Vox Stellarum: The Haunting Harii of Hvergelmir

[Ryltar Thamior]

Harii Dvandva

[Ryltar Thamior]

Latest two :



A point for anybody who gets the semi-subtle Indo-European mythological reference included - 

[Ryltar Thamior]

WIP - 

[Ryltar Thamior]

[Ryltar Thamior]

Given present circumstances, the timing of his completion perhaps renders him an Anti-Plague Marine 





also figured a slightly brighter forwards shot would be in order: 

[Ryltar Thamior]

The Erilaz - Spear-Shaker, Bright-Helmed, Flashing-Eyed, Grim-Faced, Twin-Serpentine, Sword-Clawed, Lantern-Bearing, Black-Cloaked

 

Spear-Tongued and Eloquent.

 

"Svein ól Móðir, silki vafði,

jósu vatni, Jarl létu heita;

bleikt var hár, bjartir vangar,

ötul váru augu sem yrmlingi."

 

"A son had Mothir, | in silk they wrapped him,

With water they sprinkled him, | Jarl he was;

Blond was his hair, | and bright his cheeks,

Grim as a snake's | were his glowing eyes."

 

"Skeyti skófu, skelfðu aska."

"Shafts they fashioned, | and spears they shook."

 

"En Konr ungr kunni rúnar,

ævinrúnar ok aldrrúnar;

meir kunni hann mönnum bjarga,

eggjar deyfa, ægi lægja."

 

"But Kon the Young | learned runes to use,

Runes everlasting, | the runes of life;

Soon could he well | the warriors shield,

Dull the swordblade, | and still the seas."

 

"Klök nam fugla, kyrra elda,

sefa of svefja, sorgir lægja,

Hann við Ríg jarl rúnar deildi,afl ok eljun átta manna."

 

"Bird-chatter learned he, | flames could he lessen.,
Minds could quiet, | and sorrows calm;

. . . . . . . . . .

The might and strength | of twice four men."

 

"brögðum beitti ok betr kunni;

þá öðlaðisk ok þá eiga gat

Rígr at heita, rúnar kunna."

 

"With Rig-Jarl soon | the runes he shared,

More crafty he was, | and greater his wisdom;

The right he sought, | and soon he won it,

Rig to be called, | and runes to know."

[Ryltar Thamior]

next two;



the idea here was a hunter/stalker poised between shots, evaluating his quarry; the backpack mounted scanner repositioned to follow the gaze, and the bolt-rifle having both a scope *and* the larger magazine of an auto-bolt-rifle - perhaps it's a shot-selector for specialist ammunition ... perhaps it's just a larger mag ... perhaps he's extra-accurate even with the larger rate of fire. 



Next, an Astartes with an axe. I've been a bit of a fan of axes for the Harii due to the obvious Nordic theme, and also the theological role for an axe in .. it's a long story. 

The heavily twisted torso and forward momentum legs are a bit of a challenge to keep turning out new renditions of that both a) are original and distinctive, and b) make sense with the posing ... but I  think I've managed something reasonably dynamic. You can't see it, but there's a Griffin shoulderpad to continue the theme-badging from earlier [the first Harii in this post has a Raptor, meanwhile] . Mk.III power-pack also seemed a little more archaic and brutal for the commensurate sort of vibe. 

 

And, as always, I keep using Tartaros terminator helms for some reason. 

[Ryltar Thamior]

More Harii since I finally got my brushes situation sorted 





















 

[Ryltar Thamior]

Serpent's Tooth Commando 

[Zebulon]

I am suitably impressed by all of this; the modelling, the painting, the poetry, power and intellectual rigour of the fluff you’ve put together.

 

Threads such as these give us all something to aim for, and remind us that the hard work can be its own reward.

[Doghouse]

I have to agree I think these are coming along very nicely .

[Ryltar Thamior]

I am suitably impressed by all of this; the modelling, the painting, the poetry, power and intellectual rigour of the fluff you’ve put together.

 

Threads such as these give us all something to aim for, and remind us that the hard work can be its own reward.

Thanks :D 

 

There's a suitably old-school Imperial Thought for the Day on that, actually:

 

"Though silver in your palms weighs light

Compared to death by blast and sword,

Do not shy the hopeless fight,

For endeavour is its own reward."

 

Although I must say, I sort of dropped off actually doing a lot of the fluff-work and more especially the posting thereof of it over the last few months. It didn't tend to get much interaction, so I came to the conclusion people largely wanted pictures of things ... and not so much the questionably-contextually-solicited Indo-European mytholinguistic trivia. 

 

There is .. a *lot* more that I either did, or started doing, or planned to do on those fronts - including actually going through and properly applying names and other such things, further strategic Saga or other primary Nordic text incorporations, and more of a rundown on who and what the Harii actually are - and how they fit in to the ongoing Hara Barazaiti [my other active log atm] setting explication. 

 

Although considering the length and depth and detail some of my concept-work tends to run to [you can see that in the aforementioned other log ] ... well .. I suppose I also felt that I should work a bit on brevity of writing style. Either that or enable the judicious use of spoiler-tags to keep things flowing. 

 

Still, I might go back and do a trial run with some miniatures that've already been done a year or two ago but which haven't had a fluff-treatment and see about rectifying that in the mean-time. 

 

I have to agree I think these are coming along very nicely .

Churr :D Always high praise coming from you. Your truescales and Primaris efforts over the years have been a big influence on me! 

[Zebulon]

There's a suitably old-school Imperial Thought for the Day on that, actually:

 

"Though silver in your palms weighs light

Compared to death by blast and sword,

Do not shy the hopeless fight,

For endeavour is its own reward."

 

Although I must say, I sort of dropped off actually doing a lot of the fluff-work and more especially the posting thereof of it over the last few months. It didn't tend to get much interaction, so I came to the conclusion people largely wanted pictures of things ... and not so much the questionably-contextually-solicited Indo-European mytholinguistic trivia.

 

There is .. a *lot* more that I either did, or started doing, or planned to do on those fronts - including actually going through and properly applying names and other such things, further strategic Saga or other primary Nordic text incorporations, and more of a rundown on who and what the Harii actually are - and how they fit in to the ongoing Hara Barazaiti [my other active log atm] setting explication.

Oh, I like that too!

 

Perhaps part of the lack of interaction is that people don’t know how to respond in detail; I think also that there is a certain level of popular knowledge of and interest in Greco-Roman mythology and also in Egyptian mythology; I for one certainly know much less about Nordic mythology and it seems an interest less focused on, in Britain at any rate.

 

I am always interested when someone weaves a real world culture into the hobby universe - especially when it is (in my opinion) done well.

 

Of course, pictures are nice too! That’s the thing, we the followers are quite demanding...

Edited August 16, 2020 by Zebulon

[Ryltar Thamior]

“Be on thy guard against the Gryphons, the keen-mouthed unbarking hounds of Zeus, and the one-eyed Arimaspian host, who dwell around the stream flowing-with-gold, the ferry of Plouton.”

 

- Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 

 

Now as for what's going on here .. I do plan to get back to the more full-scale fluffsplication posting with various Indo-European mytholinguistic references - because there's several miniatures (some of which are already done, even) of relevancy to this - it'll be a bit of a crossover [even more so than already/usual] with Hara Barazaiti 

[Zebulon]

That’s a wonderfully apt Aeschylus quotation... plus the model looks good, too! I admire the posing and sense of movement.

 

I will pay attention to your other thread too, and see whether I can join the dots.

[Ryltar Thamior]

That’s a wonderfully apt Aeschylus quotation... plus the model looks good, too! I admire the posing and sense of movement.

 

I will pay attention to your other thread too, and see whether I can join the dots.

Churr - and yeah, it's something I've tried to do with the Mk.X kits [the Intercessor and Hellblasters i mean] - work out how to make sure that each and every Marine is different in their posing , and that all the posings actually make 'sense' and seem I suppose 'natural'. [insofar as , of course, a transhuman living weapon in ambulatory tank armour is, er, 'natural'] 

 

This has proven occasionally rather difficult - because, of course, there's only five basic poses for each kit in terms of legs and torso [not counting the easy-to-build ones and officers whether from Dark Imperium or elsewhere] , and there's a *really* limited array of arm-posings for weapon-swaps (not least due to the notably larger size of mk.x hands vs the older marine kit hands ... which means I'm often using *terminator* hands as a result; and the difficulty of using older marine kit *arms* without the completed miniature suffering from 't-rex syndrome' ] , because just about everything is some minor variation of either holding the weapon with both hands to shoot, or holding the weapon with both hands to not-shoot. 

 

Deathwatch kits do help , to a point ; although one of the best sources of arms for conversions such as these is actually the Dark Angel Ravenwing Command box - because they're a *lot* thicker due to the more 'knightly' armour going on . I'm also about to commence an experiment of sorts utilizing Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard arms, so that'll be interesting. [the 'experiment' refers more to whether I can get poses looking cool and 'natural' and also make the blood/tear-drop iconography be fluff-congruent rather than looking 'blood angel' in dark blue-green-grey ] 

 

But yeah, I lucked out somehow with this particular assault marine power-axe, because *somehow* it just seemed .. large enough and substantial/ / long enough in the forearm to be on a Mk.X suit ; and the otherwise slightly curious [curiously excellent] angling of the elbow and shoulder joint also seemed dynamic ; put it together with the pretty strange blood angel upgrade sprue heavy bolt pistol arm [pretty strange because the angle means that unless the torso's raised on teh right side like this, it's .. just odd in terms of where it's aiming or holding] , and it really just ... worked. 

 

oh, and in terms of where things are going - the Aeschylus quote turned up in the course of researching this article. 

 

and I say 'turned up in the course of researching this article', but really the article turned up in the course of working out what I had meant by putting Gryphon shoulder-pads on a few Harii :P 

 

this is how a lot of my work in that professional sphere goes - I start attempting to work out the background for a 40k project ... and all of a sudden, we have an article or a series. Which inevitably does strongly inform what goes on into the 40k effort, as well. 

[Zebulon]

oh, and in terms of where things are going - the Aeschylus quote turned up in the course of researching this article.

 

and I say 'turned up in the course of researching this article', but really the article turned up in the course of working out what I had meant by putting Gryphon shoulder-pads on a few Harii :P

 

this is how a lot of my work in that professional sphere goes - I start attempting to work out the background for a 40k project ... and all of a sudden, we have an article or a series. Which inevitably does strongly inform what goes on into the 40k effort, as well.

The article is...interesting. I suppose that in that context and that of the quote, you could cast your warriors both as the Gryphons AND as their Cyclopean adversaries...?!

 

Again, it’s one of the joys of this hobby isn’t it, that often simply by beginning research from a single word can lead to many “happy accidents” where one finds further ideas and even quotes that fit happily into the narrative you are forming :tu:

[Ryltar Thamior]

"Ormar fleiri liggja und aski Yggdrasils,

en þat of hyggi hverr ósviðra apa:

Góinn ok Móinn, þeir ro Grafvitnis synir,

Grábakr ok Grafvölluðr, Ófnir ok Sváfnir,

hygg ek, at æ skyli meiðs kvistu má."

"Beneath the autumnal leaves that spread

The ground below the forest's head,

More hissing serpents daily glide,

Than e'er unwary Mon-keigh spied.

Grafvitner's sons are long decreed,

Daily on the Ash to feed."

 

[Ryltar Thamior]

Latest Harii pre-painting. The idea is a specialist anti-Astates 'Eitr' unit - the poison symbolized by the drop. 

[Ryltar Thamior]

The Eitr 



This is one of those areas where my work really ... informed the conceptry for the miniature in perhaps unexpected ways. 

Eitr, in Old Norse, is a concept that means both 'Poison' , and also 'Rage'. But more curiously, is the fact that both the term and the mythology suggest it *should* also have a meaning correlated to 'Life' (sort-of) and the imbuement thereof. There's some peripheral material I keep meaning to write upon around how 'To Be Angry' and 'To Be Alive' are pretty coterminous in the archaic Indo-European conceptry. 

So what does this have to do with the miniature? Well, I had the sudden burst of inspiration for a 'Marine-Killer' specialization within the Harii. A unit that would have as its prime impetus and purpose, the combating of other Astartes. Except in order to do this - superior training, tactics, and combat techniques would not be enough. Special enhancements were required. In this case, the best mechanism to improve a weapon, upon occasion, is to improve its ammunition. 



We already know that various Astartes (and other Imperial groups) make use of specialist ammunition designed to defeat particular opponents - Banestrike and Vengeance rounds, for instance. My concept for Eitr munitions, was that they'd work to take down Marines in a different way. Not simply penetrating power armour better - but acting directly upon the Astartes within to take him out of the fight. 

But how? The Marine's enhanced physiology is strongly resistant to most poisons, and their metabolism is capable of handling all manner of introduced toxins with relative ease. Well, that's the trick, isn't it. 

I decided that instead of seeking to impair the Marine by the conventional mechanism of slowing down, injuring, etc. him ... these would go the opposite route: they'd introduce a toxin that would significantly *enhance* the way his physiology was working. Driving things up to eleven, to the point that the Marine's own body effectively tore itself apart as various processes competed to consume all available energy and go-for-broke in overdrive all at the same time. A nasty way to go. 

But, then, these are nasty marines. 



It fits with the underlying etymological sense for 'Eitr' - which if you trace it back, links to terms for 'Swelling', 'Tumor', etc. ; as well as one of the sources of Eitr in the Nordic mythology - the mouths of serpents [like 'Adder'] [this is also one of the reasons it's prominent in Nastrond, part of the Nordic underworld (as part of a Punishment for the Wicked); the other assumedly being the flowing of waters from Elivagar, the Ice-Waves, down thereto].

So - too much 'life' inevitably ending in death. A fate ironically brought about precisely via those mechanisms that would otherwise preserve an Astartes from a more generally lethal concoction ; and which would render this ammunition less useful against merely human foe [who would still have to contend with the fact they'd been hit by an armour-piercing bolt-shell].



Now, as for the rest of the detailing on the miniature ... the green drops on one shoulderpad ought be obvious in their symbolism; however, the 'Death-in-Life' motif is present upon both that and the star-ringed skull on the other pauldron. There's a conceptual overlap of 'Gold' and 'Green' in PIE [it's what underpins 'Chloros' in Greek - and yes, the 'Pale' colour of Death of a certain Horseman in Reveleations], so it seemed an apt combination for the colouration of these devices: a Gold Sun (for 'Life'), with the venomous Green housed prominently or skulkingly within it. 

In terms of armament, a wrist-mounted bolter (or, perhaps, semi-carbine assault variety thereof) seemed logical - the better to keep one hand free for close combat (either adding strength to the axe's wielding, or picking up the rather lengthy knife at his waist - note the Hagalaz runic talisman affixed thereupon ... this rune described in the Icelandic Rune Poem linked with the "Sickness of Serpents"; and generally referring to Ice from the Sky as a destructive, (natural) phenomenon heaven-sent ); an axe seemed logical partially for Nordic theme, and partially to aid with armour penetration when going up against power or even terminator armour. 



A masked visage also seemed appropriate, for .. several reasons; and a backpack-mounted targetter, likewise. 

Oddly enough, this isn't the first one of these I started to build. I had this particular interceptor body around, and was trying to work out what to do with the otherwise ungainly pose; so pressed ahead with the concept I'd earlier developed for another mk.x body. It's actually turned out really well! 

In any case ... a *brief* tour inside my thought-process behind the miniature. I do this level of thing with .. many of them. It's partially why I'm so slow at producing figures or fluff pieces to go with :P 

[Zebulon]

 

 

When boiling rage//surges in our veins,

Brother, then we know that we still live!

Bring me another//let me test my skill

I’m all out of :cuss: to give!

 

Excellent as always. Your Eitr would be very welcome in the ranks of the Black Psalm, if they ever let the voices in the corners of their minds speak out, and they start to pay heed!

 

The mechanism of the poison you mention reminds me rather of a certain IRL disease you may have heard of this year... prompting a cytokine storm which overreacts and (in layman’s terms) :cuss: up your body. How... nurglish!

 

I think it’s time you came to the dark side :p :D

[Ryltar Thamior]

Been awhile since I managed another Harii 







And, with one I prepared earlier ...

[Urauloth]

I like the variety of helms on these, and the poses. Interesting to see a Norse-influenced chapter other than the Space Wolves.

[Ryltar Thamior]

I like the variety of helms on these, and the poses. Interesting to see a Norse-influenced chapter other than the Space Wolves.

Churr. And yeah, as applies the helms and poses ... it's something that frustrated me significantly about the Primaris kits. They're so ... "monopose" isn't quite the right word, but they certainly don't have the freedom and flexibility of the older plastics. I dislike miniatures looking exactly the same bar the paintjob, so variancy was called for. I also ... can't abide 'unrealistic' / 'unnatural' postures, so part of why I'm so slow at building is because I keep fiddling a round until something looks broadly "right", "natural". 

 

As applies helms ... I don't know quite why it is, but I don't think I've ever actually done a miniature that's wearing the proper Mk.X helmet. Maybe it's because "technically" , these are supposed to be not Primaris but rather truescales [most of whom I've done the lazy way - there's only one or two 'proper' truescales in this force] , and a helmet is an easy way to distinguish from actual Primaris in terms of aesthetic. I also just really like how the tartaros helm looks on a mk.x body. 

 

I'm also a theologian by profession who ... spends a lot of his time working with Germanic materials [inter alia] - so a lot of my research in that field turns up in my miniature efforts, and vice versa. I'll always have love for the Wolves [was my first 'proper' army way back twenty years ago or so; and I've done ... a fair few truescale Space Wolves for both Heresy and subsequent eras since], but it definitely needed to be a non-VIth canvas to work upon for this project - much more freedom to do what I do. 

 

And, of course, the vitally important different 'totemic' animal :P 

 

Thanks for the kind words ! 

[Zebulon]

It is for sure a shame that newer models don’t offer the flexibility of older ones, but I guess some see that as a challenge?!

 

As you say, anatomical reality is also an important constraint - I do spend a fair bit of time trying to gauge how far a torso can twist at the hips, or the correct angle between forearm and wrist for a marine to be holding a weapon at, without risking a nasty sprain... and interestingly, the models don’t always seem to have it right until one gets the craft knife out...

 

Nice work on your sledgehammer dudes :tu: