tallies from the natives to replace casualties. With little apparent oversight, the remembrancers continued their work and would discover more mysteries around the Xantriss Insurrection. 

 

The first of them would be found in one of the capillary tunnels where one remembrancer discovered the remains of an earlier skirmish. The Drowned's infamous practicality often dictates combat style, most enemies are dispatched with only a few blows as the Drowned advanced. Yet, in this site, native soldiers and members of the 54^th were found torn apart and slain with what appeared to be mindless rage. When questioned, a Drowned sergeant explained that a wild predator had managed to slip in and was responsible before forbidding all remembrancers from returning to the site. The explanation, although technically possible, seemed suspect given the Drowned's defensive perimeter.

 

Another mystery came to be when several remembrancers investigating the former battlefield were struck by a pocket of strong emotions and a sense of 'wrongness'. These incidents only occurred to those who had a natural sensitivity to the Warp and its effects, though did not possess the strength to be outright psykers. Furthermore, these 'pockets' were geographically rooted only to specific areas of the battlefield. Unlike the earlier discovered skirmish site, these areas had already been cleaned of bodies, unusual in of itself given the Drowned's disdain for the chore. 

 

Finally, a remembrancer found a strange vial of an unknown substance outside of Curze's final stand, half-buried in the cave wall. Unwilling to share their discovery with the Drowned, the remembrancer hid the vial and only had it analyzed after rotating to a different Legion. Only then was an apothecary able to explain that the vial contained narcotics designed to induce a kind of battle frenzy with the strength to affect an Astartes. 

Edited June 14, 2017 by simison

[bluntblade]

From my HH readings, I don't think Gloarianas were a for-Primarch class. There seem to be more than twenty

[Chief Captain Redd]

I'd agree with that on the Gloriana class, it seems a number of Dark Age hulks could compete and even outclass, it's just the Gloriana class was gifted to the Primarchs, and do have near incomparable capabilities at their weight class, compared to say The Phalanx which could probably dock all twenty, or Arks, or King class ships etc...

[simison]

From my HH readings, I don't think Gloarianas were a for-Primarch class. There seem to be more than twenty

 

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

[Chief Captain Redd]

If I may assume, I imagine Blunt is speaking to the elite nature of Gloriana class ships; that those we know of aren't nearly that rare. Though I'd interject that the Flagship Glorianas were heavily retrofitted by the Emperor for his sons.

[simison]

If I may assume, I imagine Blunt is speaking to the elite nature of Gloriana class ships; that those we know of aren't nearly that rare. Though I'd interject that the Flagship Glorianas were heavily retrofitted by the Emperor for his sons.

 

If this is about the line about remembrancers being allowed on board, I said that to hint that the Forlorn are on those two ships. Ergo, Morro won't let the remembrancers near them to preserve his secret.

[simison]

Besides the Gloriana bit, is there anything else wrong with the exemplary battle?

[bluntblade]

Sim, I didn't mean to imply there's anything wrong with the battle. More that the two Drowned Glorianas wouldn't raise eyebrows just because they have a pair.

[simison]

Ah, gotcha. That's alright, it's supposed to be only a subtle hint that Morro has Russ' old flagship.

[Sigismund229]

By the time of the campaigns on the Eastern Fringe, how far are the Drowned down their road to being a whole Cthulu legion?

[simison]

By the time of the campaigns on the Eastern Fringe, how far are the Drowned down their road to being a whole Cthulu legion?

 

I tend to mark their corruption by progress on the Forlorn. By the start of the Eastern campaigns, the Forlorn and the Drowned are well down the road of the Dark Eldar drug use. It's become an open secret at this point, but Icarion, unwilling to push away a Primarch and a Legion, barely tolerates it.

 

Unknown to Icarion, Morro is already taking the first few steps to true Chaos corruption at the hands of Slaanesh. So, the Forlorn are now under the influence of the drugs and early corruption but aren't quite to Gal Vorbak level yet. Morro's first true Forlorn success happens right at the end of the Eastern Campaigns with Icarion's focus on Terra. 

[Sigismund229]

Which phase of the war on the Eastern Fringe

[simison]

At the start of the Eastern campaigns, so within the first couple years of DoR, the Drowned can deploy a few small squads of stable Forlorn. These Forlorn only use combat drugs. 

 

By the last year of the campaigns, so a year before Icarion makes his first Seg. Solar assault, Morro has successfully created the first daemonic Forlorn. A true Gal Vorbak alternative.

[Sigismund229]

Actually the campaigns on the Eastern Fringe last a bit past Icarion's first push to Terra. The basic idea was:

 

Phase 1: The initial Drowned and Steel Legion offensive. Hits hard and takes control of much of the Eastern Fringe, capturing Azus and breaking the back of the Dune Serpents legion(for a while) scattering them to the winds. Then the Void Eagles arrive and in conjunction with the scattered Dune Serpents units manage to fight the Insurrectionists to a standstill. So by the end of this phase the loyalists are just barely clinging on to the Eastern Fringe but are clinging on nonetheless. Covered in Book 2.

 

Phase 2: The war on the Eastern Fringe winds down. This phase should, I think, only be mentioned in passing as nothing really happens. Elements of the Steel Legion remain on the east while the Drowned are moved to support the offensive against Terra and some of the Steel Legion are redeployed to more important fronts, leaving enough SL and Insurgos behind to keep the DS and VE occupied.

 

Phase 3: This phase takes place after the Edict of Emancipation, as the Insurrectionists are finally halted at the gates of Seg.Solar. Alex is then able to shift his weight a bit and use the relatively fresh Predators to launch a counter-attack on the Eastern Fringe, breaking through the Insurrectionists and forcing them back so that the Eastern Fringe is 50:50 between Insurrectionists and Loyalists. Covered in Book 3

 

Phase 4: Fighting continues between scattered groups of legionaries but the serious fighting has moved elsewhere. The Eastern Fringe is now essentially a sideshow. It continues this way until the Scouring.

[simison]

I like it. 

[Sigismund229]

I like it.

But so do the Drowned remain the same? Fully experimenting and using the Forlorn by the end of Phase 1?

[simison]

Close. At the start of Phase 1, we have the proto-Forlorn. It's by the start of Phase 2, that we have the true Forlorn, but only in specialist numbers. We won't see any squad-size deployments of the true Forlorn, until the start of Phase 3. 

[simison]

[saving this bit here because I cleaned the minor errors but waiting on an answer about structure.]

 

Idiosyncratic to the point of never acknowledging their given name, that the Drowned turned traitor can seem inevitable in hindsight. Much of this might be attributed to the influence of the wars that the XVI^th were called upon to fight, gruelling and with little promise of glory. Yet in records sequestered from the public eye, we can see that the Drowned were infected early by the corruption which would drag down so many of the Insurrectionists, yoked to the darkness by their sinister Primarch.

Sons of the Last Seas
The XVI^th Legion was raised from a scattering of cities across Terra, all located by those few bodies of free-standing water that remained above or below the surface. In many of these enclaves, water became a defensive weapon in its own right, the inhabitants withdrawing to the depths when enemies drew near and luring the invaders to their doom. The Emperor saw in their resilience and adaptability traits he would find amply useful in his chosen warriors. Thus when the XVI^th began their tale in the final years of the Unification Wars it was with an unusual operation.

The target was the domain of the ancient Jialter. Its ruler, Klawford, was an inspired scientist exiled from Mars who had set his labour-machines and slaves to erecting three vast dams around his fortress, diverting dozens of rivers and swallowing up lakes to eventually control several hundred square kilometres. The Emperor was concerned that the waters themselves might be used against his armies in a conventional attack, costing him not only valuable soldiers but also much of the archeotech Klawford’s forces possessed. So when Klawford returned only a single living envoy clad in the skins of his fellows, the Emperor turned to the XVI^th and bade them devise a means to strike at Klawford through his most prized assets.

The Legion, numbering roughly 4,000 at this time, deployed as individual squads into the underground channels that fed the reservoirs, using heavily modified tunnelling machines similar to those deployed in the Tempest Galleries campaign. Although contact with such vast weights of water would spell doom for many of the craft, over four-fifths of the Astartes survived to emerge into the water. They did not go unchallenged, for Klawford had created servitors of fiendish shape to guard his reservoirs, but he had woefully underestimated the power of the Space Marines and as dusk fell they rose from the water. Within nine hours of commencing their mission, the XVI^th had captured each dam’s control stations, turning the surface-to-air defences on the craft sent to drive them away and destroy and dams.

Klawford’s unassailable defence was revealed as a crippling weakness, but his armies remained formidable, and the Emperor’s warriors died in their hundreds against his swarms of machines, augmented mutants and clone-soldiers. Dozens more were lost fending off further attempts to wreck the dams and lay waste to the lands which Klawford ruled. For the entire night, the cannon-forested tops of the dams were silhouetted by the lights of conflict. Yet when the dawn came, it illuminated the Raptora raised over Klawford’s fortress. The remaining 2,000 Legionaries received the Emperor here, and delivered into his hands the captured warlord. Little is known of Klawford’s fate, but rumour has it that he and a few other Martian renegades were later delivered into Kelbor-Hal’s custody, to be dealt with as the Fabricator-General saw fit.

[bluntblade]

What are the exact circumstances of Morro ascending, and when (and where?) does he wreck Pionus?

[Demus Ragnok]

What are the exact circumstances of Morro ascending, and when (and where?) does he wreck Pionus?

I thought he mauled Pionus on Untarra.

[bluntblade]

Sorry. When did he wreck Pionus the second time, in daemon form?

[Nomus Sardauk]

At the Siege of Terra I think? 

[Slips]

No, it happens before that, iirc, because they basically have a Kaiju showdown @ Terra.

[simison]

The original plan, as I understand it, is that Pionus is crippled on the DoR and then turned into a wraith. Then the second time Morro and Pionus goes toe-to-toe is at the Siege of Terra.