Kierdale Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 Welcome to Inspiration Friday 2018. Inspiration Friday is a chance for members to write pieces of fiction on set Chaos-related subjects, with a winner chosen at the end of each period and awarded a medal. As in the previous Inspiration Fridays, images accompanying entries are most welcome. As in IF2017, I may give two weeks or more to work on some themes. I should also point out that, living in Tokyo, my Fridays start earlier than many of the Frater and so likely I will close and open themes early on Saturdays, Tokyo-time. Likely still Friday for most of you. From 2016 onwards there were a couple of changes to Inspiration Friday: While I, Kierdale, set the topic each time (or another member I appoint to take the helm in my absence), the winner of each topic will be given the choice of judging the next topic’s entries and choosing the winner from those entries. Should they, for any reason, wish to turn down this duty then judging will revert to Kierdale for the next entry. Judging Rules 1. Many of our members are non-native English speakers so grammar, spelling and punctuation should not be too harshly judged. That said, members are encouraged to type their entries in a word processor program which can help them with their spelling and grammar. 2. The judge should choose the one entry which, in their mind, exemplifies the IF topic of that week. Not necessarily the most action-packed, the longest, the coolest, etc. 3. The judge may, when posting their judgement, choose to give feedback on each entry. What they liked and didn't like, what they wanted to see more or less of. Past Inspiration Friday Topics Links to previous incarnations of Inspiration Friday, for reference: Under Brother Nihm: Aspiring Champion Chaos Banner Regarding the Legions Favourite Model Paint a CSM Favourite Primarch Why Chaos? Under Tenebris: Chaos Cults - Winner: Disease Legacy Weapon - Winner: Xenith Rank and File - Winner: Kol Saresk Chaos Worlds - Winner: Marshal Sampson Chaos Vehicle - Winner: Loesh Call of Chaos Test model - Winner: Alan of Angels and Loesh Chaos Battle - Winner: Cormac Airt Minor Daemon - Winner: Tdf4638 Spooky Chaos - Winner: Dizzyeye Chaos Stronghold - Winner: Carrack Nemesis of Chaos - Winner: Kierdale Chaos Navigator House - Winner: Marshal Sampson Chaos Knight House - Winner: Kierdale Chaos Santa - Winner: Castellan Cato Chaos Dreadnought - Winner:Urauloth Chaos Warship - Winner: Conn Eremon Interview with a Chaos Lord - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Interview with a Chaos Sorcerer - Winner: Kierdale Chaos Space Marine Bolter - Winner: Son of Carnelian Chaos Assassin - Winners: Carrack, Kierdale and Zhaharek Intel Report on Warband - Winner: Kierdale Betrayal - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Chaos Sword - Winner: Castellan Cato Chaos Spawn - Winners: Carrack and Kierdale Champion of Khorne - Winner: Slipknotzim Chaos Heraldry - Winner: Teetengee Equerry - Winner: Zhaharek Chaos Tome - Winner: TDF Chaos Crossover - Winner: Lord Pariah Dark Mechanicus - Winners: Carrack and Kierdale Daemon Forge - Winners: Zhaharek and Beachymike123 Battles of the Space Marines - Winners: Carrack, Warsmith Aznable and Tipper Cult Leader - Winner: Zhaharek Familiar - Winner: Kierdale Nemesis of Chaos II - Winners: TDF and Conn Eremon Ruination - Winner: Carrack Chaos Sidekick - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Chaos Skirmish - Tactical Squads - Winner: Kierdale Under Kierdale: 2015 Interview With A Warpsmith - Winner: Carrack ETL Background (care of Carrack) - Winner: Kierdale Lair of the gods - Winner: Scourged Signature Tactics - Winners: Scourged and Majorbookworm Berserkers of every creed - Winner: none. Chaos Geneseed - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Tales of... ...Chaos Glory - Winner: Warsmith Aznable A Stolen Relic - Winner: Beachymike123 Summoning - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Treadheads - Winner: Scourged The Primordial Annihilator versus...the Greater Good - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Replenishments New Meat - Winner: Scourged Chaos Halloween Horror - Winner: Dammeron, Scourged, Zhaharek and Teetengee Interview with a dark apostle - Winner: Carrack Chaos Power Armour - Winner: Scourged Tales of Hubris - Winner: Teetengee Chaos Titans - Winner: Scourged and Teetengee Chaos Icons - Winners: MaliGn, Teetengee, Carrack and Scourged. Bonus Challenge: Chaos Objectives - Winner: Carrack 2016 Memories of Terra - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Possessed - Winner: Captain Malachi Chaos Steeds - Winner: Scourged Traitor Regiments - Winner: Teetengee The Primordial Annihilator versus...the Vlka Fenryka - Winner: Carrack Campaign I - Opening Moves - Winner: Diabolist Interview with a Daemon Prince - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Skirmish II - Upon Cursed Wings/Jump Assault - Winner: Teetengee Lost in Space - Winner: Scourged Imperfect Beings - Winner: Carrack Obliterators - Winner: none Lesser Daemons I - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Tales of Honour - Winner:Son of Carnelian Tales of Dishonour - Winner: Fulkes Campaign II - Assault - Winner: Scourged Knightfall - Winner: no contest. Architect of Fate - Winner: Carrack Chaos Flyer - Winner: Kierdale Schism - Winner: Scourged A Chaotic Alliance - Winner: Squigsquasher Chaotic Rites - Winner: Krautscientist Retro-Chaos - Winner: Carrack ETL-V model - Winner: Scourged The Primordial Annihilator versus the Inquisition - Winner: Carrack Interview with a Chaos Apothecary - Winner:Kierdale Chaos Trophies - Winner: MyD4rkPassenger The Primordial Annihilator versus the Sons of Sanguinius - Winner: Carrack The Primordial Annihilator versus the Bugs - Winner: Teetengee Aquatic Combat - Winner: Kierdale Campaign III - Tables Turn/The Crucible - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Halloween 2016 - Winner: Carrack Tales of Vengeance - Winner: MyD4rkPassenger Unit Champion - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Iron Warriors - Winner: Carrack Thousand Sons - Winner: Zhaharek 2017 Black Crusade – A Call To Arms - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Campaign IV - End Game - Winner: Kierdale Seeds Sown... - Winner: Scourged The Fallen - Winner: Trevak Dal Chaos Bikers - Winner: Kierdale The Warp - Winner: Scourged Hive War - Winner: Carrack Propaganda - Winner: Kierdale The Ends Justify The Means - Winner: Carrack The Witch - Winner: Honda Rivalry of the Gods - Winner: none The Primordial Annihilator versus the Sons of Guilliman - Winner: Caius/DogWelder Death Guard - Winner: Azekai Alpha Legion - Winner: Iron Father Ferrum Desert Warfare - Winner: P3AKHOUR Abhumans and mutants - Winner: Gunnyogrady The Primordial Annihilator versus the Adeptus Mechanicus - Winner: ColonelSchaeffer The Primordial Annihilator versus the Imperial Guard - Winner: Warsmith Aznable Images of Chaos - No contest If Horus had won... - Winner: MaliGn Exalted Champion - Winner: macbeefin 2018 The Black Legion - Winner: hushrong Winter Warfare - Winner: Scourged The Primordial Annihilator versus the Asuryani - Winner: Hushrong The Hunt - Winner: EesiOh Chaos Artefacts - Winner: Kierdale The Night Lords - Winner: Barabbas Sogalon Ambush! - Winner: Hushrong Chaos versus T’au - Winner: Kierdale When Old meets New - Winner: Scourged Solo Mission - Winner: Gederas Prophecy - Winner: Honda Cry ‘Havoc!’ - Winner: Kierdale Temple of Chaos - Winner: MaliGn ETL Model - Winner: Azekai The Primordial Annihilator versus the Drukhari - Winner: none Legends of Chaos - Winner: While each topic will close (with respect to who can win the medal for that theme) after a set period, members who find themselves inspired to write about previous themes are most welcome to post these as and when they can, but I ask that you please title your entry accordingly (e.g. “Chaos Warship”). Inspirational Friday: Timelines of Treachery is a companion thread to this (and past and future Inspirational Friday main threads) for those who wish to organise their IF entries and present their warband's timeline. I know I just about my warband's timeline a lot, so the thread is to help both readers and writers to get their heads around which stories come where. By all means please add your own timelines as and when you can Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kierdale Posted January 18, 2018 Author Share Posted January 18, 2018 Not a Black Legion piece per se, but they do feature and it is a continuation of my entry for Black Crusade-A Call To Arms from exactly a year ago(!): Telling Tales. It also brings the Psychopomps into the Dark Millennium, I guess. Visions Of Afar Hidden Content “This was not unexpected.” “...cares that his messenger did not return?” “...Or that his ‘request’ was snubbed?” The inflection indicates that all there knew it had been an order, a threat, rather than a true request for aid. The human remained knelt, head bowed before the half-dozen gathered giants as they debated the content of the astropathic communique he had brought them. He was as nothing to them. One of them, his armour carved on one side into lines resembling musculature as one would find on the statues of heroes in ancient Athena, the other side carved into a more realistic representation of exposed, striated human muscle, looked their master in the eye and spoke unreservedly. “Why did you say ‘no’? Why deny us the glory of taking part in the crushing of the Gate?” There came a gentle sound of laughter from the corner and the serf, knelt upon the deck plates, could but glance toward the dark alcove from which the tittering emanated. He had not noticed the presence of anyone else in the room upon his arrival, though in all honesty even having served most of his adolescent and adult life upon this fallen chapter’s vessels, he was still in awe of his post-human masters and had fixated upon them as he had entered the briefing chamber. Raised within the Eye upon a barbarous world of tribes he had from an early age known pain and suffering, and been taught to take pleasure in it, as was his people’s way. But having been taken in the renegade Angel’s raid they had taught his people new depths of agony and debasement, beyond the wildest nox-dreams of the flesh-masters of the plains. In the early years of his servitude he had dreamed of elevation to their numbers, to be the one who delivered the pain, the one who took the greater pleasure. And he who had been his master -the one who had captured him- had urged him on, telling him of the transformation awaiting him, the glory of being an enlightened one in the service of the Prince. And so he had toiled, he had fulfilled his master’s whims and desires. And how had his master laughed when he had finally denied the man his dreams, shewing him another delicious morsel: despair. He blinked frantically, fighting down the memories he had kept locked away. He cursed himself and tried to steady the rising panic within himself. What had caused those visions to resurface? The laughing grew and a figure stepped from the shadows. Though the alcove was barely large enough for a stooped Astarte to stand within, the beast which stepped from it seemed to grow with every step. Before it had taken six steps to stand at the shoulder of the largest of the marines, it towered over them all, at least four times the height of a man. The serf was struck simultaneously with both revulsion and desire, to degrees he had only touched upon during the longest of his master’s sessions, and never at the same time. The creature was a bastardisation of Man and beast, the latter in its crustacean-like claws and more so in the almost bovine head upon its shoulders, long arcing horns crowing it. Yet it’s body was humanoid if on a grand scale and an amalgam of the male and female, for swollen breasts hung from the right side of its muscular chest, six of them down its right side. The nipples of every second one were pierced, with chains suspending small thuribles from them. These gave off a musky scent which called to him. Yet the revulsion came at his mind’s rejection of this twisted form and at his own body’s longing for it. He could not yet but wonder what gender held sway beneath the monster’s long loincloth. “Why did you command us not to join the Black Crusade, my lord?” The former captain of the 8th company asked again once the greater daemon had made its presence known. Though those present doubted the captain would dare accuse their lord of cowardice, though there was something about the leader of the raptors that leant a mocking, braggart tone to his voice. The lord of the Psychopomps, the Doom of Carth-Lar, former chapter master of the Stygian Guard -as the renegade marines had once been known- stood opposite his lieutenants, though in his terminator armour he was a head taller and far broader. The huge brass organ atop his suit added another meter. His armour was as ornate and as colourful as any of theirs; the roseate characteristic of the war band, and other pastels as was the taste of their patron deity, yet covered in far more and more intricate runework and glyphs in the Dark Tongue. Aware that the Keeper of Secrets had moved -yet oh so quietly it tread for a being so large!- to his side, he turned a fraction toward it and it lowered its head. A nod or the acknowledging of a secret leaked? Sophusar then turned his gaze upon the kneeling mortal at the center of their circle as if noticing him for the first time. The lord of the Psychopomps wore a mask of leather which held a brass grill over his mouth, only revealing his shaven scalp and the circular trepanation scars there, and his asymmetrical eyes. While the left was human, a warm brown, the right was swollen and glowed with a scintillating green light. Not merely the iris but the entire eye was baleful green, penetrating the membrane of his eyelid the few times he did close it. He knelt, taking the man’s jaw in a gentle grip with a gauntleted hand so large and strong that he could have crushed the man’s skull with ease, and lifted the serf’s head until the eyes met. “You have served the chapter long, Helis,” to pull the man’s name from his mind was a simple cantrip, but the look on the man’s face revealed its power. His abject fear was quelled and in an instant he was captivated. “Would you do me one more service?” The lord’s voice was rich and powerful yet differential and concerned. A rapturous smile broke out on the man’s face and he nodded. “Bless you, Helis. Bless you,” Sophusar stroked the man’s shaven, tattooed head and turned his own head so that his right eye was before the serf’s face. The man was entranced by the glow, though this did nothing to dull the pain which came. Agonising, exquisite pain, a climax to the man’s life of servitude to insane masters. The flesh of his body ran, and even his bones warped and twisted. He fell forward, catching himself on his hands and crouched there on all fours, quivering like a newborn quadruped as layers of skin and muscle peeled from his back. His rib cage was soon exposed and it opened like the petals of a blooming flower. Within, his organs had already reduced to slurry but as his body reshaped itself into a form of table supporting this wretched pool, the liquid began to clear. Upon the membrane was an image of war on a colossal scale. Tanks sailed through a sea of bodies, pushing aside the carcasses of their dead peers and grinding infantry beneath their tracks. Huge war machines strode across the battlefield, crushing soldiers and vehicles underfoot without breaking stride. Tens if not hundreds lost their lives in the blink of an eye as titans unleashed their weapons. And the infantry. Millions upon millions of combatants, clad in myriad colours now all stained and dyed with filth and blood. Astartes of several chapters towered over Skitarii and Sororitas, the latter of whom fought beneath the soaring figure of a winged, haloed saint. But most numerous were the Guardsmen fighting for their world under the watchful gaze of the lord Castellan. And they were opposed by an army the likes of which none of the watchers had ever beheld, under oath to the Imperium or during their years within the Eye. Massed daemons, legions of the damned, and at the speartip the Black Legion itself. Sable armour trimmed in gold. At their head strode the Despoiler, laying into the enemy about him with claw and daemonic blade. The titans cast shadows over those who fought beneath them, but even these goliaths of war passed through the shadows of towering pylons of unknown design reaching up far above the largest of Titans. The Psychopomps looked on, all but Sophusar and the Keeper of Secrets Ki’mah’gureh riveted to the image before them. The majesty of the great battle. Though no noise emitted from the ghostly pool they could in their minds hear the intoxicating sounds: the deafening roar of gunfire and explosions, the screams and cries of victory and despair. Their hearts raced and Dophesia, captain of the 8th, broke the silence, tearing his eyes from the mirage to look -openly accusingly at last- at their master. “You denied us this? This glory!” The others, the dark apostle Angra and the naga sorcerer Holusiax among them, glanced from him to their lord. He had voiced what they all now thought. “This was revealed to me at great cost,” Sophusar went on, ignoring his subordinate’s tone. “Look on,” he indicated the pool with his taloned index finger. The gargantuan alien obelisk began to vibrate and give off a sound that captain Castor picked up on first, his senses honed maddeningly sharp as were those of the noise marines under his command. The sound grew until it began to eclipse the cacophony of battle, and warriors -even those clad in powered armour- began to fall to their knees, clutching their heads. Yet those were the luckiest, for as a shaft of light blacker than the void itself shot forth, piercing the firmament, those touched by the Warp had their minds torn from them. Wyrdvane psykers dropped dead like trees in an atomic blast, even Astartes librarians died as their psychic hoods proved no protection against the pylon’s effect. The daemonic legions accompanying the Black Legion were smote to dust in the blink of an eye as their essence was snuffed. Those possessed amongst the Astartes had their neverborn flesh torn from them. And far above, overhead, the great Eye began to shrink! Castor looked from the pool to his right hand, the enlarged claw of daemonic flesh and chitin there, then to the others in the room - master of sanctity Angra bore a clawed hand as he did, and a full half his face was that of an alluring Q’tlahs’itsu’aksho, Holusiax’s lower torso was that of a serpent, there were none of them untouched- then back to lord Sophusar. “You saved us.” He knew there was no sentimentality in their leader - there had not been amongst any of them as the Stygian Guard and their fall had only instilled within them a hunger for destruction and maddening sensation, at the expense of one’s lessers if need be. They were as instruments to him, and indeed all including Sophusar himself were pawns within their patron’s great games. Thus he glanced to the Keeper of Secrets, wondering what price the daemon had exacted for this vision of the future, before looking back to his lord once again. “To what purpose?” This time it was the greater daemon that took a step forward. One of its great taloned hands reached up to cup its uppermost swollen breast and squeezed a single pearly drop from the teat. It dropped into the pool, milky white spreading across the scene of battle until it was obscured. Seconds passed as the cloudy mixture roiled within the bowl of twisted flesh, until a thin shape rose to the surface. At first it seemed to be crafted of the twisted bone of the serf but they soon recognised it for what it was. Wraithbone. That material of the Eldar, psychic energy itself harnessed and given form. It was shaped into a simple rune of spars and arcs and as they watched, blood rose from the depths of the pool, rising to the surface between the arms of the rune and unmistakably forming a heart before both it and the rune fragmented. In the last second before all fell apart, even the malformed body of the sacrificial serf Helit falling to the ground, his life spent, a face too rose to the surface, one which only Sophusar recognised from their duel decades earlier. On the maidenworld of Viarphia. The last autarch and only survivor of craftworld Carth-Lar. His nemesis. Qarasion. Sophusar looked to his lieutenants. “She has fled to Biel-Tan.” Bone cracked noisily, followed by wet slurping. “Well?” The champion looked down at the eater. Both wore the crimson favoured by their patron, but the Black upon their shoulders. “He awaits an answer.” The eater spat fragments of skull and jellied brain. “The servant of the Dark Prince taste foul,” he belched. “Were his words to be trusted?” The eater wolfed down the last of the Psychopomp envoy’s brains before closing his eyes as his omophagea worked. Finally he nodded. “He spoke the truth as he knew it. He knew of no Black Legion summons.” The champion looked at the beheaded corpse. “Or Sophusar just sent someone who hadn’t been there. Bastard. Either way, take the corpse to the apothecaries, they’ll be interested in getting their hands on the gene seed.” A placatory offering, a concession, from the lord of the Psychopomps? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4986130 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warpmiss Posted January 18, 2018 Share Posted January 18, 2018 Recruitment It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open or even feel his body. But he had decided that at that very moment it was for the better. Much preferable to the intense pain he had felt once his Berserker rage had subsided and he had found himself pinned to the ground by greenskin weapons and several very heavy bodies. How many of those bodies were orks he had felled by himself and how many were his brothers? But more importantly, how many times had his body been pierced by the crude orkish weapons and how many wounds weren't of orkish origin? Unable to move, all he could do was reflect on how he had ended up in this situation even though that was also starting to become a difficult task. He remembered being called to the deck by the Lord he had pledged alliance to so all could hear the good news: they would join the armies of the glorious Black Legion and serve the Warmaster if they proved their loyalty first. The plan to go about this had seemed very straightforward: get rid of a particularly annoying bunch of greenskins that had ventured where they weren't wanted and present the head of their leader as a trophy to the Warmaster. A very appealing way of entry for their bellicose warband indeed. His recollections of how things proceeded from there became a blur greatly due to his own Berserker frenzy but partly because of the confusion of the battlefield. He remembered disembarking, heading directly to face his enemy and the gore, all of which was pretty standard. Then what? A blinding fire? Had the greenskins fired an explosive? It was likely but something made him doubt that had been the case. At some point after that, new figures had joined the fray. All he could remember about them was that they were horned, clad in armor of a bluish or greenish tint and were approximately as tall and broad as he was. Marines from another warband, he surmised. Apparently, they had not been the only ones to receive this offer. All these fragments of memories lead him to one conclusion: they had been used. Other warbands must have arrived to earn the same honor and all of them wishing the glory just for themselves. While his had been eager to face the greenskins head on, another more devious Lord must have seen this and seize the opportunity. Let the fools face the meat grinder and do the dirty work. Then, when both sides were weakened, strike them down. How many others had suffered the same fate? How many times had this tale repeated itself? He wanted to rage, to bellow to the skies, to tear the bastards in half and present their vital fluids to the Blood God. But he was too fatigued to even entertain those thoughts. It was his own blood that was becoming an offering, his vision was blurring and, strangely, the gore around him was losing its overpowering stench. He felt so numb and tired. Maybe, if he just closed his eyes and slept... These past 2 weeks have been incredibly draining for me (physically and emotionally) so I thought I wasn't going to be able to write anything down. It's a bit shorter than what I originally had in mind but I'm just happy I managed to write anything at all. Not only has this served to improve my mood (despite the plot) but I also think I like it better this way. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4986404 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hushrong Posted January 19, 2018 Share Posted January 19, 2018 The Fire Rises They will shamble forth. They will stumble and crawl if need be. Never will they flee nor take a step back. They do not cower, seek cover, or concern themselves with their continued preservation. No matter what lays before them the living dead of Pox-Bloated God only marches forth. Their only purpose in this life after death was to spread the gifts that had spared them of their once fragile, mortal lives. And never shall a living soul lay eyes upon one that did not wear a crooked, sinister grin that stretched ear to ear. That cursed smile that they all bare on the faces of those who had been friends, family, and comrades. Now they were gaseous-swollen things of exposed innards, warped mutations, and rot. They wore the rags of the peasants, simple clothes of laborers, uniforms and armor of the Guard, and even the fine dress of the genic-aristocracy. In life they existed so fractured from one another based on petty qualities such as social class. Many born to the lower classes suffered and those who stood upon their shoulders living an existence that lacked meaning. In the twisted life granted to them after their deaths, they were equal and they were all smiling. They were thankful for the blessings so willingly shared by a God who now watched over them and sang chants of joyous, cough-filled laughter. --- It did not take long for their ranks to grow. The dense habs of the Hive were overcrowded with flesh to cultivate. Their numbers were already substantial due to the war dead of the defending guardsmen that were slaughtered wholesale in the opening stages of the assault. And with every bite and tear their numbers rose. The sorcerers of the Weeping Eye swelled with twisted pride seeing their vexing strain of contagion spread with such efficiency. Like shepherds, black armored warriors guided their flock. They rang bells held in their hands and whether crafted of bones or the armor of defeated enemies each rang with nausea inducing clarity. With each ring the buzzing flies that obscured their figure would seize and die. Their swarm fell to the debris laden streets like a waterfall only to be replaced by more that would surely die. Yet the sound of the bells teeth jarring ring sent the walkers forward onto the guns of the guardsmen. Brother-Destroyer Cornelius opened fire with his pistol. Its coils burned bright between the seven second intervals he allowed the weapon to cool. One orb of plasma turned sand to superheated glass as it struck a sandbag. Another removed the arm of a guardsman. That shot had hit the mortal’s upper left shoulder, the rest of the arm simply melted away as muscle and fat burned. He did not wish to strike true and deny the undead the chance to spread their joyous gift. Through the smeared vision of his helm’s display he watched as another fortification fell as the horde washed over it like a rising tide. A burned out automotive, the furnishings of a hab cell, and the never ending supply of unspooled razorwire & sandbags of the guard would not halt his march. He followed his orders with a warrior’s discipline. He was to guide his host toward the basilica, preserving their numbers, and to increase them during their march. Cornelius had done well by his own account as he pushed past a barricade made from heavy doors and furniture. Over his head he rang the bell again seven times. Always that blessed number that held power in ages even before the birth of the Imperium. Cornelius directed his mass of followers forward to face the ramparts of Basilica Primus. With what remained of his lips he had chewed away centuries ago the faint essence of a smile formed as victory drew closer. --- It was no arrogant boast when the Ecclesiarchy priests and the Genic-Aristocracy claimed that Basilica Primus sat at the heart of the hive. This was not some mere symbolism that such a holy shrine sat amongst its downtrodden citizens but that the hive with all its spires and tiers were built around this sanctuary. Such was the case that no shadow was cast upon the Basilica Primus by the hive that surrounded it. Legends circulated of a time turned myth when their world faced oblivion and through the sacrifice of the God Emperor’s mighty Angels of Death they were delivered from certain doom. To honor Him on Terra and his Sons the basilica was rebuilt and the hive grew in its influence. The chalk-white walls that surrounded its perimeters radiated and glowed with the light of the system’s twin suns. Gardens with its winding paths and hidden pavilions basked in the shade underneath large, leaf-covered trees. The bell towers were recast in bronze and with their sun’s light cast upon them they glowed like beacons to the faithful. Standing guard of this holy place stood a golden statue of the God Emperor armored in his blessed war-plate. His majesty truly blazed in brilliance by the unmolested beams of sunlight. Yet now all were covered in darkness as the dead marched forth. The walls were covered in rotted filth and stained black from the fires of heavy flamers. Whole sections had collapsed under the weight of the dead as the mounds of their corpses’ crushed them. The gardens had become trench works interconnecting mortar pits and sandbag bunkers. The towers and aqueducts remained unblemished as observers and snipers occupied them to coordinate the defenses. Guardsmen fought tooth and nail to bring their combined firepower down upon the enclosing horde. Once, the keys of the basilica’s mighty organs played aloud but now the sound of burning las energy competed with the moans of the dead. There were no tanks left, the last few they had ran out of ammunition and fuel. One crew had sacrificed themselves hours before driving full speed into the horde grinding the dead beneath their treads. As their gears became clogged with rent flesh and their hull crawling with the dead they detonated the last shell they had saved, igniting the fuel tanks. These mortal men and women still fought on against the nightmares that beset them. Just like the legends of old their world faced calamity and they prayed for deliverance. They prayed for miracles and the strength to survive. They prayed that the God Emperor would send His sons once again. --- Guardsmen Zollust sighted in with his magnifier scope and took aim. He began to squeeze the trigger of his rifle as he breath out, keeping aim for the creatures head. As the last bit of air left his lungs between heart beats he fired and watched the round strike true. The round had penetrated the horned skull and through a bulbous, pus-filled sack that swelled from its back. Zollust watched as the thing collapsed, convulsed, and exploded in a shower of gore. These wretches had caused the most casualties among his comrades below as they would self detonate amongst the living and shower them in all manners of infectious flesh, liquid, and shrapnel like bones. He released the now emptied magazine and reached for another to load while still peering through his magnifier. Perched high in the aqueducts he had a commanding view of the madness that plagued his home. As he reloaded and chambered a fresh round he had decided upon his next target. He zeroed in on the helm of an armored giant. He had heard the stories, sermons, and hymns that praised the God Emperor’s greatest warriors but these were their twisted mirrior image made manifest. It wore black armor plating and where it had met gold trim was covered in crusted matter. Its whole armor seemed to live with growths mimicking life sprouted from the various plates. Tentacle like appendages wrapped itself around his torso, thighs, and arms while horns burst through its back. A single red lense glowed on its face plate while a rusted vox unit rested in bronze sculpted like a gaping maw. Horns jutted from its temple reminiscent of hands with fingers splayed open Guardsmen Zollust sighted in on its helm he prayed that his round would strike through. Already, this one had been saved by the fist-sized insects that buzzed and darted about its armored form no more than three times already. The one round that had hit ricocheted off its curved him, barely acknowledging the strike as it continued to usher the dead forward. Again he paid attention to his breathing and began to squeeze the trigger before his body froze. As he stared at his target the armored warrior looked up directly at Zollust, pointing at him with the bell in its hand carved from bone. The guardsman’s vox-unit then began to adjust frequencies and he could hear the sounds of men screaming, voices barely human calling out in a language he could not comprehend, and the howls of something otherworldly. His body, paralyzed and no longer his to control, could not turn to see empty magazines and loose ammunition kept on his perch begin to rise and float. Nor could he tell the cold sweat he felt in fear was the blood of his body being pulled through his veins, his muscles, and through his flesh. Soon Guardsmen Zollust would perish. --- There are places in the universe where the veil between the realm of sanity and insanity is stretched thin. Places where great pain, suffering, and death have occurred, where monsters are born resultant of such emotion shadowed in the warp, had always been known as cursed and haunted by primitive man. It is here that pained phantoms of the dead still appear or where voices and cries are carried on the wind. Places where monsters hide in the corner of your visions and poltergeists manipulate the world around them. With the dead on the march the very membrane that separates the material universe and the immaterial warp had been stretched far too thin by the unnatural occurrence. The hunger of the dead and the fear of the living so harmonized into a scream into the immaterial realm and monsters came in reply. The first of their ranks sank its blades deep into the immaterium and severed the membrane between realms. With cackling glee it sliced and tore its way through the opening. What emerged from the wound into reality was once of the Emperor’s Angels but now twisted and truly damned. Its black armor had been warped by the aether and where its limbs ended were the razor talons many of its cursed kin knew them by. Through the gaping jaw of its flesh and armor fused helm it breathed in the air and released a howl, calling forth its brothers. As more wounds were shred open the warp talon’s wings unfurled and stretched. Its turbines roared and burned an ethereal blue as it launched itself upon Guardsman Zollust. It examined the prey as its weak, mewling form quivered in its own blood. It offered no resistance as it drowned in terror at what was happening to its body due to its proximity to the tear in reality. It offered the warp talon no challenge, no thrill in the hunt or kill. With a swipe of its claw it ended the mortal before throwing its corpse from its perch. His vision swam between the reality before his eyes and the ghosting images of the nightmare realm It had left. He saw the streets and ruined infrastructure of the hive before seeing their warped double with each twitch of his warped vision. Yet it did not matter through which of these lenses he saw through as the souls of mortal burned bright before the hunter. With another burn of his turbines he launched skyward with his kin to descend upon the defenders below. --- As chaos reigned down on Basilica Primus’s defenses those within its hallowed structure prepared for the end. They could hear the screaming of the dying and the howls and bellows of monsters so close. Commanders, their personal guard, and staff took up arms while the wounded and their caretakers huddled in the dark. They would pray for salvation. It was a desperate gesture of the weak to call upon the strength of others to save them. Yet not all souls are so easily steeled when terror itself descends upon them. One guardsman lying in his cot wrapped in bandages, his body burnt when his squad mate’s promethium tank ignited, pointed to the high, arched ceilings screaming. He screamed of monsters in those shadows and how their eyes watched them unblinking. He raved and fought back the medicae staff that tried to subdue him as he shouted about the monsters claws. He had tried to warn them before he was silenced by the bark of a pistol. The medicae staff looked in momentary disbelief at the Commissar who carried out the execution. This man was not the first to endure such punishment but it did not make it easier. While the barrel of the peaked cap officer was still smoking he uttered the citations against the now dead guardsmen and referenced their code from disciplinary manuals. His began to holster his pistol as he saw a droplet fall between him and the corpse lying on the cot before him. In the dark he could see the rich, crimson color of blood on the stone at his feet. As he looked up he caught the briefest glimpse of terror itself coming for him. Large wings sprouted from its back and had spread out to slow its descent. Metallic, hooked claws from its feet reached for him. In a heartbeat an armored giant had landed on the commissar and began to eviscerate the mortal. Panic and dread spread like wildfire at the sight of the monster among mortals and their screams cried out louder as more fell upon them from the basilica’s high ceilings. --- Bajori, Alpha of the Impaled Flesh talon cult, stood over his recent kill as he forced hunks of flesh and bone down his mutated throat. The taste of untainted flesh and blood fired his nerves and senses into a euphoric state. Amidst his brethren that took part in the feast and the oncoming fire of the remaining defenders all he saw now in his warped vision was red. The need to tear flesh, to disembowel warm guts, and gorge upon souls drove him into a berserk frenzy. With a roaring burst from his turbines he fell upon more of the brightly-shining souls within his midst. A guardsman fired a charged las-blast into the oncoming abomination. His shot had struck true but with little effect. Where the shot of energy would have burned carapace armor and incinerate flesh only a sizzling pockmark glowed orange and red on Bajori’s flesh-fused armor. Backhanding the mortal with his clawed hands he removed the guardsman’s forearms and dug deep into its chest. Through some blessed mutation of his ascended form he could taste the blood on his claws and swooned at the fresh agonies he had caused. Bajori crawled insidiously fast on his four limbs akin to a feline predator to the quivering guardsman. The gargoyle-esque sculpt of his helm leered at his fresh kill as its fanged maw opened and with a bone-rending crunch bit down on the mortals throat down to the spine. Medicae serfs and masters began to turn and run while the injured tried to crawl away. The sense of superiority over such wretches was intoxicating as he carried on with his butchery. The alcove with which he descended had become a charnel house. Already a dozen lives had been cruelly reaped by his blades and their souls devoured. Yet the hunger, the void where his own soul had been traded away, ached for more. Bajori turned to survey his kin-brothers. Among pews lined with the injured they butchered needlessly amongst the screaming. Others leapt and pounced upon those still armed and capable of fighting, taking savage glee that some of these curs could still put up a fight. His eyes twitched and maw drooled as he searched for more prey. As he eyed more souls to harvest whispers riding the cries of despair and death called to him. His head tilted to one side such as hounds when confused by orders from their masters. Only when he felt pain that burned behind his eyes with these commands did he turn to look upon the altar of the Basilica. With a burst of power his turbines launched him upon the large slab of marble that served as a dais where the altar rested. The force of his landing and weight cracked the stone beneath his clawed feet. He stared at a device encircle by the altar and covered in a glass display. The mortals had preserved it for millennia ignorant of its true functions. It was rare and built by the machine priests to last and endure and still it functioned. He was certain the mortal were ignorant to its true purpose but his warp-tainted vision could see the displacement it emitted on the world around it, the function of a teleport jammer. Warships of notable prestige and fortresses of great importance could afford the luxury of such blessed mechanisms. A device that could deflect, reroute, and ultimately doom any hoping to steal their way into defenses by the use of teleportation. Bajori’s followed the distorting waves that came from the machine, tracing the coils of the device to a central power unit and with an armored claw punctured the device before tearing into the machine. Its death after so many thousands of years was one of dull ceremony as it ceased function. Bajori did not need to commune his success with his masters in fulfilling his objective as lightning flashed within the killing fields of Basilica Primus’ interior. With teeth-wrenching power a blinding flash flared and rapidly dissipated. Where there had been a clearing before the altar there now stood giants surrounded by a phalanx of their bodyguards. --- In their presence Bajoir bowed his head low tilting to one side to keep a ruby-lense eye on the newcomers. Two dozen marines stood in a circle with their shields raised and bolters aimed. Icons of the Eye of the Arch-Traitor stared unblinking at the massacre taking place. Their formation parted as their lord made way to the altar. Thank you, my friend said the terminator-plated warrior from behind his cowl hood. Go and join your brothers in the hunt. You have served well. The warp talon’s balled fist thumped against the breast of his armor. He did not know what had compelled him to follow such old and forgotten legion protocols. Bajori did not dwell long as he nodded to the giant and stalked off before igniting his turbines once again to join the bloodshed. Sleipnir watched his subordinate leaved behind twin tails of black smoked as he became airborne. As his gaze was upward he began to look at the massive halls, the rows of pews, and the stained glass images of the Imperium. He grunted in disbelief. He had seen pict images of the statue of the false emperor but could not believe that the mortals worshipped the wretch. When they learned that Imperium saw him as a god he did not know whether to laugh at the irony or weep at the fresh betrayal. He looked back to his companions to join him. Ju’kal Vult shook his head behind his hood of rusted chainmail and torn rags. Sleipnir’s closest battle brother stood taller than his fellow commanders in his presence. Though they all bore terminator armor the pox-bloated god truly swelled Ju’kal with power. Gouges in his armor wept pus and spines grew from a fusion of his flesh and armor on his back. He hefted his manreaper and turned from his brothers, accompanied by several shield-bearers, no doubt going to inspect the undead that had be reborn from the fruits of his alchemical-sorcery. Exus Tol met Sleipnir’s gaze and nodded as aetheric energy burned in his eyes. The sorcerer, his armor covered in robes, turned and left as well followed by a coterie of his warriors. They were husks adorned in legion armor and slaved to the sorcerers will. It was with his visions that the splintered warbands served as one as they waged their first battles of the Long War. Exus had seen this world and the dreaded treasure it contained. With his scrying and sacrifices they would lay claim to them. With staff in hand he began to harness power and would crack open the basilica. Sleipnir turned his gaze to his Percavis the Roaring Maw. Both had been reborn in flesh as sons of the damnable lion and banishment into damnation could not separate the two. The former chaplain still carried his crozius and bellowed benedictions of rage and fury from the vox of his skull helm. Oaths of vengeance and the skulls of his enemies adorned his armor. I cannot believe it. Though my own eyes see it I cannot believe this hypocrisy spoke Sleipnir. The irony that the false emperor has become what he had despised. Percavis grunted his approval as he looked at the over-embellished images of the emperor that cluttered the basilica. The mortals, they worship him. Even crippled they still worship him. Aye brother, even when we carved out new domains for his Imperium the mortals worshipped him in secret. What the witch had told Lord Abaddon and his commanders came as a shock to the exiled sons. That the Imperium saw the false emperor truly as a deity and his worship was demanded by his most devout followers. Gods exist and have their power because of the faith of the masses. We truly know that now Sleipnir said, thinking of his time in the Eye and all he bore witness to. So to kill a god one must strip them of their power first. Slay those whose unquestioned faith they leech their power from. We must break their faith. They must know pain, terror, and death and know that their god is powerless to help them. The floor beneath them rumbled and the sound of metal tearing and warping began to replace the sounds of the dying and their murderers. Hydraulic lifts were forced into function as Exus pulled them to the surface from their sunken keeps. The stone floors of the basilica began to crack and separate before being lifted entirely from the surface as massive vaults were pulled up. The altar crumbled as the dais it rest on was upturned and pews were pushed to the side. Exus had pulled two vaults of adamantium and reinforced quarantine-glass. They were sealed tight and for good reason. Weapons of such terrible destructive power were contained within. Each vault stood tall, wide, and large enough that three knight titans, the smallest of their breed of god-machines, could be stored within each. Sleipnir walked several steps to stand before the containment vault and placed one hand on its surface. How long has it been that these mortals had forgotten history? Wondering further if any knew that two legions had warred over these materials when the Imperium had been divided. He looked in and saw the racks of various marks of armor. All were stained black and bared the tri-spoke emblem of the destroyer. The Word Bearers had come here Percavis began. This world sits within the realm of the Five Hundred with which they held a special loathing. And they came here to replenish their stock of world-devouring weapons to pursue their campaign of death. They would be beaten back by the thirteenth and since those days this has all laid forgotten, a memorial buried under false faith. A smile cracked the porcelain flesh of Sleipnir. Yes, brother, and now we reap the rewards. He looked in and saw through the thick armored glass his prize. Dozens of them were stored in this vault alone with the poisoned armor and various toxin weapons stored behind sealed quarantine. With these weapons we shall cull worlds of the false emperor’s faithful. His Imperium will learn that upon his throne he is nothing. More will die as he sits idle and then they will see he is no god. They will turn and tear down his temples. He will lose his slaves and his tenuous grip on his kingdom shall slip. And when Abaddon claims his throne on Terra we will have our vengeance and birthright. It had been so long, waiting to lay claim to the Imperium that had been stolen from them. They had been freed from their exile and crushed those who tried to bar their path. Now the Black Legion waged the Long War and Sleipnir grinned at the promise of bloodshed he and his brothers would reap as fires would rise and worlds would burn. I've tried to write my short story since the Black Legion was announced as the subject. Being motivated by the recent BL novels I have changed allegiances to the Black Legion on the tabletop. This has been a great way to begin fleshing out my warband and their motivation. I've wrote quite a few drafts, restarted writing, suffered writer's block for some reason, and still think there is room for tons of improvement. So I would like to take this moment to give mad props to authors! I can barely imagine the insanity they go through for their art and craft. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4987379 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kierdale Posted January 19, 2018 Author Share Posted January 19, 2018 Thank you for your entries in Inspirational Friday 2018: The Black Legion. Warpmiss gave us Recruitment in which a berserker’s warband answers the call of the Black Legion only to find out they are not the only ones to whom the offer was extended. I liked the deviousness of this one and I’m very glad you persevered to get it done, Warpmiss. Hushrong’s entry was The Fire Rises. A tale of a Black Legion war band’s first excursion out of the Eye after the flight from Terra, and their discovery of the changes that had come over the Imperium, and the deification of the Emperor. Great action, but I particularly liked the choice of setting. I hereby close that topic but if anyone has more stories on that theme, at any time, please post them here with a suitable title. And here begins our second challenge of Inspirational Friday 2018: Winter Warfare Combat in cold conditions, be it snow, ice or thawing, presents combatants with new obstacles and concerns, be it on land or at sea. The cold saps strength and takes lives. Those lucky enough to live risk trenchfoot, frozen supplies and war gear. New tactics are required and the advantage lies with the defender provided that logistics are maintained and protected. And upon the nightmare battlefields of the 41st millennium who knows what additional horrors stalk through the blizzards and the dark night? In the past we have have IF challenges on the subject of Aquatic Combat and Desert Warfare and with the northern hemisphere of Terra now in the grip of winter tell us this time a tale of winter warfare. IF2018: Winter Warfare runs until the second of February. Let us be inspired. And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: MacBeefin. The winner of IF2018: Winter Warfare shall claim the Octed amulet: And the honour of judging the next challenge. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4988109 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macbeefin Posted January 20, 2018 Share Posted January 20, 2018 Thoroughly enjoyed all the stories again, but I particularly liked the imagery of doomed guardsmen defending the basilica against a tide of living dead, praying for deliverance, and even performing acts of heroism and sacrifice (such as driving a tank into the throng and self destructing). My winner would have to be hushrong. Well done. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4988256 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warpmiss Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Congratulations hushrong!! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4989639 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hushrong Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Thank you, folks! I am both humbled and happy to have taken part in this challenge. I look forward to the next installment and as always: Death to the False Emperor! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4990244 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevak Dal Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 You know, something I always had problems with Skallathrax was the "extreme night cold"...all Astartes except for World Eaters in "wife beater" pattern power armor would be in armored space suits that can handle combat in the void of space...which would be a lot colder than a planet. But maybe it was especially daemonic world cold or some noise that was some how colder. *Rolls eyes* I think when they wrote that, they jumped back to Warhammer Fantasy in their heads for a bit. I don't see any way space marines could be bothered by winter warfare. Normies? Oh yeah. But super soldiers in armored environment suits? Nope. Their equipment would be capable of handling mud and muck. I also don't get how any Seige involving space marines lasts longer than a week (in various codex timelines, it talks about 7 year long sieges) it's like..."really?" They are super special forces and do in hours what takes the guard days. Most bases/hives/whatever with voidshields can be bypassed by cyclonic torpedos on either side of the city, causing a tectonic shift which will cause mass damage, lower the shields and kill a lot of defenders because they turtled up, unless they got cyclonic torpedos interception systems... Now what a Skallathrax like place COULD do, is have it so cold/whatever that combat in it overrode the armor's ability to self seal/repair, and so any armor integrity loss would result in rapid loss of consciousness and eventual death (like fighting in void). Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4991385 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warpmiss Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 I guess that while the Astartes themselves may not have so many problems with the cold the rest of things around them might: human troops, supplies, guns, tanks and other machines. Also, there snowy terrain may be more treacherous that it would seem, specially if you are a heavy Space Marine clad in your armor. I suppose it depends on how extreme the conditions are. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4991460 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kierdale Posted January 24, 2018 Author Share Posted January 24, 2018 That’s where the ‘inspiration’ has to come in ;) How could Astartes be hampered by extreme cold? Or perhaps they aren’t: show us how they take advantage of it versus their mortal foes? And daemons? Cold never bothered them anyway. EDIT: Then again I now have the image in my head of a plaguebearer with icicles of frozen snot/puss hanging off his hose and drooping innards :D Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4991733 Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrautScientist Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Hey guys, time to throw my hat into the ring here once again -- it's been far too long Now I am not perfectly sure whether the following story qualifies for winter warfare. It does take place in winter, though, so there's that much at least. I wrote it way back when, to accompany a model built by fellow Frater (or rather, Soror) Flint13, and I am still pretty happy with it. Please enjoy: Hunters Flames were already billowing from the ramshackle habs as the Hunter strode into the settlement. He turned his horned helm this way and that, surveying the destruction and slaughter surrounding him. What remained of the poor wretches who had eked out a meagre living here in the freezing wastelands of a backwater world at the fringes of Imperial space spoke of violent, careless slaughter, but there was something more underneath it: A frantic need the Hunter understood but found distasteful.He paced around the main square of the settlement, his warrior’s mind piecing together the events: the desperate but eventually futile struggle. The bloodletting. And what seemed to be the pursuit of a few settlers that had somehow managed to escape the slaughter. The Hunter examined the tracks leading through the outer parts of the settlement and into the wilderness beyond, already being covered up by the falling snow, here where the heat of the flames was not as intense. The Hunter cocked his head, listening and sniffing. Again, his head turned this way and that, as he tried to find a trace of his prey. Suddenly, he paused. And if someone had been very close by, they might have noticed a telltale glint of bared teeth behind his helmet’s mouth slit: a feral, hungry thing of a smile. But nobody was there to see. All that remained in the settlement was death. His ancient warplate thrumming, the Hunter set off towards the east. Towards his prey. +++ The thrill of the hunt started to recede, and already Iriralar Nightclaw was feeling a flutter of disappointment. He had spent hours artfully stalking his prey, slowly separating each of the Mon’Keigh’ from the group, then taking them down one by one. If he had just wanted to kill them, it would have been a quick task, but Iriralar had wanted to wring every possible drop of pleasure from this particular hunt, and he had succeeded in that. Nevertheless, with the game so very nearly over, he couldn’t help feeling a nagging sense of regret. He looked at the poor wretch scrambling away from him now on hands and knees, leaving crimson traces in the snow. Still so desperate to get away. Iriralar almost had to smile in recognition of his prey’s perseverance. Alas, all good things must come to an end. Slowly, ever so slowly, Iriralar drew his blades, the curved steel only giving the faintest whisper as it slid from its twin sheaths. The Mon’Keigh stared at him in utter horror and despair, but still kept crawling away from him. Iriralar bared sharp, pearly white teeth in a predator’s smile:“So then, shall we dance?” When it was over – and it was over far too soon – Iriralar stepped back from what remained of his prey. It was not much, and even that would soon be lost under a blanket of snow. Iriralar slowly breathed in the sweet scent of a dying soul. He would have to return to his raiding party soon.Going after a pack of Mon’Keigh cattle on his own was an indulgence, surely, but nobody would dare reprimand the Lord Archon’s own son for such behavior. Iriralar smiled to himself… …and froze. There was something close by. Iriralar could smell it. Surely, none of his prey could have eluded him? He focused and inhaled. Indeed, it was a Mon’Keigh. But there was something more: The creature’s animal stink was compounded by the acrid tang of a metabolism retuned, a body crudely reshaped into something else…and there was something underneath all of that, something even more sublime… Iriralar smiled to himself. Maybe this hunt was not over after all… +++ The hunt had been going on for hours now, and Iriralar’s earlier exhilaration at the prospect of worthy prey had begun to turn into a nagging sense of irritation. It felt like his quarry was leading him around in circles, but there seemed to be little point in it: He kept his distance, yet always stayed in sight. There was something decidedly off about this situation, and Iriralar craved some kind of resolution He had at first thought the Mon’Keigh to belong to one of the primitive warrior orders that had pledged themselves to the carrion god. But not this one – just a few short glances at his ancient power armour were proof that the Astartes served one of the lords of the warp: the Blood God. Which made this game of cat and mouse all the more irritating and strange. Suddenly, the towering form came to a halt, standing at the center of a clearing Iriralar was sure they had passed before. With a hum of servo motors, the Mon’Keigh turned to face Iriralar. The towering figure seemed like a heathen idol dreamt up by a madman: The bulky Astartes armour was jagged and baroque, with talismans and trophies dangling from its shoulder pads. Across the Mon’Keigh’s chest was a bandolier of skulls that clacked softly with every move. And though encrusted with hoarfrost, the arterial red and brass of the armour was clearly visible beneath. Iriralar had learned the Mon’ Keigh language, not out of a fascination with their culture, but for a far more practical reason: He enjoyed being able to understand his prey’s last whimpered words. He had thus become very familiar with the intricacies of the Mon’Keigh’s blunt and primitive emotions, and it was for this reason that he was able to hear a smile in the Astartes’ voice when he called out to Iriralar: “Time to end this, don’t you think?” As if to accompany his words, he slowly drew his weapons: a huge axe and an ancient, baroque chainblade. He gunned the chainblade’s trigger, as if to check its function, and the axe’s head flared up in a blue white power field. Iriralar thought he could make out the glint of a smile underneath the warrior’s horned helmet, but before he could be sure, the massive Astartes threw himself at Iriralar with astonishing speed. Iriralar’s blades hissed from their sheats, and the dance was on. Fast though he might have been, the Mon’Keigh was too slow for Iriralar: It was almost too easy to avoid his swings and sidestep his towering form. At the same time, however, his thick warplate deflected most of Iriralar’s probing slashes, so he would need to wait for an opening, for an exposed joint or a bared throat. But he was patient enough – his earlier irritation had been replaced with a feeling of rapture that made his blood run hot. On and on, the dance went, the snow underneath slowly turning into a slippery trap. Iriralar noticed the first telltale signs of fatigue in his enemy, the strain of having to keep up with a much faster opponent. His lips peeled back from his white teeth in an amused smile: Time to end this. The huge Mon’Keigh attacked. Too slow. Always too slow. Iriralar almost laughed out loud as he ghosted out of the way and saw his enemy stumble forward due to his momentum, opening up an opportunity to strike. This was it. Iriralar saw his stumbling enemy as though in slow motion as he jumped forward. He would end the Mon’Keigh beast. So close now. Just a hearbeat until the kill. The moment his feet touched the ground, there was a sharp, metallic sound. Then pain, unbearable pain. Iriralar’s eyes snapped to the ground, seeing the ugly, serrated metal jaws that had lain hidden underneath the thick blanket of snow. That had closed with a whip crack when he had disturbed the trap, punching through his legs, tearing flesh and breaking bone. With a cry of anguish, Iriralar crumpled to the floor in a graceless slump. He felt the rush of the combat stims that took the white hot edge off the pain, and he tried to get up, to get away. But the jagged metal teeth would not let go, pinning him to the ground. Over his own panting breath, Iriralar could hear a low chuckle, as the towering form of the Mon’Keigh approached him: “It is an old trick, I will give you that. But one that does not produce any heat or scanner readings. All it requires is a bit of preparation.” Iriralar frantically tried to reach his fallen blades, but it was impossible. He could not get away either. The strain made the blood pump from his legs at an alarming rate, and he could feel the spike of pain even through the haze induced by the combat drugs. The Mon’Keigh slowly circled him, seeming amused by the situation. He pointed to the scrimshawed bone trinkets adorning Iriralar’s armour:“I see you enjoy taking trophies”, he growled, “In that, we are not so different, you and I.”Irialar spat a gob of bloody phlegm at the Astartes and bared his teeth in a rictus grin: “Do you expect me to be afraid, filthy Mon’Keigh? There is nothing you could possibly do to me that would scare me.” Once more, Iriralar could hear the smile in the Mon’Keigh’s words: “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. You see, a good hunter learns all there is to learn about his prey, is that not right? And I have had a very long time to learn…” With that he pulled something from a pouch at his belt and held it out. A glint of metal was visible as the small object fell from his hand, dangling by a fine silver thread. A jewel, it seemed. Iriralar focused on the gem, in spite of the pain, in spite of the danger. It seemed important somehow. He focused and felt his blood run cold:Dangling from the Astartes’ fist was a spirit stone. “So, then. Shall we begin?” +++ When it was over, the Hunter stepped away from his prey. He had learned much, more than he had anticipated. It had been a successful hunt. He opened a vox channel and said but a single word: “Hokar”“Acknowledged”, came the Huntmaster’s reply. His spireborn sneer of a voice managed to make a single word sound haughty, even over the temperamental vox. The arrogant high-rider bastard.“Scouting complete. The Eldar pirates have moved on the main settlements. They do not suspect our presence and should be blind to anything but their current…entertainment.”“Numbers?”“Only a raiding party about a hundred strong. It seems they did not expect much resistance. In that, they were wrong.”“And the Archon?”“He is with them. He has led us a merry dance, but now the hunt is nearly at an end.”“Maybe. Did you get visual confirmation?”“Of course. What do you take me for?”Hokar did not miss a beat: “What I take you for right now, hunter, is a soldier two hundred clicks off his mark, which I am certain you have a perfectly valid reason for. What, pray tell, have you been doing down there?”“Tying up some loose ends. But fear not, I am on my way.” Again, anybody near enough to witness this exchange might have seen that telltale glint of teeth that gave away the Hunter’s smile as he terminated the vox link. And maybe, just maybe, such a person would also have noticed a small gem now dangling from the Hunter’s belt. A strange touch of beauty on the legionary’s jagged and pitted armour, the stone was now imbued with a fire that rendered it even more beautiful. But nobody was there to witness this, so it went unnoticed. The Hunter set out towards the west, where new prey waited. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4992812 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macbeefin Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 My thoughts on Skallathrax - I think there could be some scientific basis here that justifies the cold night freezing them (where GW intended it or not) whereas the void does not. Supposedly that while space may only be a few Kelvin in temperature, there are so few particles present that heat transfer actually takes a very long time. However, on a planet with an atmosphere (presumably Skallathrax) and therefore lots of particles, heat transfer occurs much more quickly, especially if the night temp on Skallathrax was only a few Kelvin. Maybe its not so far fetched to think that a few minutes of hours of exposure on Skallathrax would be enough to freeze over an Astartes in power armour. Although with that said, there's probably no way a planet with an atmosphere could fluctuate in temperature that much between night and day so I guess we just take it and try not to think too hard about the scientific accuracy of our sci fi 8ft tall post humans that fight daemons in outer space Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-4992932 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scourged Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 I've always liked snow. I spent the first half of my life with it, and the second half without it. Only now, just these past few months, have I returned to it and it to me. And it's made me happy. When I was still living down in the subtropics, I based all of my models with snow. Every Scourged and Changemonger in my collection saw their feet surrounded by drifts of white powder. In my head, this is because my models were a snapshot of the Scourged defending Tachylite, home of the Changemongers, in the dead of the planet's long winter (when they're Tzeentch-forged alliance was born). It helped me feel a bit closer to home. But the snow kept its influence on me. When I crafted the backstory for Inquisitor Tsalie Krejcik, nemesis to my Scourged since the day that Gallus sealed their fate, I was compelled to place her in a Vostroyan forest, her tragedy tempered by the frozen cold of their winters. it just felt right to me. And a while back, in 2016, when this very thread challenged us to tell the stories of Chaos vs. the Vlka Fenryka, I once again found myself staging a scene in a wintery world. I just always seem to gravitate toward the serenity of the cold and snow. Perhaps that's why, now that I've returned, I haven't built, painted, or based a Scourged in the snow since moving here. Sure, I blame that more upon the revival of Chaos Legions and just how much I enjoy painting my Hydra... but perhaps there's something more there...? Anyway, forgive me for waxing philosophical for a moment. What I bring you all today is a sequel to the story I've linked above, a continuation of the battle that day. I couldn't really get inspiration for anything new until I remembered that old tale the other day. Seemed like a nice place to revisit, given the theme this week. So, due to a lack of any kind of more creative title, I give you all Red Snow II. Hidden Content Red Snow II The heavy steps in the snow originally had been long in gait, from prey sprinting away through a blizzard. He had followed, amused by the careless footsteps. No doubt the sorcerous fiend responsible for the death of two Blood Claws was seeking refuge deeper in the coniferous forests of this world. But no prey could escape the hunt of the Vlka Fenryka, and none had ever once outsmarted the hunter Hallfred Whitesquall. Each minute that passed brought heavier snowfall. Light dusts of frozen motes had become a torrent of wet clumps. Winds had shifted from calm and guiding to raccous gusts tearing at the tanned loincloth and hanging totems along his blue-grey armor. The more the snow fell the faster the footfalls of his prey had filled, concealing the tracks as he followed. Not that Hallfred couldn’t still see them - the faintest indentation of new snow in old, the faint heat still radiating in the background of the white forest floor, the disturbed collection of flurries on nearby underbrush. Even a half-dead Scout could track the clumsy movements of this heretic! But then there were no tracks to be found. What had been once and easy and obvious trail quickly devolved into a complete absence thereof. In this impossible clearing within the heart of the forest, the snow was calm, undisturbed. It rested in a solid white sheet, slowing growing taller as the blizzard pounded harder. The fresh powder was up to Hallfred’s ankle and piling gently upon his pauldrons. There was nothing to see in this ring of white, save the silent runes blinking about decreasing atmospheric temperatures within his helm’s display. He had lost the trail. No, no… not that. The trail was simply gone. The prey had vanished. Hallfred deactivated the maglocks on his painted helm and pulled it away, stowing it at his waist and letting him feel the cold whip of the wind on his face. It tugged at the braided pleats of his beard, shearing off of the rise of his shaved head. The cold in the air quickly chilled the bionic implant replacing his left eye, spreading a cold sensation within his skull he had come to know many times before. He spit, watching the wet glob crush into the undisturbed powder to his right, seeing a bit of steam rise before the wet glob of acidic saliva froze unseen on the ground. He chuckle-grunted to himself. Summers on Fenris were colder than this. With his face now bare, Hallfred was no longer held back by the artificial confines of his armor’s “enhanced” senses. It was pathetic how deeply his brothers from the other chapters depended on their armor. Could they not taste the air and smell the odors of their prey like a true hunter? Of course not. They were not blessed with the Canis Helix, they were not forged by the uncaring touch of Fenris. Were they here, hunting the Sons of the Cyclops in his place, they would have failed long ago. This was what the Vlka Fenryka were made to do: hunt, and kill. Hallfred focused his senses, closing his eyes to let his ears and nose guide him. The visual world faded away, and the auditory opened to him. He automatically filtered out the howl of the wind and the shaking of tree limbs to hear everything else beneath those roaring sounds. He heard the snow falling with with wet taps upon itself, all around him. He could hear the underbrush straining to stand upright beneath the weight of frozen precipitation. He smelled the faint taint of pollution within the frozen crystals. The smells of decaying flora and recently fled fauna tickled from this direction and that. Through his feet he felt the vibration of his armor’s powerpack traveling through the ceramite plates, and the burrowing of vermin far beneath the soil. He could sense everything except his prey. Hallfred opened his eyes again, annoyed with the dead trail. More snow, more wind, less visibility. Soon he would be forced to leave, to abandon the hunt until more favorable conditions developed. At least that’s what the Wolf Lord would say. No, he would not give up. Not until that cerulean and gold armor was covered in liquid crimson, a haunting facsimile of the original Legio XV. There! Ten degrees west, one hundred twenty meters out. Footsteps. Large, and quiet. Hallfred stayed statue still, lest any movement show his prey that it had been spotted. Foolish heretic, thinking the torrent of snowfall concealed him. It only served to make him easier to find! Stealing a sideways gaze to the source of the imperceptible steps, Hallfred saw… ...nothing. No figure in power armor, no impressions of footfalls in the pristine powder. Nothing. He had misheard something, somehow. No, over there now! Fifteen degrees south-southwest, ninety meters. He was sure of it now. He had heard the movement, and smelled the faintest tinge of accelerant from a firearm. It was the heretic, to be sure. Not daring to move so slowly and lose his quarry again, Hallfred turned with bolt pistol drawn, facing to the southwest to confront… ...nothing again. He was being played, manipulated. There were mind games from the tainted sorcerer, trying to toy with him, catch him unawares as he chased ghosts in the snow. There were no footsteps, and there never had been. They were illusions, toying with his mind. The only footsteps in the clearing were those of Hallfred, leading back to… ...they were gone too. No trace of Hallfred’s movement into the clearing. No evidence of from where he had come on this hunt. He looked as though he hand landed in the center of this clearing and not yet taken a single step away. Everything they eyes could see was just varying degrees of white blurs. Another set of footfalls with no one there, twenty-four degrees southwest, sixty-two meters. It was as empty as the others. Again, at six degrees south, forty meters. Again, nothing. On and on the sorcerer was toying with him, playing with his mind, attempting to confuse Hallfred. Fifteen degrees south-southeast, thirty-two meters. Zero degrees southeast, eighteen meters. Closer and closer the fake-footsteps fell, pretending to circle Hallfred, pretending to surround him. It was all a game, all a trick to toy with his mind. It was all to amuse the sorcerer as he played with his Warp-magicks safely from a distance; just like a true coward. The sorcerer toyed with Hallfred because he feared the warrior Astartes, and rightfully so. Due north, zero meters. Two solid steps, planting right in front of Hallfred’s own feet. Except there were no feet, there was no person there. Just snow - untouched, unblemished, perfect snow. “It won’t work, you cyclops-worshipping mongrel! End these mind games and fight like a true Astartes! You will not trick me!” The voice that replied was not heard by Hallfred’s ears, but by his mind. It was calm, rich, and brimming with a haughty confidence. It spoke in High Gothic, but with an accent that was decidedly not Prosperan. The invading touch on his mind and soul caused Hallfred an uncomfortable pain as the voice teased him. +Don’t be so sure, pup.+ That is when the glamor faded like an illusory snowfall all its own. The falsified reality of the world around Hallfred tumbled in little flakes to the ground where it melted away into nothingness. The raging blizzard fell away as well, the winds and snow calming in quick moments. It, too, had been an illusion. Free now to finally see, all around him was a coil of footsteps circling his position, a serpent constricting around a helpless mouse. They were all there, plain as day, and always had been. Every sound and sight and smell had been forever knocking at his senses, desperate to be perceived by a mind that had been blocked. How long, then, had the muzzle of a plasma pistol been held mere centimeters from Hallfred’s face as he squirmed in confusion at the heart of the illusion? And how much longer until the sapphire and crimson sorcerer - now obviously not one of the thrice-damned Prospero-born - pulled the trigger and evaporated his head and ended his life with a ball of pure energy? “When you see him, give our regards to the Wolf King.” Damn him. Hallfred’s arms and limbs reacted on instinct, muscled corded and taut as they moved on their own, arms raising bolt pistol and power axe to a killing position, legs pushing down and into the ground to lunge forward. His lips curled away to bare fangs and his jaw opened to let loose a snarl, rage of purest indignation festering in his chest. All of that within fractions of fractions of a second. And none of it fast enough. What remained of his headless body fell into the snow long after the ball of orange plasma tore through his angry face. The stump of his neck had mostly cauterized from the superheat gas, but enough remained fresh from the wound to slowly leak thick scarlet upon the pure white ground. It pooled as it partially melted the snow it touched, the cold of the air quickly coagulating the thickening liquid. Soon the plasma burn was a dichotomy of burnt and frozen flesh. Even as the Scourged sorcerer took his casual leave from this place, the sanguine stains of the Astartes blood spread wider, leaving yet another mark of red snow on this white world. 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Kierdale Posted February 1, 2018 Author Share Posted February 1, 2018 A cold winter's mourning Hidden Content The sensation was as if needles punctured his flesh in a million places simultaneously. His body was afire.Pain more real than the ministrations of the blessed nerve glove wracked him as he danced through the white, his armour and weapons discarded as the whim had taken him. To experience what no other dared. The deathly touch of cold on this accursed world. The only other sensation he was aware of – and only this tarnished the bite of Jordgon II’s cold, stopping it from eclipsing all other sensations – was the eyes of his comrades on him. He felt them watching, his fellow Astartes and their mortal servants. In the latter he sensed their wonder and, in no small number of them, mockery. Fools! They could not understand how he opened himself to exhilaration. None of them would dare. None of them would survive more than a minute. And in his fellow marines he felt jealousy and anger. Many of them wished to join him, if only because he had done this mad thing first. And anger, for he danced upon the pristine snow of no-man’s land. He cared not, for- The brilliant, pure white of the snow was splashed vivid red and a single shot rang out in the crisp morning air. The ratling sniper’s hand shook as he worked the leaver of his rifle, due to the insanity he had just witnessed in his kill as much as due to the planet’s bitter cold. As soon as he had scurried away, his white suit and thick headwear camouflaging him against the snow, he detached his long-rifle’s magazine and depressed the top round, as he had every few minutes since he had left the trenches and the (relative) warmth of his dugout. Weapons seized all too easily, froze all too quickly, in this cold. Thus he checked and rechecked his gear before finding another good location to snipe from. Then again, was he likely to have another chance? Were the enemy likely to be stupid enough? Mad, they certainly were...but he doubted it, and hunkered down in the hollow of an old fallen tree, glad for the respite from the wind. His squad, and the Guard regiment they were auxiliaries assigned to, had been ordered to change their deployment and had been dispatched to Jordgon II with little notice. The ratlings, as the diminutive abhumans were (in)famous for, had quickly scrounged winter gear while a great many of the longshanks had to shiver in their trenches and foxholes, which had been backbreaking to dig in the frozen ground. He could smell them: the white paint on crates, rifles and even tanks and chimeras not having been able to dry properly in the cold. It made for shoddy camo and too many lives had been lost already. Their foes were predominantly humans – the uprisen populace and elements of the local guard that gone turncoat, but the real problem was the renegade Astartes. That the Emperor’s Angels of Death could turn from His light was rumoured – never within earshot of a preacher of a commissar – but who hadn’t heard the scuttlebutt? But to witness them for real had shaken the sniper, and everyone else who had been witness to the Enemy’s first assault. The climate had not been to blame for trigger fingers freezing that day, nor for the shakes which had taken the legs of so many men. Memories had flashed through the minds of those blessed enough to have fought alongside Astartes, recalling how they had cheered to see the droppods of marines falling upon the enemy, and tried to forget the horror of the devastation they had witnessed in their savours’ wake. Now they were the target of that wrath. Bastion after bastion had fallen and the Enemy had rolled up defensive lines, trenches filling with crimson slush awash with body parts and debris. He blinked hard, looking from the shadows of his shelter back out across the snowy fields, squinting as his eyes had to adjust. He cursed himself. He cursed whoever it was further up the chain of command who had managed to stop the retreat and had the mad thought of trying to put up a second line of defence. He cursed the priests of Mars; other scuttlebutt had it that they were the ones who had insisted this icecube of a world be liberated. He glanced back toward the trenches. He couldn’t see them as the guardsmen had at least done a good job of camouflaging them, and the constant snowfall had done the rest. He could imagine guardmen in their foxholes, checking and rechecking their weapons. No lasers bigger than a rifle, unfortunately: they had quickly learned that the portable generators of cannons put out too much heat and the autosenses of the renegade Astartes spotted them with lethal ease. So the action of heavy bolters and autocannons had to be constantly worked, checked and oiled. Perhaps one more kill. One more notch to cut into the stock of his rifle. A grin split his face under his balaclava. As he crawled his way up an incline, pushing his way through the powdery snow, the clouds above only a shade or two darker, he felt it through his belly pushed to the ground. A vibration. The wind died and he felt it again. Snow flakes fell gently and sound carried easier in the still air, so that he was forced to slow his crawl...and that he could hear the source of the sound the next time. A mechanical grinding from off beyond the enemy’s own lines. A turncoat chimera? A rhino? It came again, and the vibration was harder but short. Bigger than an APC. Battle tank-sized. One of their Russes? God-Emperor forbid it were a Land Raider! Again, the shakes. But no one drove a tank so sporadically. He swallowed back a measure of fear: he had fought alongside knights – titans even – and this was not the earth-quaking impact of a war engine that size. As he crested the rise he saw it emerging from the falling snow out across no-man’s land. A mechanical beast as big as a Russ, bounding forth on four pistol-like legs, partially sheathed in raw muscular flesh like some bastard amalgam of man and machine. Nothing like the blessed augmentations of the priests of Mars. A neck craned forward from its armour-plated body, terminating in a bestial head which yawned wide to emit a fearsome bellow. And still it bounded onward toward him, toward the Guard lines, whip-like tentacles of metal snaking out from its midsection. Though his mind had frozen at the chaos it beheld, his training prevented him from raising his rifle and loosing worthless shots, leaving him a witness as the monstrous speartip of the renegade assault was spotted by his own lines and shells began to impact its vividly painted armour, showering sparks. The ground shook heavier as more beasts came in its wake. Each was similar but no two were identical. Some stalked forward bearing no limbs but massed bunches of the whiplike tentacles, other crawled on treads. Behind them came the vehicles of the renegade Astartes, and finally the turncoat guard. As the daemon engine bounded past the ratling it seemed to pause mid-stride, one tentacle leaping out to skewer the sniper before popping the morsel into its maw. Two bounds later it was into the trenches of the Guard... 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Kierdale Posted February 2, 2018 Author Share Posted February 2, 2018 Thank you for your entries in Inspirational Friday 2018: Winter Warfare. Kraut Scientist returned to IF (it’s been too long!) with Hunters: an excellent tale of a Dark Eldar warrior stalking a berserker of Khorne. And as in all good tales like this, you never know quite who is the hunter and who is the hunted? Red Snow II was Scourged’s entry, a follow up to a previous story. One of the Vlka Fenryka gets considerably more than he bargained for! And I gave you A cold winter’s mourning. I make no excuses for the pun. It was hard for me not to write the Chaos side simply using summoned daemons to overrun half-frozen guardsmen, but as I had used a similar idea in the aquatic warfare challenge I didn’t want to do so again. I then saw my maulerfiend on my shelf... I hereby close that topic but if anyone has more stories on that theme, at any time, please post them here with a suitable title. And here begins our third challenge of Inspirational Friday 2018: The Primordial Annihilator versus the Asuryani One of the elder races, once with a galaxy-spanning Empire, the children of Isha brought about their own doom. Ignoring and forgetting the prophecies of the Old Ones, the Eldar became proud. They turned to hedonism and excess. Their society became divided as cults sprung up. Corruption spread and the aliens sought newer, more fulfilling sensations. At any cost. Their madness climaxed in the birth of the fourth god and the dark prince of Chaos – She Who Must Not Be Named: Slaanesh. Slaanesh’s birth brought about the devastation of the Eldar Empire, tearing a hole in the fabric of reality and swallowing so many of their worlds. It is said that trillions died as the new god devoured their souls. Only the Exodites, craftworld Eldar and the degenerates of Commorragh within the Webway, survived the end of their Empire. And for millennia they have been a dying race, only for the recent emergence of Ynnead, the Eldar god of death, to bring a seed of hope for their souls. For those renegades and servants who bend their knee and dance to the will of Slaanesh, the hunting of Eldar is a pursuit unmatched in challenge or rewards, for their fay souls are the sweetest of morsels and likely to earn the greatest rewards from one’s patron. Nurgle has a unique tie to the Eldar as within his garden he holds captive Isha: the mother of the Eldar herself! On a personal note I would dearly love to read a piece featuring this. To the followers of Tzeentch their own mastery of the reading of the fates is rivaled only by that of the Eldar farseers. And for those who harvest skulls for Khorne, what better challenge could there be than to pit oneself against the aspect warriors of the craftworlds: warriors who have dedicated their centuries-long (millennia-long?) lives to the honing of one aspect of combat? I thought about limiting it to Craftworld Eldar only (or craftworlders and Exodites) and keeping Harlequins and the Dark Eldar for when they get their own codexes, but why shackle people. Kill ‘em all! Kill ‘em all! Kill ‘em all! IF2018: Chaos versus the Eldar runs until the sixteenth of February. Let us be inspired. And who shall judge this new challenge? That decision lies with our current judge: hushrong. The winner of IF2018: Chaos versus the Eldar shall claim the Asuryani amulet: And the honour of judging the next challenge (which they can forfeit to me if they so wish). Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5001232 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slave to Darkness Posted February 3, 2018 Share Posted February 3, 2018 Eldar huh?? I am so down for this. I have an Eldar in my Slaanesh army I need to write the fluff for. Gonna have more 'eww' than the last time I entered this. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5001826 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hushrong Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 This is a difficult decision as I enjoyed all the stories. Nothing gets the heart pounding proudly knowing the blood of the enemy covers the snow at our feet! A winner must be chosen and I declare that Scourged to be that winner. To see the proud wolf bested in his own type of element was an enjoyable cruelty. Congrats! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5002242 Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrautScientist Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 Congratulations, Scourged! The story was very well done -- in fact, it somehow felt like a better, more elegant (and ultimately, more Tzeentchian) version of my own entry when reading it which made me gnash my teeth. A well deserved victory! Kierdale, I really enjoyed your story as well, especially the dramatic irony of a Slaaneshi dog going bareheaded for the extra sensual input and paying the ultimate price for it. What a deliciously meta touch. We can probably rest assured that it was ultimately just another experience for him -- if the last one ;) As for the new subject, gee, I guess I can just re-use the exact same story again, eh? ;) Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5002257 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kierdale Posted February 4, 2018 Author Share Posted February 4, 2018 Congratulations, Scourged! Kierdale, I really enjoyed your story as well, especially the dramatic irony of a Slaaneshi dog going bareheaded for the extra sensual input and paying the ultimate price for it. What a deliciously meta touch. We can probably rest assured that it was ultimately just another experience for him -- if the last one ;)Actually he went totally naked :D As for the new subject, gee, I guess I can just re-use the exact same story again, eh? ;)No :PI have a lot of topics planned for the future, but a couple on the ‘soon’ list happened to be Chaos versus Eldar and The Hunt... Scourged’s and your entries made me push back ‘The Hunt’ :D, and I’m going to insist on a new entry for the next one! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5002545 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hushrong Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Digging around on my computer found a word file with some Cult of Golden Tears going toe to toe with the delicious eldar. Dusting that off to finish it for the next IF! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5003097 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warpmiss Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 Congrats, Scourged!! I'd love to write something about my DG boys meeting some Eldar but I need to do some research on Eldar lore/fluff first. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5003270 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scourged Posted February 5, 2018 Share Posted February 5, 2018 My thanks to all for the congratulations. This was one of those instances where the desire to write came before the story idea, so I'm glad it panned out in the end. This new topic, however, already has a fun idea brewing. That sweet, intoxicating corruption of this thread has once again claimed my soul. Time to show some more love to my boys in sapphire and crimson. @KrautScientist: I, too, noticed some similar themes: solitary hunters outdone by their quarry, their natures and strengths juxtaposed into weaknesses by polar adversaries. The same story, but told in such different ways. Ah, but is that not our differences to a tee? My work, with the subtle elegance of Fate's Architect, and your work with the brutal aggression of the Blood God. I think it works quite nicely! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5003693 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kierdale Posted February 10, 2018 Author Share Posted February 10, 2018 Riven Hidden Content The grass was soft, the dew tingled upon the skin of his bare feet. He closed his eyes, savouring the sensations: the greensward beneath his feet, the gentle breeze upon his skin, tugging at his long hair and swaying the leaves in the trees about him. He could smell food from the markets toward the stern, beyond the high towers which surrounded the park. He could feel the heat of the star above, as their craft passed close to it – close on an astrological scale at any rate. Close enough to veil it from any who sought it: their sensors would be blinded by the brilliance of the sun. Not that theirs was a cowardly race – far from it: they sought the restoration of their species’ supremacy, at the expense of lesser races if need be – but they were also a patient race. One that could wait centuries. Millennia. And yet now, the farseers told them, a storm was gathering. Fates were aligning. Already autarch Melineil had sallied forth in defence of their maiden world Ursulia and those left aboard Biel-Tan eagerly awaited his return. Was this the beginning of the Rhana Dandra – the end of days? He turned about, scanning the towers he could see above the treeline. Something...he had felt someone’s eyes upon him. He looked from window to window, balcony to terrace, his eyes not taking in the simple yet beautiful architecture – how his race had crafted buildings of such refined form from psychic power given shape – but seeking whoever it had been whose gaze he had felt. But it was gone, and as he turned about his frown was replaced with a warm smile and his anxiousness was temporarily banished. She had arrived. He watched as her diaphanous robes fluttered in the breeze. Taking her hand, he led her into the shade of the boughs and they embraced. The neverborn, the spawn of the primordial annihilator, upon the blessed ground of their craftworld! He knew not how they had been deceived but word had spread rapidly as they had raced to arm themselves. Clad in his pristine white and green armour he slid a magazine home into his catapult’s receiver and nodded to his squad mates. Gardeners, artisans, farmers, sculptors, poets...all guardians now.They filed out of the arming hall, turning left toward the aft quarter and the Great Gate, yet as soon as he stepped out he took a step right, raising his catapult and searching the branching streets before him. He swept the fluted barrel of his weapon left and right, his nerves taught, until a blue-gauntleted hand gently grasped his barrel and turned it skyward. Only then did he notice the presence of the other and turned to look into the yellow mask of the Avenger. “The foe are entering via the Great Gate, brother. There is no danger here. Make haste.” He nodded absent mindedly, his eyes still searching the shadows. Even as he turned about and jogged off to catch up with his comrades he could feel eyes upon him, as if someone floated only meters from his shoulder, observing him and all he did. Hatred and wrath incarnate in two towering bodies, each as red as metal from a smith’s furnace, clashed before the Great Gate. The great spear of Khaine, the Wailing Doom, was pitted against the massive axes of the Exiled One. The greater daemon emitted a bellow, blood-like spittle flying from it fanged maw before it charged once more into combat with the craftworld’s Avatar. All those who beheld the duel were filled themselves with a bloodlust which harkened back to the madness which had consumed the children of Isha so many millennia ago. They fired their weapons into the daemonic hordes pouring forth from the breached webway, shuriken cutting down dozens upon dozens of dancing, claw-handed fiends of all shapes and sizes. And when the children of the Dark Prince came close, loosing ululating war cries, the aura of destruction emanating from the Bloodthirster overcame even the most stalwart of the defenders and sent them charging into combat where training would have had them retreat under their comrades’ support. Madness reigned until both the Avatar and its foe toppled. Cries of anguish went up from the Eldar to see the embodiment of their war god bested, and raucious laughter from the endless ranks of daemonettes as the champion of their patron’s greatest rival was felled, his purpose fulfilled. But with the enraging madness of the Bloodthirster no longer holding sway over their minds, the Eldars’ centuries-long training took over once more and they would brook no spawn of She Who Must Not Be Named upon their world. Little did the flagging defenders at the Great Gate know that their innermost sanctum, the Infinity Circuit itself, had already been penetrated... And in their darkest moment, she who promised to open the Seventh Way appeared. The emissary of the Ynnead, the bearer of the cronesword Kha-vir. And from within the very wraithbone of Biel-Tan she drew the great blade Asu-var and summoned forth the Yncarne. The God of the Dead had come. He watched with awe and no small measure of fear as his world was sundered. Biel-Tan, the Rebirth of Ancient Days, was broken. The birth of the Yncarne had driven out the daemons infiltrating the Infinity Circuit, and the spiritseers raced to transfer the essence of their world’s ancestors into bodies of wraithbone, but Biel-Tan would never been the same again. Would they, the Eldar? he wondered. There arose the Ynnari, the faithful of Ynnead, clad in crimson. He watched as comrades flocked to this new faith. He watched with sorrow as his love did too, he watched her go, yet he held back. His place was with Biel-Tan, upon one of its fragments. He would join others who guarded their world – be it whole or fragmented – as they always had, while the bonesingers tearfully sought to save it. He looked up. That feeling once more. Someone or something was with him yet again. Why had he not consulted one of the seers? Had he been psychically assaulted during the daemonic incursion? No, for he had sensed this presence since before the attack on Biel-Tan. And why did he feel now that even his present actions were as if he were looking back upon memories misted by time? He gazed at his hands, white gauntlets rarely taken off since the Fragmenting. No longer pristine, they were cracked, grey and tarnished. As was the wraithbone of Biel-Tan itself, ever since the spawn of the Dark Prince had set foot upon it. Would it ever recover?Above hung a lush planet in the heavens. A globe of azure seas and emerald forests. As he was guardian of Biel-Beithir – the name given the fragment he now lived upon – so Biel-Beithir had been charged with the custody of this world. The maidens of Biel-Tan were more precious than ever. The crack-riven wraithbone ground shook as a towering form moved to stand at his side and he craned his neck to look up at the bulbous face-plate of the wraithlord. Upon it was fixed a great scintillating ruby soulstone, containing the quintessence of one of his world’s elder heroes. He knew not which, only that this construct had chosen to come with he and his kin upon Biel-Beithir. It spoke not and he could but assume it too felt the horrific loss of the spirits that had not been rescued from the Infinity Circuit in time. Some said that much of the Circuit and the souls within it had been corrupted, though the seers claimed to have purged all taint. The construct appeared to watch him and he looked up, from within the shadow of that great warrior, from its inscrutable visage, to the planet above. “Ceiba-ny-shak!” he spat as he fumbled to fit a new magazine to his catapult. The trees about him shattered and fell as bolts penetrated and exploded within them. But not his body. Not yet.The Enemy moved with a speed born of hunger. A hunger to slay him and his kin, yes, but also an eagerness to capture them alive. He knew the markings upon their twisted armour, for the daemons which had assaulted his world those years ago had born the same sigil. To the mon-keigh it appeared to be the fusion of the symbols of their ancient war god and their goddess of love. To the Asuryani it was the mark of She Who Must Not Be Named. The magazine slid into its receiver and he leaned out from behind the truncated stump long enough to fire off a burst of shurikens. The majority caromed off the roseate armour of one of the renegade brutes – a twisted, fallen version of the Corpse God’s `angels`, but he thanked Khaine that a few made it through a joint, sawing off the bastard’s entire lower leg. As it sprawled he leaned out once more, sending another blast of razor-sharp discs into the face of its helmet. It dropped, motionless, but the others had spotted him and once more the forest about him erupted in explosions. Where were the others? Where were the Scorpions? He had become disoriented when the Enemy had sprung their ambush. No, that wasn’t it, was it? He had felt it again, hadn’t he? That presence. That haunting. Within his mind. It had looked out through his eyes, it had heard with his ears. Even as he gripped his catapult firmly in his fingers he knew that it too gripped his weapon. It felt the air he breathed in and out as he did. It rode him. It felt all he felt. Had it left him? Had it ever left him? Had he been born this way and only the coming Rhana Dandra had awakened it? The feeling was maddening. He almost turned his weapon upon himself. “Mael dannan!” No mercy The cry went up from his left and he watched as two squads of guardians strode forth, their armour as ragged as his, catapults spitting at the Enemy in their ornate armour of vivid hues and blasted symbols. In their middle strode the wraithlord, cannons and flamers raised. The Enemy fell back as their flank was assaulted and he raised himself to his feet, rushing to his kin, his own catapult spitting as he moved. But the wraithlord stumbled. He too faltered as he watched it. It had taken no fire, yet its grand stride became hesitant and still its weapons were silent. The forest howled with the sonic weapons of the Enemy and their daemonkin, and the chief guardian ordered them on before the spawn of Chaos could regroup. He watched, his sprint slowed to a jog, to a walk, as the wraithlord staggered, raising its great hands toward its long head. His eyes were drawn to its soulstone, that cyclopean eye upon its tapering brow, which had been narrowly saved from corruption and oblivion. And as the howling, screaming of the Dark Prince’s horde grew in intensity, the glow of the gemstone died as it were consumed from within by some great blackness. “no...,” the words had barely left his lips when the guardians before him were engulfed in sheets of flame, the wraithlord extending its arms toward them. The scatterlasers upon its shoulders screamed as they spat at his kin. Even as he watched cracks spread like hoarfrost across the face of the towering war machine and foul lilac ichor bubbled up from within those rents. As he screamed in horror he felt the presence within him again. Unabashed mirth, exhilaration at the depth of sorrow he felt. Then blackness. The marine’s chest heaved. His eyes were so wide it was as if they might erupt from their sockets.Apothecary Kuru reached under the catafalque-like table and yanked the jacks from the marine’s Atlas socket. “Noooo!” the marine mewled, gasping for air, pupils dilated like black holes, eyes rolling, “Let me return! Let me return! The excess! The sensation! Such love, such anger, such sorrow. The horror! The horror!” It broke into hysterical laughter. Kuru nodded sympathetically and patted the restrains over the noise marine’s chest before looking to the comatose figure on the catafalque on the other side of the machine, wires snaking across their scalp. Their Infernal Engine. The Eldar lay still yet its face was contorted terribly. It reminded him of the harlequins they had once faced. Not a pleasant memory. But it was alive, that was what counted. Riding them via the Engine all too often burned them out entirely. And the soul that was left was a pitiful morsel. Ah but the sensations one could experience! Beyond the ken of man or post-man. To describe it as the autosenses of powered armour allowing one to see beyond the spectrum perceivable by the human eye was a woefully inadequate paradigm. The large presence at his side shifted. “Has she made contact with them?” Kuru firmly took the raving marine’s head in his hands, wrenching it round to face him and his superior. His eyes ceased their wandering and attempted to focus. “Has autarch Qarasion of Carth-Lar made contact yet with Biel-Tan?” Kuru had a feeling – it was something he could see in the noise marine’s eyes, a mischievous, deceitful glint – that his `patient` would plead failure and request to go under again, but one did not toy with lord Sophusar of the Psychopomps and the noise marine’s eyes finally focused on the Chaos lord in his terminator armour. “No, my lord.” The master of the Psychopomps grunted in frustration and stepped away, pacing about the apothecarion. Kuru released the marine’s head, and the Astartes began mumbling to himself about all that he had seen. “What of our newfound ally?” the lord looked at the apothecary askance. “Apostle Angra informs me it is no less than a daemon prince, my lord.” “Its name?” “You know how the neverborn are, my lord.” The servoes of his gauntlets strained as Sophusar cracked his knuckles within his gauntlets. “I will have its fealty. Or its soul.” Kuru watched as the lord stalked out of the chamber before turning back to the two figures before the Infernal Engine. He unfastened the restrains over the noise marine. “My turn,” and he grinned over at the prone Eldar. Kierdale’s notes Hidden Content I wrote an IF bit about the Psychopomps’ `Infernal Engine` machine way back when IF started and I wasn’t entirely happy with it, so this theme gave me a chance to revisit and improve upon it, as well as covering Gathering Storm II a bit and introducing a model I’m eager to make this year: a daemon prince from a wraithlord kit. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5007664 Share on other sites More sharing options...
EesiOh Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 The Beginning of the End They call me The Wild Soul But my name was Ael dar i Why they call me it I do not know For my name was Ael dar i From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one As she stared in my eyes and smiled For her lips were the colour of the roses They grew down the river, all bloody and wild When he knocked on my door and entered the room My trembling subsided in his sure embrace He would be my first man, and with a careful hand He wiped the tears that ran down my face They call me The Wild Soul But my name was Ael dar i Why they call me it I do not know For my name was Ael dar i On the second day I brought her a gem She was more beautiful than any woman I'd seen I said, 'Do you know where the wild souls go So sweet and scarlet and free?' On the second day he came with a soul stone Said: 'Will you give me your loss and your sorrow?' I nodded my head, as I laid on the bed He said, 'If I show you the souls will you follow?' They call me The Wild Rose But my name was Ael dar i Why they call me it I do not know For my name was Ael dar i On the third day he took me to the river He showed me the souls and we kissed And the last thing I heard was a muttered word As he stood smiling above me with a knife in his fist On the last day I took her where the wild souls go And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief As I kissed her goodbye, I said, 'All beauty must die' And lent down and ripped her soul from its sheath They call me The Wild Soul But my name was Ael dar i Why they call me it I do not know For my name was Ael dar i Disclaimer I basically just repurposed a song that I like, because Im not going to actually be able to think of and write a story in 2 days. Also tbh I thought it would turn out better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/343032-final-inspirational-friday-legends-of-chaos-until-119/#findComment-5010369 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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