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IL XVI - The Drowned

Hesh Kadesh

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simison Venerable Brother

simison

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So Mikhal offers two solutions:

 

  • Version 1: This moves the spat to a different environment where there is no game, but outright negotiation between Primarchs to simmer things down. In this version, Russ is as equally guilty of escalating things, but Morro is the one who still lashes out. Gwal is still the one who de-limbs Morro, though unintentionally in the heat of the moment.
  • Version 2: Same, but with poison and foresight? 

I'll actually take a moment to explain my thoughts on how a Warden of Light's Pariah nature affects a Halcyon Warden's telepathy and divination. Since the masks are meant to contain their powers, the Pariah aura is contained. Thus, while no psychic art can affect the Warden of Light himself, it can affect everything around them.

 

  • Kel's solution is to also move the entire incident into a different campaign, but this time, Morro outright tries to kill Leman when the two are alone. 

I find this more egregious than the tempers running wild scenario we currently have. I understand the desire to make Morro more manipulative, but this is not the way to do it.

 

  • Blunt's solution keeps everything pretty similar, but makes everything more accidental. A brawl does break out, but nobody is sure how lethal Morro intended to be, and Gwal's limb-hacking is done completely unintentional.

 

To be honest, I think I prefer a mix of Mikhal's and Blunt's solution. Still the Regicide game and then a fight, but no one is sure if Morro actually meant to try to kill Leman. Leman claims there was lethal intent, but neither Gwalchavad or Alexandros will back his claim. Both are trying to keep the peace between their brothers with Gwalchavad being both embarrassed and guilty that he crippled his brother. Meanwhile, Alexandros is the family guy and hopes that he can eventually smooth down this bitter hatred between Morro and Leman after this incident. 

 

So, we make the situation more ambiguous per Blunt's suggestion, while giving stronger weight to Gwalchavad and Alexandros per Mikhal's idea. 

 

For a bonus idea, perhaps Alexandros secretly knows the truth that Morro was allowing his temper to override his thoughts or that Morro secretly was trying to kill Leman. And he purposely lies and covers for Morro in hopes that it'll turn out for the better down the road. This obviously doesn't happen but things are obliquely resolved with Leman's death. 

 

The pay-off would be a scene between Alexandros and Morro, possibly during the First Solar War, where Alexandros reveals that he knew the truth all along for some interesting dialogue.

MikhalLeNoir Venerable Brother

MikhalLeNoir

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Good solution. Esecially the part where Alex knows of Morros intent and decides to let him go. But in doing so he has to at least some fault in the injury of pionius and he has to question himself: should i have done something which is a perfect connection for Alex to draw Gwal later back as he can admit that he know he was at fault and decided to let his brother go, do nothing and this lead in the future to grave results. At least this could be a cliffhanger for getting Gwal into tho fight as he has been there.
  • 3 weeks later...
bluntblade Venerable Brother

bluntblade

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Mulling over an addition to the Russ episode:

 

Morro was brought to heel by Pionus and Icarion a few months later, and was sufficiently contrite that his life was again spared. However, he was to labour under Icarion’s watchful eyes for a further five years, and his Legion would spend a further decade being observed by a Custodes detachment led by Prefect Sareic Veron. That they found nothing to concern them did nothing to banish the pall of suspicion that hung over the Primarch, and it extended to the Legion during this time. Several fleets and their leading councils found themselves at pains to ensure their good standing was not tarnished by association.

 

There was no such effort by the Copper Prince to rehabilitate his reputation. Approximately thirty years before the Qarith Triumph, Morro acquired a new Gloriana-class ship for his fleet. The circumstances are deeply mysterious - normally the construction of such prestigious vessels was an occasion of rejoicing among the Mechanicus, and in any case difficult to hide- and the acquisition drew condemnation from several other Legions. Morro ensured that attention was lavished upon the vessel, ensuring that like his flagship, it far outclassed most vessels of its kind. He seems to have taken a cruel delight in how this angered some of his brothers, although the reason for their disquiet remains unknown.

bluntblade Venerable Brother

bluntblade

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Exemplary Battles

Only a fraction of the Drowned’s campaigns are well-known to us. Quite aside from the Legion’s secrecy, the environments in which they plied their trade frequently deterred and impeded outside observers. Indeed, the reports by Prefect Veron and his cadre have proven invaluable in exploring how the XVIth waged war when apart from their cousins, the Custodians being able to brave the inhospitable battlefields where the Drowned thrived. As with the Scions Hospitalier, the Drowned demonstrated a willingness to adapt in order to persevere, learning from the other Legions with whom they grudgingly served. As time progresses, we can see how this hunger for greater potency led them to stray beyond the Emperor’s bounds, ensuring a need for greater secrecy even as they chose more arduous campaigns, craving recognition for what Morro deemed his Legion’s primacy.

  • 3 weeks later...
bluntblade Venerable Brother

bluntblade

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The Xantriss Retribution

By the twilight years of the Great Crusade, the Drowned had 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 XVIth, 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 Kiaguz and his regiment, the Megaran 54th Phalanx, had abruptly ended all contact with the Imperium a few weeks after securing Compliance on Xantriss.

 

Kiaguz’s favoured rank belied his true power. In truth he was closer to a Lord Marshal, binding his feral-worlder troops to him with a magnetic personality and undeniable military prowess. He had drawn comments for the way in which he eschewed outside elements, taking only a minimal complement of Mechanicum magi to ensure his authority went unchallenged. Yet, as with so many unsavoury but useful inidividuals, it proved easy to overlook these tendencies considering his tally of conquest.

 

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

 

The Imperials faced the dual challenge of eradicating the Orks and imposing Compliance upon the human population. Colonel Kiaguz, 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 54th deployed en masse, specifically targeting the Orks. Long denied any chance to fight the kind of massive battles they craved except among themselves, the Orks swarmed against the Imperials in numbers large enough to be seen from orbit. Kiaguz exploited this to the hilt, ordering bombardments from orbit before comitting almost his entire terrestrial force.

 

Four months of war followed, and Xantriss' people emerged into a world ground beneath the tread of iron beasts and men who killed greenskins with fire and blue starlight. In a grisly but potent piece of symbolism, 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, deifying their leader as Kiaguz completed the conquest.

 

Why would a man who appeared quite rational, cognizant of the might of his overlords, bite the hand that fed him? Sadly, the Galaxy often denies us the answers we crave, and so we have no idea why Kiaguz traded almost certain elevation for rebellion and a death sentence. From the few records recovered in the aftermath, it is now clear that instead of stopping the natives' ill-placed worship, he embraced it. Kiaguz forsook his duty and claimed Xantriss, claiming the god-kingship the natives bestowed on him.

 

The Warmaster would not let this stand, and an example was to be made of the rebels. Ending the Xantriss Insurrection fell to Morro and the Drowned. It is widely believed that Morro was chosen because, with Andezo occupied elsewhere and no Legion having ties to the rebels, the task simply fell to the one whose honour would be least besmirched by the deed. Perhaps, however, Alexandros intended it as one more effort to reach out, to make Morro feel valued after the Vizenko Prosecution.

 

Of the battle to come, the void war was the most well-recorded aspect, as the remembrancers encountered few restrictions while they did their work. The gross mismatch testifies to the depth of Kiaguz’s delusions: Morro brought two Gloriana-class ships with him, leading a flotilla of nearly three hundred vessels. No Army fleet, however large, could expect to survive intact. Moreover, the combined 232nd and 457th Fleets had already proven sufficient to drive Kiaguz’s ships back into the world’s orbit. By Morro’s order they refrained from further action, blockading the system.

 

Upon his arrival, Morro commenced an attack that saw a full third of the enemy ships taken intact. However, this was not without casualties as the Imperials found psykers, taken from the feral population, fighting in Kiaguz’s ranks. Plainly more would be found on Xantriss itself. In line with their brutal practicality, the Drowned unleashed a six-hour bombardment of the surface, targeting the largest concentrations of the native population and the few surface bases of the Megaran 54th. Yet, the supposed location of the rogue Colonel, who was based in Xantriss' largest subterranean metropolis, was spared.

 

This in itself was not unusual; the traitors were to be punished, and it was only fitting that they be given time to reflect on the fate they had earned. The Drowned launched a series of vast orbital drops. The remembrancers were prohibited from following, and so the terrestrial war would be seen only by XVIth Legion eyes. Fighting would last two days as the Drowned scoured the tunnel networks of the Megaran 54th and their native allies. Forbidden from the surface, the remembrancers did their best to piece together events from overheard casualty reports, watching for equipment requests, and monitoring additional deployments to Xantriss.

 

The expectation was that the defenders’ familiarity with the terrain would enable them to stall the Legionaries, even inflict significant casualties with their shamanic witchery. Yet soon it became clear that the Drowned were engaging in a war not of subjugation, but of outright annihilation. Morro, directing the initial phase from the Horrorheart, resolved to treat the planet as a Death World, with no concessions to preserving its environment or people. The people of Xantriss had proven themselves in thrall to superstition, and they would not get a second chance.

 

Orbital picts showed the forests blackening and dying, the prefabricated fortifications established in the wastelands created by the bombardments. Bulk lifters brought captives in their thousands to the fleet, the Drowned enslaving all whom they did not kill. Excavation engines, requisitioned by the Legion from nearby worlds, were used to tear open the warrens and bunkers. They pulled the campaign onto their own terms in the most brutal way, destroying the world their enemies had known. The captives were never seen aboard the Legion’s ships except by the Drowned and their serfs, but the fleet’s labs and forge decks, always forbidden to civilians, thrummed with activity.

 

The mortal commanders watched with a growing sense of unease, permitted only to establish what would become penal mining colonies and process captives before the wretches were taken to the Drowned ships. The conduct of the XVIth Legion only made things worse, as they refused to hold meetings aboard their own ships. Disturbing dreams became widespread among personnel, with the Astropaths and Navigators most troubled of all.

 

A day after the shattering conclusion to the campaign and the departure of the main Drowned force, the Army and remembrancers were given leave to see the battlefield themselves. The picts and paintings of the desolation speak eloquently of the Legion's thoroughness. The Drowned did nothing to guide the remembrancers as they dragged the prisoners aboard their lifters and retrieved the last of their war machines. 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 an imagist discovered the remains of an earlier skirmish. The Drowned's infamous practicality often dictated their combat style; most enemies were dispatched with the bare minimum of force as the Drowned advanced. But here and in seven other locations, native soldiers and members of the 54th were found torn apart, killed in a manner of surpassing cruelty. When questions were asked, the planet’s fauna was blamed, the Drowned subsequently forbidding all remembrancers from returning to the sites in question. The explanation, although technically possible, seemed suspect given the Drowned's defensive perimeters and their ravaging of the world.

 

Treading the ground, the remembrancers finally saw the Legion’s work for themselves. The surface was unrecognisable, churned by tank tracks and missile strikes. The atmosphere was scalding, climate change running out of control in the wake of the campaign. Several regions were inaccessible to mortals, owing to the chemical and rad-weapons wielded by The Drowned. Even where these weapons had not been deployed, an atmosphere of dread permeated, with nightmares and hallucinations affecting those mortals who ventured to the battlefields. So it was at Kurium, where the renegade Colonel had been dug out of his fortress by sheer brute force.

 

Only a few braved the pall of misery that hung over the ruin, but this was enough for the final mystery to emerge. A historian named Jakun Iopado discovered a strange vial in the tunnels of Kiaguz's final redoubt. It lay broken and half-buried in the cave wall, but some dregs of liquid still remained. Unwilling to share his discovery with the Drowned, Iopado concealed the vial and only had it analyzed after transferring to the Dune Serpents a few months later. Upon the transfer, he handed it over to an Apothecary for analysis. Given the state of the vial, nothing certain could be deduced, but the Apothecary hypothesised that it was some sort of narcotic, designed to influence an Astartes.

 

As for the Colonel himself, Kiaguz was seen briefly in the aftermath, kept on the surface to watch as his devotees were enslaved. The man showed every sign of being broken, gibbering of the horrors he had seen. He was never seen again by civilian eyes, but Morro let his ultimate fate be known; he kept Kiaguz caged as a source of amusement until his mind deteriorated completely, whereupon he became an armoury servitor.

Edited by bluntblade
bluntblade Venerable Brother

bluntblade

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Final draft time:

+++++

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 XVIth 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 XVIth 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 XVIth 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, known to history as Eltan Klawford, was an inspired but unstable scientist, exiled from Mars. Fleeing the anger of Kelbor-Hal, he had seized a holdfast on Terra. Here he 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 XVIth and bade them devise a means to strike at Klawford through his most prized assets.

The Legion, numbering roughly 2,000 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 a vast weight 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 XVIth had captured each dam’s control stations, turning the surface-to-air defences on the craft sent to drive them away and destroy the 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 Imperial Raptora raised over Klawford’s fortress. The remaining 800 Legionaries received the Emperor here, and handed Him 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.

Advent of the Monarchs
The XVIth’s losses hampered their growth, but nonetheless their resourcefulness, tenacity and stable gene-seed placed them in demand as the Emperor’s wars spread beyond Terra. With the VIth they would brave the scorching climes of Venus, and their service in the moons of Jupiter earned plaudits from their cousins. When multiple attempts to scour the dreaded Dirigiscrae from the atmosphere of Neptune with virus-bombs failed due to the world’s superlative cold, it was the XVIth who were chosen to purge these vicious and powerful xenoforms.

The XVIth approached the task with a great deal of preparation, carefully studying the information available. In the ferociously hot depths of the world, the life-eater had done its work, but the frigid cold of the main volume rendered it ineffective, and the violent atmosphere destroyed many virus-bombs before they could penetrate far enough to work. The Drowned noted this, demanding improvements to their armour and modified auspex devices to better penetrate the atmospheric interference.

Then they ordered the creation of great vessels covered in what amounted to vast scaffolds, bedecked with cannons, from which their companies would operate. These were designed to survive the gas giant’s tempestuous atmosphere and provide points from which the Legion could engage their prey. This mode of warfare, shorn of horizons and any ground in sight, would likely have overwhelmed mortal minds, but the XVIth took to it with alacrity. Striking into the depths, they would corral and drive the aliens to the surface, where they could be targeted from orbit in large enough numbers.

Nonetheless, even with the Magos Biologis’ successful work in synthesising bio and chem-weapons lethal against the Dirigiscrae, and the immense power of the fleets in orbit, it was a long and gruelling campaign. Several of the vessels ran afoul of storms the size of Terran continents. As their cousins led heroic charges across the system, the XVIth were locked into a long and unforgiving campaign of extermination which took a grim toll upon them, reducing them from over ten thousand to the high hundreds. Apocryphally, Malcador is said to have looked upon the records when the campaign was done and declared, “As with its namesake, Neptune has claimed a toll of drowned men.”

The Drowned would make up the deficit from a variety of worlds as the Crusade spread to new systems, finally establishing its stability under Lord Commander Primus Hennasohn. However, this drive was not enough to enable independent campaigning such as that undertaken by several Legions, even at this early stage. Hennasohn determined that a different course was necessary if his Legion was to prosper, foregoing prestige for strength and durability. Drawing together his senior captains and Lords Commander, he made his case and with their consent, drastically altered the path of the Legion.

The XVIth would not exist as a few monolithic entities as so many of their cousins did. Instead twenty commanders, titled the Pelagic Monarchs, would each assume command of a portion, and this would be attached to another fleet. These varied extensively. Some Legions welcomed them and placed the Drowned Men on an equal footing with their own. Other segments found themselves at the core of largely Army flotillas, and several took to serving in isolation, outriders to larger forces. Records are patchy - an inevitability when dealing with the early Crusade - but it seems that the XVIth served with distinction wherever they fought.

Certainly, several Monarchs achieved victories that suggest their fleets punching well above their weight. When the 44th Fleet encountered an Ork armada heading for a nearby Imperial system, the Drowned engaged in a series of running battles to slow them. Harrying the greenskins, they bought time for the Apostles of War under Kelentil to fortify the targeted worlds. When the Orks entered the system, they were sufficiently weakened that the Apostles wiped them out in just two days of fighting. In the Siege of Natoyia, the storied Five Fortresses fell to the Drowned after frustrating two XIXth Legion offensives.

A senior commander from an unknown Legion coined the sobriquet “Lanterns” for the XVIth in recognition of their deeds, and it was enthusiastically adopted throughout the armies of the Crusade. Everywhere, that is, but the Legion itself. The Drowned appear to have viewed it as a sop to their dignity, some feeble compensation for a Legion who were, as a matter of course, outshone by almost all their peers. In this light, the nickname became bitterly ironic, and perhaps even a cruel joke.

While the Legion did grow to the extent that, after six decades, most of their fleets could operate independently of their cousins, they could never match the rate of expansion made possible by a Primarch's mature gene-code. The observance that reunion typically brought a heightened tally of glories hardly needs repeating. So long as the Drowned lacked their gene-sire at the helm, they were consigned to the second or third rank of Legions.

Indeed, some Primarchs had little patience for these forces attached to their fleets. Early on, Alexandros considered them a distraction from the business of getting properly acquainted with his Legion. While he secured these Drowned Men a healthy detachment of vessels and auxiliary forces with which they might form their own fleet for a time, the slight would not be forgotten. When he offered to renew the old arrangement after a joint campaign, it was snubbed until Alexandros offered the services of the Forge World Sarum for the fleet. As a result, ill-feeling persisted on both sides afterwards, and when the XVIth Legion element felt strong enough to break away on their own terms a decade later, several Vth Legion commanders privately expressed relief.

There were successes, however. When Pionus Santor came to take charge of his Legion, he requested an audience with Hennasohn. Having read the Drowned’s rolls of honour, he saw an expertise he was keen to incorporate into his own Legion. So the two Legions embarked on a collaborative work in honing tactics and equipment for combat in the Galaxy’s oceans, the XVIth profiting from the insights of a Primarch and the technology retrieved from Iona. Several Drowned fleets would serve closely with the XIXth, that the Scions might learn by example, and a close relationship was established between the two.

But even here, bitterness intruded. For now the Drowned were steadily eclipsed in a field of war that they had long considered their own. From this point, when a fleetmaster found an Ocean World they could not easily subdue, their first thought was of the Scions Hospitalier, not those who had first begun to master such warfare before the Legions had left Terra’s orbit. The Drowned returned to relative obscurity, waiting with grim patience for the news that their Primarch had been found. Finally, as the turn of the century loomed, that news arrived, and the saga of the Drowned took a fresh turn.

Edited by bluntblade
bluntblade Venerable Brother

bluntblade

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The Ferryman of Styx
Styx was a gas giant similar to the one where the XVIth had first proved the sheer extent of their mettle. In truth, their Primarch hailed from one of this world’s satellites, named Feneos and almost as inhospitable as the world it orbited. A long orbit around Styx plunged the globe into constant twilight for most of its long year, forcing the population to subsist on arboretum-grown plants and nutrient paste. The freezing climate that ensued was just as cruel a mistress: vast underground and underwater complexes were the only inhabitable spaces on Feneos.

The people of Feneos referred to themselves as Styxians to signify their origins elsewhere, showing a degraded understanding that there was something beyond the world they knew. Yet it seems they took little hope from this. A belief that they had been cast upon this merciless rock ran through their society, and they could find little answer for their misery other than to endure it. Joy was almost absent from Feneos.

There was little to savour in the landscape outside, even in the fleeting months of summer. Feneos was dominated by jagged, forbidding mountain ranges, bleak tundra and treacherous wetlands. The latter were home to ravenous amphibian predators, and worse things lurked in the depths. It was for fear of these that the floating stations were mobile and heavily armed, like waterborne versions of the great landcrawler cities found on Medusa. It was only with great reluctance and no small amount of weaponry that the Styxians ventured beyond their homes to harvest fish and crop seeds.

Those who strayed outside or failed to properly guard their homes might fall victim to even fouler predators, for the Dark Eldar had chanced upon this world and found a rich supply of misery. They did not gorge upon it, but tended it much as a farmer does his crops. It might readily be expected, therefore, that when a Primarch came to this world, he saw the suffering of his kind and took up arms against their tormentors. Such is to woefully mistake the character of Sorrowsworn Morro.

Of course, little was ever known of Morro, and much of that suppressed by order of the Primarch or his father. The clearest insights available to us are supplied by a remembrancer named Willym Koch, who vanished in the days before Icarion and his allies revealed their true allegiance. His work, the Apocrypha Hades, was recovered by agents of the Sigillite in the early years of the war, and only a few have been allowed to view it.

It is still a mystery when and where Morro’s pod came to land. The first clue to his existence came when a retrieval party, seeking fresh crops, stumbled across the corpses of several predators. Some had been partially eaten, displaying human bite marks, and all had been torn apart rather than killed with guns or blades. The humans were unwilling to investigate further, for curiosity and survival were deemed incompatible on this world. Reports filtered in from other settlements, both of slain monsters and missing people, and the Styxians understood they had found something to fear as much as to inspire hope.

Three Terran years passed before Morro made contact properly, emerging as the final sun of Feneos’ cycle set. Approaching the city Phlegethon, he stalked through a portion which had been rendered uninhabitable in a leviathan attack. Detecting him by sonar, the guards reacted just as they had been taught to deal with anything that arrived without announcing itself as human and peaceful. Unfortunately for them, crude lasrifles, autoguns and flamers proved utterly insufficient. Efficiently and without remorse, Morro stormed the outer defences, taking hostages until the defenders laid down their weapons and begged for an end to the violence.

Morro’s first demand was that the polity’s ruler be brought before him. The cities had long since done away with hereditary rulers and instead were governed by the hardest of the grim, military men and women upon whom they had come to depend. In this case, the individual in question was a man named Nitos. Having served for two Terran decades, he had finally met his match in the Primarch. This failing was enough for Morro to declare Nitos unworthy, a crime punishable only by death. Crushing the ruler's skull, he pronounced himself lord of Plegethon.

Other titles followed, the Primarch leading soldiers through the dark, storming cities and demanding their fealty. Men did not go abroad in the times of dark, least of all with hostile intent when to compromise a city meant to risk its destruction. Morro was spoken of as a creature born of the seas, a man in whose veins flowed the blood of monsters. Like them, he could withstand the merciless seas, striking the seaborne cities from below. Either he got his surrender, or purged all who resisted along with their kin.

To better wage his wars, Morro delved into the schematics and technological lore that had resisted the Styxians’ attempts to comprehend it. He had no use for anything that would ease his people’s lives, but if it would make them stronger, there he could find value. He put this strength to use, culling the predators on land and taking to the seas to hunt the great beasts. Morro would brook no challenge to his rule of the planet, and the creatures stood in his way.

With them gone, Morro could work further towards strengthening his hold. It is likely that, in his isolated youth, he had stumbled across ancient mining tunnels, for he soon deduced the purpose of the excavation machines he found among the schematics. These he ordered built, and set his subjects delving into the crust for more resources to feed his ambition. He imposed a ruthlessly utilitarian regime upon the Styxians; they were naught but a resource. None could be said to know their brooding master well, but the rumours held that he was restless, seeking broader horizons beyond the world he had found.

Certainly he tolerated no resistance. When the city of Tartanlus refused to submit, Morro used his tunneling machines to break it open. Seizing the climate control facilities, he froze the denizens into submission. Once the survivors gave in, he took them as slaves and set them to work in the mines. If the Styxians had any inclination toward art before, they certainly lacked it now, save for poetry of a singularly morbid bent.

Perhaps alone of the Primarchs, Morro coveted items of great value without apparent regard for their aesthetic or practical value. He did not adorn himself with these trinkets, but he hoarded them all the same. Koch seems to have believed it was more about depriving the Styxians and reminding them of his power over them. By his decree they knew no happiness, and they could do nothing to contest that decree.

Such transgressions, however, were nothing to the most dreadful way in which Morro used his people. Exactly when Morro first encountered the Dark Eldar is not known; early, it is thought, for Koch found accounts in which Morro scoured cities with a gun that spat cold fire and a blade of pitted bone. Regardless, he had did see them merely as foes or obstacles, and he coveted their weapons. For all the industry he fostered, he found little to rival the weapons he claimed from alien hands.

When one such hunting party of Dark Eldar came to Feneos, Morro was partway through his conquests. When word came of them moving toward his territory, he went to intercept them - but not to kill. Instead, in an act which would be kept secret for well over a century, Morro struck a sinister bargain with the xenos. For a cache of weaponry and an agreement that they would not trespass on his domain, he gifted them a tithe of his subjects. A Primarch sold his people into an existence of torment which could only end in death. We do not know how many times this bargain was repeated, but repeated it was, until outsiders broke the cycle.

Rough and Muddied Waters
Koch’s account falters here, not from a lack of information available to him, but because elements have been excised by other hands. A few facts are preserved; a Legiones Astartes fleet tracked a Dark Eldar raiding force to the orbit of Styx, where they destroyed the alien craft. Then they turned to the moon beneath them, raking it with auspex scans which returned unusual energy signatures and primitive vox-communications. In those communications they heard references to a man, a warrior who could never be a mortal man. Deeming themselves out of their depth, they transmitted their suspicions to the nearest fleets, and those missives brought two Primarchs, one of them Icarion.

The truth was soon outed, and Morro’s death prevented only by Icarion. Whispers take the place of fact at this time, although the claim is often repeated that Morro was brought before the Emperor in chains. Notably, few Legionaries of Styxian extraction emerged in the early years. This prompted rumours that the Emperor stripped him of his fief. The truth was that Feneos could not yet provide the quantity of aspirants that Morro desired, and while it initially supplied the core of the Legion’s strength and new officer corps, he quickly claimed recruitment worlds elsewhere.

We can surmise that the Emperor saw little point in educating Morro in matters of governance or politics; the lessons were strictly military. In these at least, Morro acquitted himself, and in time was granted overlordship of his Legion, operating under the oversight of Pionus Santor. It was hoped by many that Pionus’ noble spirit would prove a potent example to his brother, and that Morro would in time grow into his station. Yet while Morro learned to respect Pionus’ prowess, there was little warmth between them.

If the Drowned had expected their Primarch would gather the fleets and wage war with his entire Legion at his back, they too were disappointed. With cold calculation he deemed the current system fit for his purposes, seeing how the Scions had adopted something similar, so long as his sons submitted completely to his rule. Hennasohn repeatedly petitioned him to unite the XVIth and fulfil the promise which the former Legion Master had made to his brothers so long ago. Morro’s response, after a decade, was to effectively exile the old Hennasohn at the head of his own fleet.

Nonetheless, Morro's thoughts were full of his Legion's power and how it might be built upon. The Gloriana-class battleship constructed for him over Mars embodied this, as Morro ordered its design and armament comprehensively overhauled. Thus the Queen of the Damned was born, and it is said that the Sorrowsworn felt more at home aboard it than he had in any of his Styxian holdfasts.

The Legion’s character turned still more dour; the worlds Morro deemed worthy of feeding his Legion were invariably harsh places to live, and bred men who knew no cheer. All of those who joined the Drowned showed an unbending loyalty to their Primarch, as did many of their older brothers. If this seems strange, then we must remember that the XVIth had never been a large Legion, and Morro’s tenure ended that era of stunted growth. Moreover, ill-favoured as he was, the Primarch won sufficient victories to finally draw notice to his Legion. Soon, every fleet was powerful enough to break away from their old allies, whether they chose to or not.

Koch surmised from the words of senior officers that Morro had not so much refused to engage with his Legion as opted to bide his time, not overtly remoulding it but ensuring that his influence seeped into its every fibre. The XVIth’s warplate became ocean blue-green and copper, and the custom of taking a Styxian name upon ascension became commonplace. In 919 M30, Morro summoned the overwhelming majority of the Drowned for a campaign against the abhuman Ghrend. The effect on morale, even among such a grim brotherhood as this, was electrifying. From this point on, the Drowned’s “tendrils” would be fewer and larger.

Yet there were those who did not receive the call, most notably Hennasohn. The old Legion Master was left isolated, campaigning beside the Apostles of War. Soon that Legion would undergo their own great change when their Primarch was found. Gwalchavad would keep Hennasohn close for a time, an act of beneficence, but one which would ultimately bring terrible consequences for both sides.

In the short term, discord between Gwalchavad and Morro would be the result in the wake of the near-disaster at Nox. When violence loomed between the Legions and the isolated Mechanicum sect of the Abyssii, Morro had seen a chance to gain glory and power much as K’awil had on Lasaris. However, the powerful and militant Abyssii resisted him to a stalemate, and when the Halcyon Wardens arrived they opted for diplomacy rather than renewed fighting. When Alexandros negotiated an end to the standoff, Morro made little effort to hide his resentment and disgust that a “meekling” diplomat was so highly praised.

He made some efforts to ingratiate himself with his brothers, but here too his own nature would foil him. In an episode which was widely covered up, Morro cheated against a brother in a game of Regicide. Arguing that it proved his philosophy - that war recognised no notion of fair play, and neither should the Emperor’s armies - tensions that had simmered for some time abruptly came to the boil, and two Primarchs came to blows in earnest. When it became clear that Morro was fighting not simply to win, but to maim or worse, Gwalchavad stepped in. In the ensuing struggle, he severed Morro’s forearm, a wound that even a Primarch’s body would not heal entirely.

A saner man might have submitted to the attentions of the medicae present. Morro, however, stormed from the ship, spitting curses as he went. The Drowned departed almost immediately after the Copper Prince was aboard his flagship. In the hands of his apothecaries, Morro learned the limits of what his physiology could overcome. An augmetic hand was crafted by his artificers, but the injury seems to have sown especially bitter fruit in his psyche. Perhaps it was a factor in the gene-meddling to which Morro had his apothecaries devote so much of their energies.

Morro was brought to heel by Pionus and Icarion a few months later, and he was sufficiently contrite that his life was again spared. However, he was to labour under Icarion’s watchful eyes for a further five years, and his Legion would spend a further decade being observed by a Custodes detachment led by Prefect Sareic Veron. That the watchers found nothing to concern them did nothing to banish the pall of suspicion that hung over the Primarch, and it extended to the Legion during this time. Several XVIth fleets and their leading councils found themselves at pains to ensure their good standing was not tarnished by association.

There was no such effort by the Copper Prince to rehabilitate his reputation. Approximately thirty years before the Qarith Triumph, Morro acquired a new Gloriana-class ship for his fleet. The circumstances are deeply mysterious - normally the construction of such prestigious vessels was an occasion for rejoicing among the Mechanicum, and in any case difficult to hide - and the acquisition drew condemnation from several other Legions. Morro ensured that attention was lavished upon the vessel, ensuring that like his flagship, it far outclassed most vessels of its kind. He seems to have taken a cruel delight in how this angered some of his brothers, although the reason for their disquiet remains unknown.

In his relations with other Legions, Morro had always made it clear that he would not tolerate sympathy. He rather welcomed the cold treatment he now received from Pionus - mild when compared to the Crimson Lions and Iron Bears, who refused to have anything to do with the Drowned. He sought out only the company of Raktra, Alexos Travier and Yucahu. Kozja Darzales he kept in contact with out of necessity; Kozja’s status as prime advocate for gene-seed manipulation shielded Morro from attention and criticism, and Morro searched incessantly for a means to repair his infirmity.

The Beckoning Abyss
Morro would take pride in being called upon for the Qarith War and his vital role in its resolution, but for him the Triumph’s glory would be mingled with bitterness. While his Legion played a vital role in exterminating this vile xenos race, which rivalled the armies of the Imperium in adaptability and deadliness, they were only one part of the machine which waged this war. In the overall conflict and the climactic scouring of Qarith Prime, Pionus Santor held command, and Morro was obliged to share the glory with Hectarion, whom he despised.

When the Triumph brought Alexandros’ appointment as Warmaster, Morro’s demeanour was perhaps best described by Captain Mytakis of the Scions - “septic”. His animosity towards Alexandros was both personal and - for want of a better word - professional. It galled him to see acclaim heaped upon a man whose methods he held in such contempt, and who in return had never forgiven Morro over his use of the Styxians. Other Primarchs were resentful, that is certain, but Morro went furthest in his dissent, vowing that he would recognise no authority save Icarion’s or the Emperor’s.

Alexandros, for his part, held the Drowned at arm’s length, aided by Pionus and Icarion’s willingness to act as intermediaries. Morro’s unwillingness to share authority with others, save by order of the Emperor, was often shared by his lieutenants, especially towards the more prestigious Army regiments. The XVIth made their disgust clear at the heaping of accolades upon weak mortals, and certainly would not deign to treat their commanders as anything but subordinates. So the Drowned were consigned in the main to campaigns where they would share few battlefields, if any, with their allies.

So isolated were they that the first stages of their corruption went utterly unseen by outsiders, though we suspect that Travier, that patient spider, was to some degree aware. At some point between 003 and 011 M31, Morro’s fleet came across a band of Dark Eldar. The xenos were led by an individual who, even among a race dedicated to spreading torment, was a figure of surpassing infamy. Morro might have known of him already, and in some tales it took only the name Karkassac to still his blade. What is certain is that the creature offered secrets in return for his prolonged existence, as well as a steady supply of victims which Morro duly granted.

The first gift was of particular significance; Karkassac promised Morro a hand, not the equal of his lost one, but something better. Where all other efforts had failed, Karkassac by his foul arts would succeed, and as soon as it was bound to his flesh, Morro used it to crumple his hateful augmetic. It was organic, but a far cry from the finely wrought flesh and bone of a Primarch. Woven into his arm, it irrevocably altered Morro, and this proved only the beginning of his sons’ corruption.

Karkassac would grant the Drowned weaponry and other technology, esoteric and still fouler. Warriors wounded unto internment in a sarcophagus, or even too ravaged to survive that process, were changed. Hidden from the sight of outsiders, they became the Forlorn, twisted husks armed with the most dreadful of Morro’s acquisitions. This arsenal would grow steadily as Karkassac steered Morro towards Eldar targets, both Exodites and his own twisted kin. Some of his advisers bade him dispose of the prisoner, but none of their efforts met with success. A sense of self-preservation, whether for the Legion or oneself, prevented word from travelling further.

Morro’s disgust for his father and the Imperium he and the Warmaster were shaping was calcified by the Vizenko Prosecution. As always, in his mind, the choice was made for weakness and squeamishness. On this basis alone, Icarion had rightly expected a willing ally when he sought Morro out, and it is unlikely he gained the full measure of just what that entailed. Morro was always cunning above all, and he knew that even if Icarion withheld the lionisation which would surely greet the Warbringers, Godslayers and Halcyon Wardens when they declared, he would need the Drowned. Finally Morro could begin reveal the true extent of the power he had accrued, and delve deeper.

Edited by bluntblade
Talonair Battle-Brother

Talonair

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Posted

Although furious with a denial to restore his Legion's honour, Morro and the Drowned were mollified by restitution payments arranged from Alexandros' own Halcyon Wardens and from the Abyssii itself. Attempting to capitalize on the situation, Morro tried to improve relations between himself and his brothers as they awaited the Emperor's arrival in system to seal the new alliance. Unfortunately, that too ended in disaster. 

 

Been reading back through this topic and noticed this. Is the plan still for the Emperor to show up to Nox?

Talonair Battle-Brother

Talonair

Posted
Posted

In this http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/312574-brotherhood-of-the-lost-the-drowned/?p=4741777 it's stated that the Emperor arrived in Nox to personally seal the alliance. I was wondering if that was still the case, because personally meeting with the Emperor would be a pretty significant event

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