Vox Stellarum: Hara Barazaiti

[Prim]

Very impressive set of minis you've put together here. The M113 looks very suited to the battlefields of the far future.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Very impressive set of minis you've put together here. The M113 looks very suited to the battlefields of the far future.

Churr. Just wait til I've finished the Bradley. 

 

Or, for that matter, properly started the LAVIII .. 

[Ryltar Thamior]

Dzungaria Warden 

[Ryltar Thamior]

The Battle of Ondlangr [Part 2 - The Markhour Campaign Begins ; A Desant In The Desert] 




Were it not for the direct evidence of its occurrence 'midst the burned-out tank wrecks that litter its surrounds and the miraculously unexploded artillery shells housed in the museum-shrine adjacent, the events of the much-storied Battle of Ondlangr could hardly be believed. 

 

Even today, some decades after its eventuation, there remains some considerable obstinacy outside of Adamantia in acknowledging its outcome. And understandably so - for when near two and a half thousand men accompanied by forty pieces of armour bear down upon a hastily congealed defensive position held by less than a hundred under-equipped troops ... it should take nothing less than an absolute miracle for the latter not merely to hold back, but actually to rout the former. 

 

And a 'miracle' is exactly what the Adamantine folklore that has grown up around the site asserts to have occurred there and then. 

 

To situate the engagement in its proper context, the encounter at Ondlangr took place during the abortive initial phases of the Markhour campaign for supremacy on Dhanvan. 

 

The world of Dhanvan was one of those which had been 'partitioned' decades earlier as the result of the Damyati Initiative; the dividing line between Markhour apportioned territory and those of the Vayomani Confederation - the nearest post-Adamantine princely state - running right the way through the star-system, and thus necessitating the similar bisecting of the habitable worlds therein with terrestrial (planetside) boundaries. 

 

In order to either capture the world outright or at least deny its potential use as a staging-ground for harrying attacks behind the lines of the Markhouran stellar advance, Dhanvan would need to be cut off from space. And in order to accomplish that, its various starports, aerospace bases and landing-fields upon the Vayoman side of the land-border would need to be neutralized, rendered inoperable, captured, or outright destroyed. 

 

A pre-emptive campaign of aerospace strikes dubbed 'Operation Ghash-Navi Khan' after the dynasty's founder succeeded in damaging several of these sites closer to the border, although for the most part in ways that were relatively swiftly recoverable from. Their main objective, however, had not been to permanently disable these facilities (although that would, unquestionably, have provided an ample bonus) - but rather, to take them out of action for just long enough that a Khanate ground-thrust could make it across the border unimpeded and break through to capture the facilities both on the ground and in person - 'Operation Labbaykha' [so named for a ritual term of the Markhour's iteration of the Imperial Cult: an expression simultaneously announcing the pious man's arrival as a declaration of his intent to embark upon pilgrimage, and carrying the connotation of "ongoing submission"]. 

 

In the case of the Huskaala operational sector, this mandated a swift sprint past Ondlangr (a site so insignificant it hardly registered upon Markhour maps) heading directly for the local communications hub and military staging post at E'Rumkhoth [somewhat figuratively translated: 'Fort in the middle of nowhere'] and the large aerospace base at Hreumigarh ['Dusty/Roaring/Famed' depending upon inflection, plus 'Enclosure/Fort/Settlement']. 

 

Near Ondlangr, the border-zones of Dhanvan are dominated by open, arid terrain that provides little cover for a sustained advance; ash-deserts and heat-blasted sand all coming under the sovereign dominion of the Wind in the Sky (a fact referenced in its toponym - literally translated, 'Long(Expanse) of Wind'; although carrying other means, also - with the meaning-field for 'langr' including 'ancient' (as in 'long ago'), and 'Ond' also having a meaning of 'Spirit']. It would therefore provide a risky theater stage for which to make a mad dash shortly after midnight; one that could surely only be rendered accomplishable by denying the Vayomen any opportunity for air-interdiction upon the route and the way. 

 

As it was anticipated that their relatively light sortie bombing capacity would mean the Markhour would be unable to incapacitate the defenders' aerospace facilities for more than a few days at absolute maximum, speed would be of the essence for the ground assault. Extra fuel tanks were therefore fitted to most of the Markhour armour, with a view to mimimizing their potential need to halt for resupply en route to the objective - a decision that would have unforeseen consequences when they finally did make contact with the enemy. 

 

The initial phases of the plan proceeded with almost textbook proficiency. Markhour forces were mustered close to the border under cover of darkness awaiting the signal that the local Vyoman air capability had been neutralized; then embarked upon their race across the desert through the supposedly empty Ondlangr sector towards the now-silenced Hreumigarh aerospace base. However, it has long been observed that "no plan survives contact with the enemy" - and thus it was for the land counterpart to Operation Ghash-Navi Khan. 

 

Only a few kilometers across the border, the Markhour column was detected by a small advance recon party of Vayomani infantry who had been sent ahead from their forward operating post at the old Adamantine temple ruins of Ondlangr. For whatever reason, these ruins and their current occupants had escaped notice by the Markhour planners, and it had been presumed that there should be no - or at least minimal - resistance to be encountered at any point between the Markhour's starting position and their initial major objective at E'Rumkhoth . And technically, this was true. The scant hundred men present at Ondlangr were outnumbered twenty five to one, and were dramatically under-equipped to confront an encroaching armoured formation at range. Even had they been aware of the Vayomani position at Ondlangr, it is highly unlikely that this would have impacted the Markhour's plans for the advance. 

 

Up until it did - in a big way. 

 

Following the commencement of Khanate airstrikes, Major Sarvatyr had sensed the likely course of impending events and dispatched one of his squads to a point nearer the border along the most plausible axial of advance to lay in watch for the expected Markhour thrust. They did not have long to wait - for perhaps an hour after midnight, the Markhour column was first heard, and then seen; the information as to its size and heading voxed back to Sarvatyr's position at Ondlangr. This was, in turn, relayed back to battalion HQ at E'Rumkhoth along with an urgent request for reinforcement or other support. It was, predictably, deemed highly unlikely that sufficient forces could either be spared to be sent to Ondlangr - or that these should be able to reach the position in time even if they had been available. Sarvatyr was therefore offered the choice of either remaining where and as he was and desperately endeavouring to hold back the onrushing Markhour tide for as long as possible ... or conducting an immediate withdrawal back towards the stronger defensive situation around the battalion HQ several dozen kilometers removed. 

 

For Sarvatyr, a staunchly devout adherent to the Adamantine Old Faith and quietly committed Adamani-Rashtriyak [revanchist/revivalist], this was no choice at all. Even had he been inclined to abandon an ancient site of Adamantine worship to the depradations of a Markhour infidel column - and in so doing, leave open the pathway for the Khanate to close its grasp upon the world entire ... a retreat would have proven futile in the extreme. His company was almost entirely sans sufficient transport to effect such an escape - and fleeing on foot would just result in their being run down by the adversary regardless. If contact with the enemy was to prove inevitable, then it was best done in pre-prepared and familiar defensive setting rather than out on the road or 'midst the dunes in the darkness like prey-animals scattering from a hunter. And perhaps, just perhaps, they may wreak enough havoc upon the famously arrogant Markhour to give them pause afore their next jingoistic swagger of pretentiously militaristic faux-braggadocio. 

 

The Vayomani therefore dug in further as best they could, emplaced an impromptu minefield bolstered with improvised munitions hastily rewired to pressure-plate detonators, hastily re-strung some limited barbed wire from the perimeter fencing to cover the gap in the mines, checked their allocations and fields of fire for their support weapons, and prepared to meet their fate. 

 

They would not have to wait for long.

----

IRL Author's note: some of the details of this probably already sound frankly unbelievable/implausible. I don't disagree. But you see, I've actually based this rather closely on a particular historical engagement - and yes, yes those are roughly the numbers involved on either side ... 

 

[Brother Lunkhead]

Very fine work...... Looking forward to seeing and reading more

[Ryltar Thamior]

The Battle of Ondlangr [Part 3 - The First Assault ; A Fiery Fog Of War ; A Sudden Reversal]



Markhour forward recce elements happened across the desperate defensive position as it was still in the final phases of being thrown together. Unsure what strength of opposition awaited them there in the darkness, yet unkeen to move closer to more properly find out - the Markhour scouts had promptly called in a bombardment, hoping to wipe the potential hazard from the map afore the Khanate's main column could become imperiled by whatever had been dug in there. Both long-range artillery and Markhour air power redirected their attentions from their previously set targets to hone in upon this now-worrisome unanticipated obstacle. This had the handy impact of helping to relieve pressure upon Vayomani formations and facilities elsewhere in the general operational sector, the diversion of Markhour aerospace assets in particular assisting with the Vayomani's mustering and maneuver of their own ground forces some kilometers back as they desperately raced to plug the now gapingly apparent hole in their mid-lines that the Markhour thrust past Ondlangr had been intended to exploit. 

 

However that was not the only fortuitous consequence of the somewhat panicked Markhour reconnaissance teams' reporting of the situation at Ondlangr. Whether due to genuine misapprehension, or simply an ignoble desire to corral and conjure as much long-distance heavy supporting fire as possible so as to avoid having to carry out a more intimate and proper probing of the position, the Markhour scouts' messages back to their command had significantly overestimated the size and strength of the Vayomani force entrenched there. This meant that instead of the almost comically outnumbered Vayomen simply being bypassed by the Markhour's column as it diverted itself slightly to continue its mad dash for Hreumigarh, orders were issued to take the Vayomani position and neutralize with extreme prejudice what now appeared to the Markhour command to be a sizeable Vayomani force of perhaps battalion strength that would be well capable of marauding through the Markhour lines of communication and supply if left unmolested. 

 

Acting under heavy (if imprecise) fire and bombing, the Vayomani worked furiously to finish their mining of the major approaches to their improvised strongpoint as best they could, with a single Vayoman soldier meeting his martyrdom in this way almost as the last mine was laid, unable to make it back into the relative safety of the hastily-dug trench-lines. A length of razor-wire formerly from the forward operating post's perimeter fencing (and more ordinarily utilized simply to keep the local large wildlife from wandering into the base) was also swiftly strung up across one rather large swathe where there had been neither sufficient time nor munitions to mine the surface. It would most certainly fulfil its role keeping the 'Goats' from the premises in the close fighting to come. [Note: 'Markhour', whilst more directly translating from their language as 'Snake Eater', refers to a rather large species of goat adopted as a totemic animal by the Khanate in ages past]

 

At approximately 02:30 local time, some two hours after the Markhour had crossed the Line Of Partition and via the light of the full moon, the main column of their advance in Huskaal sector arrived at Ondlangr. Markhour infantry that had been riding on the exterior hulls of their force's armour contingent dismounted. To the untrained eye, it might have appeared that a proper combined-arms assault was about to commence. However, a more experienced observer would have noted that relative to the quotient of armour present the Markhour infantry were too few for such a maneuver to be undertaken in earnest - and nor did they seem equipped for tank desant tactics. 

 

The shortfall of infantry numbers for an assault upon a prepared position through unfamiliar and unscouted terrain was due to the inadequacies of the Markhour's transport motor-pool for what had been demanded of it for Operation Labbaykha. A cross-country sprint through the desert is no easy thing for a part-mechanized part-motorized force to accomplish, and the shifting dunes of ash and sand had already lain claim to a number of breakdowns and boggings of the Markhour's vehicles. This meant that what arrived at Ondlangr in the first wave was overwhelmingly armour - both because these more hardy (and, not coincidentally, more well-maintained due to the greater relative prestige of the unit-class in Khanate military society) vehicles had fared better with the treacherous terrain they were expected to swiftly advance over than the transports (particularly the wheeled trucks employed for much of the infantry component to the task-force); but also due to the comparatively limited space (and enthusiasm) available on each tank for infantry riders. 

 

To make matters worse, the number of breakdowns (or simple non-availability of supposedly pre-requisitioned transport) necessitated that a fairly large number of Markhour infantry were forced to march across the desert on foot, meaning that when they arrived they would likely be considerably fatigued and ill-prepared for immediate combat. 

 

A sensible commander may have paused at this point, and allowed his reinforcements to catch up with his vanguard afore endeavouring to commence the actual assault - however the Markhour had never been particularly known for their restraint nor their patience; and with fresh berating from operational command for the position to be taken without further delay so as to enable the general thrust to continue unabated, the on-site Markhour field-commander prepared to do just that. It was to prove a costly enthusiasm. 

 

The first wave of the Khanate assault consisted of over a dozen tanks, small knots of Khanate infantry bunched up behind them to provide some shelter from the anticipated withering firestorm of Vayomani defensive wardings. They rumbled up the sandy sloping incline toward the approximate position that the Markhour's scouting party had reported enemy visual contact not all that long before, the lack of obvious signs of resistance or the entrenchment of the supposedly battalion-sized force they had been told to expect giving them an increasingly false sense of confidence that the Vayomani might already have retreated from the area or the recon team been confused as to what they may have seen. Little did they imagine that they were marching down the jawline of a Manticore - albeit one far smaller in size and therefore more easily overlooked than they had, perhaps, anticipated. Although despite its diminutive dimensions, the Manticore would most certainly not be 'missing' the Markhour.  

 

Acutely aware of their increasingly finite munitions supplies relative to the ever-more-numerous arrivals of the foe, Major Sarvatyr had ordered at the outset the troops under his command to only engage at close range and when a kill was virtually assured. This meant that the Markhour's probing advance got within roughly thirty meters of the Vayomani trench-lines before the first weapon opened up - one of the two old anti-tank weapons that had been hastily pressed back into service shortly before the commencement of hostilities proper at the hands of the Markhour. Firing from a slightly elevated position amidst the fragmented outer ruins of the temple complex and from the back of a scouting vehicle, the Vayomani crew landed a direct hit on the top armour of an advancing Markhour tank - a Khanate-produced 'Dhiraar'. 

 

The Dhiraar was a cavalry tank in the old tradition, modelled upon the Markhour's own more illustrious past as a horse-borne hussar-esque force of Steppe raiders in Astra Militarum service. When utilized properly over open, steady ground they could be deadly - outmaneuvering more stately armoured opponents by driving faster than their turrets might feasibly traverse to track them and appearing unexpectedly within the adversary's rear-armour arc or simply bypassing defences entirely to go marauding through the enemy's backline before disappearing as the anguished foe came to check their progress. For their intended role in Operation Labbaykha - that of cutting off the Vayomani command post at E'Rumkhoth and rendering the ill-defended aerospace base at Hreumigarh more permanently inoperable - they would have been sufficient. 

 

Inadequately armoured for drawn-out slugging matches and designed to be operated in significant numbers at higher speed under potent conditions of air superiority or pervasive ground AA cover, the Dhiraar was a less than ideal choice for hurling at an entrenched position under ideal circumstances. Lacking advanced internal optics or proper protection for the in-turret stored magazine, the Dhiraar was additionally vulnerable in this chaotic setting of a moonlit night assault over uncertain ground and against what now appeared to be close-range heavy firepower. The first penetrating hit, therefore, was also the first Vayomani kill; the ammunition inside the Dhiraar's turret cooking off and unleashing its destruction within the enclosed environment of the crew compartment rather than upon the Vayomani. It would not be the last to fall. 

 

Noticing the large extended-range fuel-tanks that were still affixed to the rear engine decks of the Markhour armour, the Vayomani began to target these with their crew-served anti-infantry weapons, looking to take some of the pressure off the limited anti-tank munitions stores available to them. While it might not actually knock out the tank in the conventional sense, a detonation or even simply a leak of fuel over a Dhiraar's rear would certainly give the Markhour inside pause - and would just as importantly serve to drive back or wound the Markhour infantry that were skulking behind them. 

 

The targeting of the Markhour armour's auxiliary fuel tanks was also done with another purpose in mind - the creation of an impenetrable acrid wall of petrochemical smoke which would further assist in screening the Vayomani positions from any attempts at mid-range fire support from the Markhour still forming up in the impromptu staging area several hundred meters distant from whence this initial assault had come. As the smoke was produced by live fires fueled by the dirty-burning propellants of the Markhour armour, it would be significantly more effective than conventional mortar-deployed smoke at blocking infrared scopes and other advanced optics the Markhour might be able to bring to bear to more accurately assay the Vayomani's situation. Cutting off the immediate battle-ground from visual co-ordination with those attempting to command the Khanate forces within was a further bonus - the engagement could now begin to be fought more upon the Vayomani's terms rather than the Markhour's. 

 

This did not appear to dissaude the Markhour field commander, however - whose prompt response to the loss of a number of his initial commitment of tanks to the fray was to immediately send in additional units to follow up; hoping to capitalize upon any initial gains made and quickly overwhelm whatever it was that faced them on the other side of the rapidly-darkening flame-fog which now formed the outer edge of the zone of engagement. It might seem a block-headed and wasteful maneuver - however, in sufficient numbers, and with additional infantry having been committed to the assault in support, it may have succeeded suppressing the Vayomani defenders enough for Khanate forces to reach the trench-lines and begin overwhelming the adversary in earnest through superior numbers and purported martial zeal. 

 

The tactic was defeated, however, by the simple line of strung razorwire that the Vayomani had desperately deployed in order to cover the gap in their hastily emplaced improvised minefields. Khanate infantry advancing behind the Dhiraar tanks became aware of the obstacle and - perhaps unduly influenced by the burning hulks of Markhour armour which lay immediately beyond it - frantically voxed this in as having encountered an active minefield to both their Dhiraar crewmen comrades and the Markhour's local command. The Markhour assault therefore stalled as its constituent components began to twist and turn about to attempt to back up and escape the imagined peril. This would have been bad enough under conventional circumstances - but on the loose-soft ash and sand of Ondlangr, the results quickly became catastrophic. Tanks which had already struggled to move freely became easily bogged down, their shifting and reversing in a bid to retrace their tracks leaving road-wheels spinning and kicking up dust that gave them no momentum. Panicked crews pushing to back and front their way onto more solid ground so as to make their escape in earnest unwittingly exposed weaker side or even rear armour to deadly-accurate Vayomani fire. Others simply abandoned their vehicles once they refused to respond to the drivers' desperate inchoate maneuvers and ran back towards the Markhour staging-grounds on the other side of the curtain of smoke - anticipating that this would shroud them from the vengeful Vayomani volleys, and yet inciting further diminished morale in the Markhour infantry that still remained pinned down in the immediate engagement zone behind their former armoured steeds. 

 

Even outside the burning hell that the area between the initial knocked out Dhiraars and the Vayomani trenchline had become, Markhour armour turned about and moved to break off the attack by heading back to their own staging area.  The third wave of newly arrived Khanate forces had no desire to share the evident fate of the first two.

 

The most remarkable detail to the debacle was that, as it later became apparent once Markhour combat engineers had been brought up to accompany a subsequent assault some two hours later, the razorwired area had not even been mined; indeed, the length of immediately obvious obstacle that had been strung out by the Vayomani had been placed there precisely because it was the gap in their buried explosive defences. 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Ryltar Thamior

[Ryltar Thamior]

The Hunt For The Varuna - Garj Kravyasson's Arka Raiders 



Following the Fall of Adamantia, the Inquisitorial conclave attached to the Crusade engaged in as comprehensive as possible an accounting of the Adamanticores' installations, personnel, and fleet assets.

The officially stated purpose was to ensure that as large a swathe of the Chapter and its holdings as could be attested had been encountered and destroyed in combat, never again to stand in alleged defiance of the Imperium's institutional masters. 

However, the true objective to this reckoning was much more closely aligned to the actual impetus that had underlain the Crusade all along - safeguarding the surreptitious seizing of the Adamanticores' wealth of knowledge and artifice to the benefit of those shadowy forces whose envious eyes had coveted these all along. 

To this end, great herds of dhatanalysts were set to scour through all after-action reports and other information gathered in the course of the Crusade, painstakingly matching these kernels and skerricks up with what had been observed, known, or otherwise previously reported of the Adamanticores' strength and holdings. 

Much was, indeed, either directly accounted for or inferred reasonably to have become sundered upon the anvil of war beyond all hope of physical retrieval. Yet curious discrepancies continued to occur - seeming entire companies of Astartes destroyed several times over in successive actions upon opposite sides of the Adamantine stellar domain; specialized forge-fanes which, while detected from orbit during the surreptitious surveillance missions carried out in the decades preceding the Crusade's official commencement, now appeared to have vanished off into thin air; archaic patterns of weaponry theoretically not produced in any great numbers for millennia being encountered with fresh abundance.

Much of this had been anticipated - and, indeed, was a large quotient of the reasoning for the Crusade's occurrence in the first instance; but some of it most definitely had not. And great wailing and gnashing of teeth was beheld by those party to the true minds of the Crusade's authorship - denied the most luminous of their hoped-for stolen prizes by the cunning of the Adamanticores of Adamantia even in their death-throes. 

Those greedy gazes who had sought to seize that which lay beyond their grasp through martial reaching through the Crusade therefore turned to more subtle mechanisms to hopefully secure that which they had cravenly felt to be theirs bestowed by right. 

As the Crusade dispersed, its forces disbanded and withdrew to depart for fresh war-zones and more genuine threats to the Imperium's existence elsewhere, the crafty minds of the cabal who had brought them there hatched a new and more perspicacious plot. 

Knowing that the treasures and the trinkets of Adamantia's wondrous heritage still lurked out there in the vastness of the Spoil, yet unable to devote the army-sized manpower commitments of specialized coteries that would surely be required to ferret it all out themselves without attracting undue attention from their own envious erstwhile colleagues amidst other Imperial institutions, they undertook the more indirect approach. 

Rumours were seeded about great and fabulous stores of wealth from afore the Fall lingering beneath the ashen dust of various worlds, and great ghost-stories of long-abandoned fortifications, bunker-complexes, and phantom ships or shipwrecks were embedded into the successor cultures of the Spoil ; popularized particularly amongst the colonizing populations brought in from beyond Adamantia's old reaches - who were felt far less likely to reverently keep secret any resultant finds in the ensuing treasure hunting. And, with small antiquities dealerships of the legitimate iteration along with somewhat smaller yet more lucrative and deeper in scope smuggling concerns for other finds also covertly, tacitly promulgated ... treasure hunting, there most definitely was in earnest. 

Even if the Outlanders would often find themselves having to fend off aggressive, angry and aggrieved groups of Adamantine locals outraged at the perceived desecration of their once-mighty heritage by parties of would-be 'grave-robbers'; or, for that matter, the conservators of Adamantine-culture reliquaries who were vigorous in their opinion that the artefacts in question belonged in museums in the name of 'rebuilding' or 'understanding' Heritage - instead of private collections or unscrupulous unseen hands further afield.

However, some native Adamantine-born adventurers straddled the line between both sides - at least in public. Making use of their expertise and associates to turn up just enough in the way of officially saleable antiquities (preferably to legitimate Adamantine-oriented institutions, of course) to fund their private passions for knowledge and (re-)discovery in earnest. Some of them even hoped to do their part as quiet Adamani-Rashtriyakshas to restore the heritage in question in a more meaningful, enduring, and above all - living - sense. 

Some even appeared to have the subtle support of some of those hidden authorities who had once upon a time brought (and then defended) Adamantia into being in the first place. Covert factions of the Inquisition, somehow-resurrected Adamanticores or Adamantine lords of ostensibly mortal origins from long ago, obscure (or obscurated) Adeptus Mechanicus sodalities, and other more esoterically arcane groupings besides. 

Garj Kravyasson was one of this latter clade. 



[Pict-capture: Kravyasson on the left ; on the right, what appears to be a genehanced yet albino soldier bearing some suspicious phenotypic coterminities with various proximate heroes of the Imperium]

Born into a life of moderate privilege as a son of minor nobility in the post-Adamantia Spoil of M39, Kravyasson found himself compelled in later life to seek out and engage with the ancestral heritage of the Adamantia of more than a thousand years afore. 

Lacking a formal education in the relevant fields, yet conspicuously eschewing such on grounds that he viewed the academic orthodoxy of foreign universities to be hopelessly compromised by the hidden agendas of those who had brought Adamantia low once before, Kravyasson found himself hounded out of the political sphere of the Spoil via trumped up charges of narcotic distribution - and therefore with little choice but to engage with his more true life's calling in greater earnest. 

Whilst he experienced some noticeable success in this field, he and his cohorts vanished without trace on their last expedition - a quest to piece together the final voyage and ultimate resting place of one of the flagships of the Adamanticores' demesne fleet: The Varuna. 

Signs and portents were tantalizingly teased out from ancient legends and archaic recordings, seeking to understand the nature of the ship in its pre-Fall context afore pressing forward with charting its course toward apparent oblivion at some indistinct point during the Fall. 

It may have seemed the proverbial fool's errand - a wild hunt for a phantom treasure prosecuted upon the basis of half-remembered ghost-stories. And yet, the clues continued to pile up. Kravyasson began to believe that he was Divinely guided, by the Adi-Mata of the Old Adamantine Faith; others suspected that some of those shadowy forces who had initially sought to bring the Adamanticores to ruin now fed the man with what information they themselves had cobbled together with a view to following him to claim his prize should he prove successful in its seeking.

Whatever the ultimate truth of the matter, Kravyasson's last recorded transmissions of progress before his disappearance seemed to suggest that he was upon the close trail of something seriously significant. This may have been dismissed as the patois of the professional scoundrel - a man who made his fortune via the enrapturing of the easily-clad enthusiastic expectations of others; yet Kravyasson, unlike various other plyers of the Spoil's archaeo-antiquities trade, was no con-artist. And while occasionally prone to letting his excitement get the better of him, there appeared something different in his final missives - they expressed a solemn, almost reverent sense of zeal and immediate attainment. Further proof as to his remarkable discovery was to be imminently forthcoming. 

And then, there was none. 

Multiple search-quests by various interested parties (both friend or family and foe) failed to turn up any meaningful sign. Psychic investigations and scrying by the more powerful of Kravyasson's backers and hidden manipulators also failed to deliver any answer. It was almost as if he and his crew had vanished out of time or space. 

As it happened, this expression may have been closer than any realized to the truth - as suddenly, in amidst the general turmoil enfolding Adamantia's former spheres in M42, Garj Kravyasson And Company mysteriously seemed to reappear. 

Only this time, they were not alone ... 

---



[Pict-capture: Members of Kravyasson's 'Arka Raiders' company; L: a young aspiring zealot bearing what appear to be archaeotech bionic arms and las-weapon; R: one of Kravyasson's more mature lieutenants, garbed in an explorator's environmentally protected pressure-suit and ready for 'welcomers'.]



[Two 'Breaching Section' members, both exhibiting the albinism that characterized the clade for reasons unknown to external authorities - although bearing some degree of resemblance to foot-troopers encountered during the purgation of the unsanctioned Inquisitorial facility codenamed 'Gimle'] 



[L: An older associate of Kravyasson's, potentially connected to the Thorian expedition alleged to have passed through the worlds of the Spoil in years past afore vanishing among Eldar ruins while pursuing an entrance to the so-called 'Golden Web Between Worlds'; R: A naval officer , his ornate uniform and cuirass suggesting an origin exterior to the Adamantia successor sphere proper] 



[A servitor equipped with a mining-laser , acting as mobile, ambulatory, virtually all-terrain excavation equipment - or defence ]

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Impressive work on the models.

[Zebulon]

Impressive work on the models.

Yes, but the writing is also top-drawer.

 

These Adamanticores are truly the stuff of legend! Will we get to hear more about the way that these supposedly long-dead warriors are in fact prevailing and fighting a shadow war/guerilla action against the Imperium? I suspect not, as that would ruin the suspense...!

 

Also, I may have missed something as I am invariably fatigued whenever I read these threads - not by the text, but general wear and tear is starting to set in I fear... I could really do with a Haemastamen and possibly a Catalepsean node, too...

[Ryltar Thamior]

Very fine work...... Looking forward to seeing and reading more

 

 

Impressive work on the models.

 

 

 

Impressive work on the models.

Yes, but the writing is also top-drawer.

 

These Adamanticores are truly the stuff of legend! Will we get to hear more about the way that these supposedly long-dead warriors are in fact prevailing and fighting a shadow war/guerilla action against the Imperium? I suspect not, as that would ruin the suspense...!

 

Also, I may have missed something as I am invariably fatigued whenever I read these threads - not by the text, but general wear and tear is starting to set in I fear... I could really do with a Haemastamen and possibly a Catalepsean node, too...

 

I thank you all for the kind words - and I'm glad that the writing's also being, well, read. 

 

Although as applies the length of some of it etc. ... I keep trying to do more with less - that is to say, write *less* and more concisely; and it just never seems quite right, so things expand and billow out more again. 

 

That, and as far as the Battle of Ondlangr pieces are going - well, it wouldn't seem right to do it in a few sentences, even though it almost certainly could be. 

 

I actually managed the entire thing in about two paragraphs in the real-world article I did which touches upon the real-world battle that it's heavily inspired by; but part of what I've found I really like doing is seeing how elements fit together when it comes to strategy and why an operation looks the way it does, why it works out really well or fails. 

 

So you can certainly see that with what I'm driving at with the Battle of Ondlangr writeup - I spent awhile analyzing after-action-reports and other such things for the historic battle it's drawn from; and I've also been subtly folding in a few other elements as well here and there from my readings or thinkings in other military-relevant spheres. 

 

Of course, the risk is that this produces something akin to what an associate termed "the dryness of a World War Two documentary-book" [or words to that effect], and I can kinda see what he was getting at. People tend to prefer explosions and adrenal-dumps into the bloodstream from reading about something more immanently immersive - something more exciting than the dispassionate post-facto analytical view. But Forgeworld Black Books do well,l enough with this approach - so there's evidently *some* audience for it if done well or about a conflict of interest. 

 

Although I must say, I've often found some of the more recent Codex presentations of this kind of thing to be .. skin-deep at best. Instead of serious strategic development or presentation, stuff just happens to make a unit or a character look good - reserves appear out of thin air , characters that have remarkable perspicacity and forward-planning abilities in other circumstances wind up carrying a designated idiot ball, and as applies what's being presented the nicest thing I can probably say is the same remark uttered at the Charge of the Light Brigade: "It is magnificent - but it is not war". 

 

Anyway, it's also a change of pace for me as compared to theological concept explication and other things of that nature. Although I've *still* somehow managed to keep up the multi-lingual references and incorporations. 

 

One thing I *might* try and do in the name of .. making things easier to follow - and also easier to keep straight in my head, perhaps - is compile a thread in the Liber section or something. Partially so 'narrative' stuff is (also) in a section of the forums that people tend  to be more keen on that kind of thing ; but also because with the plethora of toponyms, religious concepts, nations or peoples, and other such things I've developed .. well .. having them all in one place with simple one-line explications might be useful. 

 

--

 

Now, in terms of the question around "Will we get to hear more about the way that these supposedly long-dead warriors are in fact prevailing and fighting a shadow war/guerilla action against the Imperium?"

 

Well .. it's important to note the broadness and complexity of "Imperium" in this context. So when the current Crusade shows up in M42 - acting to resist that isn't *necessarily* fighting 'in principle' against the Imperium. Although, of course, "The Imperium", as represented by a Terran-dispatched envoy accompanied by a significant strength of truescale Minotaurs [which Umbral has built .. ] may not see it that way. 

 

Sometimes, the nature of loyalty - true loyalty - means holding firm and fast in those convictions even when it's incredibly difficult to do so because those you should be fighting alongside have now decided you're actually the enemy.

 

So what does this mean in terms of your question ? Well, we'll see more Adamanticores coming back - caches of technology, contingencies and crypts lain down some five thousand years before in anticipation of this sort of scenario (or close enough to it) , being reactivated ; and an escalating set of revanchist organization efforts in line with Operation Apam Napat directed towards the mortal population of the Spoil. Various 'friends' also shall be turning up - we've already seen a few 'cross-overs' with the Haunting Harii of Hvergelmir effort, for instance. 

 

There's *supposed* to be an array of build-up going on for the other sides to all of this as well - shadowy maneuverings by those Inquisitorial, AdMech, and other human-ish forces that've been bound up in what's occurred in Adamantia for some millennia now, along with the more mundane groupings that they've either catspaw'd or just benefitted from the saliencies of. [That was partially what was going on with the Gathering of the Clans that we kicked all of this off with - those 'outlander' , merkant houses etc. and more 'collaborationist' indigenous ones] 

 

And out beyond the fringes of all of this, some *other* old threats are stirring [which, again, we've had the miniatures built for for ages].

 

But long story short - yes, yes a suitably epic ... but also *clever* .. confrontation with forces winging their way from the Hearthworld of Terra - is indeed impending. 

 

Although it may twist in some quite unpredictable ways and some true villains of the whole thing might even get their comeuppance. 

 

.. oh and we also have quite a lot of 'history' to play around with for stuff we've talked about unfolding in the area for th previous eleven thousand years or so ; so that'll be a thing too. 

[Zebulon]

I look forward to all of that.

 

Out of curiosity, are you considering publishing all of this? Once it is all committed to paper/screen, I mean? It certainly seems as though you have enough ideas and material floating around your mind to do so...

[Ryltar Thamior]

I look forward to all of that.

 

Out of curiosity, are you considering publishing all of this? Once it is all committed to paper/screen, I mean? It certainly seems as though you have enough ideas and material floating around your mind to do so...

Interesting question. I mean ... publish where and in what manner? It's not like I own the IP - so any publication would have to be one that I didn't charge for ... which basically means The Internet, which is not coincidentally where it's already on :P (we are, after all, conversing via this series of tubes medium - a digital webway of sorts)

 

I am certainly not averse to gathering various suites of it up and putting it into like, pdf form or whatever with a slightly more fancy looking presentation, illustrations and maps and diagrams where appropriate. It'd be rather cool. There are those occasional fan-made codexes and FW black book esque efforts you see about the place, after all. 

 

The trouble, of course, is that I keep adding to things or jumping around from thing to thing within the milieu . Tolkien also had this problem - Middle Earth was his playground, his box of largely self-made [or self-er .. re-interpreted/borrowed, as applies the Germanic elements he brought in from his academic work. It's one of those things wherein he cannot be said to have "plagiarized" , because even where he's directly quoting from some stuff that I'm rather familiar with ... well, it's not in Old English or Old Norse etc., because he literally did the translation of it into English in the first place] toys; and so the codification of it into finished form meant no longer being able to tinker with it as he pleased :P 

 

This is partially why I haven't done a better job at some of the broad overview stuff for the setting - a map, say - because I keep adding in detail that turns out to be rather important , so it'd look quite different every six months or so as I added worlds that have "always been there" to a grand map of the Spoil. 

 

Although I have the *general* parameters in mind so who knows ... 

 

Anyway, I'm complimented that you figured it'd be a question to ask, whether it'd get published. If you have any thoughts or suggestions upon this score, I am open to them. 

 

Hell, the rate we are going; I might wind up attempting to actually get good with wordpress and build a site to chronicle the whole thing. Maybe. 

[Zebulon]

Yes, okay... I was momentarily forgetting about IP, and the legal hoops you would have to leap through in order to gain permission to “for real” publish work inspired by the broad setting of 40k.

 

I certainly tend towards a desire to collate the fragments I create and put them into some kind of structure - I have begun doing so with my Black Psalm stuff and am surprised at how much it comes to overall, so I can well imagine a collected volume of your (and Umbral’s) work would make quite the tome!

 

Ah yes, I understand your desire not to be pinned by codification - the epic tradition allowing you to spin new tales from your earlier material. A mix of prophet and bard, you may weave at your whim across the tapestry of the Spoil! B)

 

As I say, it just seems that given you write extremely well, and that you appear to have such a coherent and clearly conceived vision of this sector of the galaxy and events within it, that it seems you could successfully unify it within some formal structure - if you wish to do so.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Yes, okay... I was momentarily forgetting about IP, and the legal hoops you would have to leap through in order to gain permission to “for real” publish work inspired by the broad setting of 40k.

 

I certainly tend towards a desire to collate the fragments I create and put them into some kind of structure - I have begun doing so with my Black Psalm stuff and am surprised at how much it comes to overall, so I can well imagine a collected volume of your (and Umbral’s) work would make quite the tome!

 

Ah yes, I understand your desire not to be pinned by codification - the epic tradition allowing you to spin new tales from your earlier material. A mix of prophet and bard, you may weave at your whim across the tapestry of the Spoil!

 

As I say, it just seems that given you write extremely well, and that you appear to have such a coherent and clearly conceived vision of this sector of the galaxy and events within it, that it seems you could successfully unify it within some formal structure - if you wish to do so.

I thank you for the kind words. And rest assured - we most definitely do. Following on from seeing ... just how impressive the 'War of the False Primarch' / 'Some Things Are Better Left Forgotten'  effort that Apologist et co have just put up , it's got me thinking about the best mechanism to do this. 

 

I've noticed that in some ways, 'less is more' (by which i mean short, overview things that give a *broad* picture of things as an entry) - it prevents overwhelming people by not really going straight into what I *usually* do, which is big massive blocks of text on pretty hefty and heavily 'local' content with minimal easy 'entry' for a general 40k fan.

 

It's also probably a good idea to do some of the latter .. like, 'pathways in' for people that're 40k literate (rather than, you know, ecclesiastical Sanskrit combined with Old Norse literate) - showing how things they already know (like the broader institutions of the Imperium etc.; events and timescales outside of Adamantia that have been featured elsewhere) actually fit in. Make it more 'relevant' so to speak.

 

I also *really* probably should have done at least the *bones* of an Index Astartes for the Adamanticores waaaaaaaaay back - but of course, I didn't and just kept .. adding things so it's now taken on a life of it's own.

 

The major things I *should* be doing are really quite simple stuff like producing timelines of events ; those lexicons I mentioned earlier ; and lists of worlds and what they're keyed to. Although one thing that's gotten in the way on that front is there's now ... sufficient pages of stuff that it can feel a bit daunting to gear up to actually start going through it :P If anybody feels bored some days and wants to trawl to help ... 

 

 

[Ryltar Thamior]

 

It Is The 42nd Millennium ... and once more the Galaxy has become riven with strife. This time, the harsh divide is not merely the clear-cut schism between Loyalist and Traitor, Friend and Foe, or even Humanity with Dread Xenos. Rather, a far more insurmountable barrier now lies across the former swathe of the Imperium - the Cicatrix Maledictum. 

 

And even within the still-shedding light of Mankind's fraught bastion of hope in the Imperium Sanctus, there is no unity of vision - no clarity of purpose. At the the highest levels of the Imperium, and also amidst the coiling darkness which congeals about their glittering spires - the greedy, avaricious eyes of the powerful dart in all manner of directions; their gimlet gazes locked in pursuit of petty, personal agendas as well as grand, sweeping designs several millennia in the making. 

 

Some, to be sure, are altruistic in ethos and noble in scope; others seek to take advantage of the chaos to line their own pockets - or, worse, to settle old scores and indulge in the Great Games of the truly cardinal. Yet for the countless subsectors and hundreds of systems splayed out as trinkets or trifles it matters little. Upon the far-flung fringes of the Imperium's now greatly curtailed spanse, life proceeds much as it ever has: the Crowned Heads of the ultimate inceptors of their destinies seeming as inscrutable, uncaring, and distant as the Stars - or, when angered, as roiling, unforgiving, and inescapable as the coronal flarings of the nearest Sun. 

 

Such is to be the fate of Adamantia. 

 

Once a beacon of order and a bastion of the potential future for Humanity, it was brought low some four thousand years afore. The hidden truth which girded its prosperity dooming it also to desolation at the hands of its patrons' enemies elsewhere in the vicissitudinal Imperial power structure. A chapter - and an entire stellar domain - whose loyalty to the Emperor proved to be as unbreakable as their Adamantine namesake, cast unto oblivion by the envious plots and overzealous plans of their would-be domineers and despoilers. 

 

And yet ... Memory is a curious thing. It lingers on even after that which is recalled by it may have long since crumbled to dust - or been reduced to ash via the expurgation of flame. Thus it is with the unyielding legacy of the Adamanticores. For millennia following the Fall of their formerly living Lords, the folk of the Spoil - for such Adamantia is now called - have striven to keep alive the traditions, the recollections, the faith of their forebears. This has rendered the long-term pacification of the domain, and its re-tooling into a more productively integrated demesne at the hands of this or that petty outlander lord all but an impossibility. The past refuses to pass - it cannot be placated through the transparent papering-over on offer from without. Instead, the past lives on through glinting spikes suffusing the present - seemingly pointing back toward a not-quite-forgotten future. 

 

Amidst ruins and fanes and long-forgotten refuges scattered across the systems of the Spoil, more tangible remembrances of the glory that was Adamantia are to be found - prised free via unscrupulous treasure-seekers or shadowy reconquesta teams, clawed back and returned to their memorialized pride-of-place within them by bands of loyalists, resurrectionists, revanchists who still dream the Dream of Adamantia as She once was and as She might one day be again. Or who simply cannot abide to see the ghosts, the spirits of the past disturbed by outlanders motivated by the profits and the prophets of the worlds beyond the realm. 

 

Some of these sites are watched over by vengeful eyes - piercing green orbs who still would quietly weep for the fate of their fallen dreams and comrades if mere human tears were permitted to them. Out in the Deep between worlds, the Dragons have long coiled to strike; and the Dead Stars still burn with ancient fury. The barrows and the stasis-crypt which dot the Spoil shall soon prove to have protected not only the artefacts of ancient days - but the select few of their archaic bearers as well! Living legends now risen and returned as revenants. Ghost-Lords for a nearly-dead realm, heritage, and faith. 

 

Yet they shall not be the only ones to stride out onto the planes of the present from within the depths of both myth and memory. 

 

To be a man in such times, is to behold the distant glory of ruined splendour. Not merely of the former realm of Adamantia laid low around one; but the twisting violence which reaves out across the broader Imperium. A sundering amidst the hearts of men which divides even those notionally committed to His common purpose into internecine foes that hate with the bitterness - and strike with the underhandedness - more usually reserved for direst external adversaries and truly existential peril. 

 

All across Adamantia, the last guttering embers of the Old Flame of Heritage run the risk of becoming snuffed out - taking with them, the last sparks of hope for the future. Threats from the Past loom out of the darkness to do battle with Ancient Guardians for the Soul of the Present and the incipient promise of the Glories yet to come. The Worlds of the Spoil do not stand upon the Precipice - in truth, for Adamantia this point was reached and breached long eras ago; the only serious question being whether She shall Fall or Fly in consequence. 

 

Forget the promise of Unity in Strength, and the sure premise of progress toward Mankind's assured shared destiny amidst the Stars - for much has been Remembered, that cannot now easily become forgotten. Forsake the easy and clear battle-lines drawn in the sand between "friend" and "foe", "traitor" and "loyalist", or "heretic" and "zealot" - for all these are but the convenient caricatures of meaningful designations, deployed by cunning comptrollers stationed far from the front lines in the shadows of battle. And foreswear the convenient bonds of unthinking adherence - in favour of a more critical appraisal of just where one's loyalties and sense of duty must truly lie. 

 

It is said that in the Grim Darkness of Adamantia - there is only Memory. Yet here, Memory and Heritage form an active, tangible force. The Past does not Pass simply due to the mere inconvenience of being antiquated. It lies dormant, awaiting its shadowed opportunity to spring vital and resurrected back into present life. It is, in a sense, inalienable - and on the contrary, it is the Future which must be fought for. 

 

Out upon the Steppe of Stars, a powerful myriad of Futures ride for Adamantia - Waiting to be (Re)Born. 
 

[Zebulon]

Throne, that’s some good :cuss right there!

 

Impressively written overview of how past and present collide in the Spoil. I detect in your work a strong anti-colonial viewpoint, a desire for independence and preservation of indigenous cultures... obviously all in a fictional context, but it’s as they say “once seen it cannot be unseen”

 

Anyway, for what it’s worth I approve. The wordplay and magniloquent stylings are very much my cup of tea. Keep up the great work :tu:

[Ryltar Thamior]

Throne, that’s some good right there!

 

Impressively written overview of how past and present collide in the Spoil. I detect in your work a strong anti-colonial viewpoint, a desire for independence and preservation of indigenous cultures... obviously all in a fictional context, but it’s as they say “once seen it cannot be unseen”

 

Anyway, for what it’s worth I approve. The wordplay and magniloquent stylings are very much my cup of tea. Keep up the great work

I thank you for the kind words. I wrote it because i had recently, as it happens, taken a bit of a leaf out of your own book and had set up a thread in the Liber to try and systematize the conceptry I had developed ... and also to set it in front of people who might be more interested in my fluffish background delvings. 

 

A thread such as that requires, of course, an intro frontspiece ... and so that is what it got. Based in part upon the standard "It is the 41st Millennium ... Grim Darkness of the Far Future There Is Only War" title-crawl that we have all come to know and love ; but with various 'twists in the myth' to suit 

 

So, for instance, whereas the 'standard' 40k intro tells us to "Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned" - I have instead advised to "Forget the promise of Unity in Strength, and the sure premise of progress toward Mankind's assured shared destiny amidst the Stars - for much has been Remembered, that cannot now easily become forgotten."

 

The contested nature of recollection, of remembrance, also becoming obliquely referenced via the inspirational duality [i hesitate to use another of my Sanskrit terms here - dvandva , duandva perhaps] , between "for in the grim dark future there is only war" and "It is said that in the Grim Darkness of Adamantia - there is only Memory"

 

Although that last one - I am having an Old Norse pun, because 'Grim', 'Grimnir', etc. ... "Masked", "Hooded", "Obscured", "Cowled" ... and of course, the Odinic theonym that is relevant there. Shrouded by the blue-black of oncoming, onrushing Death and Night ['Kaal' in Sanskrit we would say - again, a theonym for the same God ... said God, for our purposes, also being the Adamantine figure of the Spear Lord: the God-Emperor of Mankind]. 

 

Anyway, there's a few other things like that laden within it ; and the 'standard' 40k vibe of Ruined Splendour [i think that that is a Gav Thorpe quote as it happens about what he viewed the essential ingredient to be - 'decayed splendor' perhaps it was] ... as well as this notion of past threats (or previous protectors) turning up again which has seemed to characterize [indeed we might say 'anchor' ] the M42 arc of the official GW 40k storyline. Primarchs and Daemon Primarchs and suchlike, being the obvious examples (and, in another sense, Necrons) - although so too, if one thinks about it, are various of the 'new' things like Primaris marines ... since these are now retro-conned as being around and under development by Cawl immediately post-Heresy. 

 

Now, in terms of some of the other things that you have said .. 

 

Funnily enough, I had not actually thought about various of those skeins in quite the way you had put it, *until* you had put it that way. But I suppose it is not inaccurate. Indeed, it is quite insightful. 

 

Like, I'll explain some of the thematic resonancies that I've been putting into my work - 

 

[or, rather, I'll do that in a subsequent post once I've got my mind togethr aftr waking up etc.; bceause it probably is a good idea to have these set down to help engage with and guide the material - for my own reference as much as anybody else's] 

 

 

 

[Ryltar Thamior]

Throne, that’s some good right there!

 

Impressively written overview of how past and present collide in the Spoil. I detect in your work a strong anti-colonial viewpoint, a desire for independence and preservation of indigenous cultures... obviously all in a fictional context, but it’s as they say “once seen it cannot be unseen”

 

Anyway, for what it’s worth I approve. The wordplay and magniloquent stylings are very much my cup of tea. Keep up the great work

Right, so ... by way of some *brief* notes on influences for what's gone into presenting Adamantia, Adamantine history and occurrences thus far ....

 

A large part of what i do day-to-day, is that I am a theologian ; operating in a sphere that entails a strong interest in and awareness of the past for the relevant cultures. And their linguistics. 

 

Now, this also involves making that information available through our research institute in order to reshape present-day perceptions ... and, of course, I seem to spend quite a lot of time fighting insistently promulgated misperceptions by groups or individuals that have other and heavily contrasting agendas. The past, verily, is a *hugely* contested space.

 

Interestingly, various of these are, consciously or otherwise, direct continuations of previous conflicts. For example, we have some (modern) Europeans and Americans who are basically running on Lord Macaulay's remarks upon the subject - and some desires, as well, to roll out a kind of Macaulayism in kind. I have definitely referenced the Macaulayist concept of civilizational warfare / suppression / outright vandalilsm in what's going on in Adamantia ... although not anything like directly.

 

Instead, it's *another* group of both ancient and modern provenancy that's borne that *for* me. Ancient Zoroastrians , and various of the more shady Neo-Zoroastrian Revivalist efforts operating today. It's an obscure area - but, then, by now that almost goes without saying - but one that really does keep coming up in our sphere of operation for some reason.

 

To provide with a *really* short summary ... Zoroastrianism had its start as a religious revolt against the previous prevailing Indo-Iranian religious consensus. You can see this not only in the [often misconstrued as applies Asura and A'Sura] Deva-Daeva 'Pandaemonium' split. Because it straight-up came to involve a downright Orwellian effort to suppress the non-Zoroastrian religion by negatively connoting the terms for previous devotion, changing in other ways what some of those terms  refer to [so Zoroastrian Haoma appears to have ... rather different active ingredients to Soma etc.], and just outright literally demonizing The Gods (well, *certain* Gods, anyway - others were integrated in 'controlled' format, occasionally quite a bit later on viz. Verethragna ] 

 

This trend has continued in the 21st century, thanks to some post-Iranian Revolution Iranian diaspora guys rediscovering the pre-Islamic religion of Persia and ... well, it gets messy, I'll put it that way. Because a whole *lot* of 'imagined past' stuff starts happening, and some of them link up with some quite shady forces. Anyway ... 

 

Now, as for what's going on viz. Adamantia then ... when I started writing up the situation of Adamantia post the Fall [i.e. M38] - one of the things that was going to need to happen was a quite heavy suppression of what had been there before, culture-wise. Because the previous rulers of the domain - the Adamanticores - have been aggressively purged , and the whole place turned upside down by exterior forces looking to make it into a pliable, lootable (for the archaeotech / advanced developments that the Adamanticores had been sitting upon), and ultimately rather exploitable satrapy for their own petty purposes. 

 

The Adamanticores and Adamantine Old Faith were going to need to be transformed from something that were there and positively looked up to by ordinary citizens of the Spoil to - something that would be censored, along with the true history of what had really happened there. There would also be quite the emnity between the authorities attempting to do all of this - and conquer the Spoil and bring to an end its 'barbarian hinterland, occasional riches, much peril' vibe - and those who were still there and quite reluctant to see their folk-ways extinguished. 

 

Due to the geographical considerations involved [the major centers of the Imperium are to the west of Adamantia], this set up a rather natural scenario whereby the Ecclesiarchy-favoured revisionistas [so to speak], should *also* be coming from that direction. And given the general region of Earth that I've telescoped up into the Stars as the 'template' in my head for Adamantia's stellar geography/cartography ... that made for an alignment with the fair amount of Scythian conceptry for some parts of Adamantia as well. 

 

So, some of the imperialistic pushing going on - well, it's basically the Achaemenid Empire's big drives into Scythia or Central Asia [and I've occasionally just .. directly referenced straight-up some of the cooler elements of stuff from Herodotus' Histories - as we see with the Sauromatriae and their Queen fighting at Gelonus against the Darians ]; brought together with the Zoroastrians' far earlier *theological* culture-jamming against effectively the same sphere of peoples [declared by them to be the Turanians] and the logical extension of the latter to apply to, well, the Hindusphere [although it should be noted that during the Classical era - Hindu-Zoroastrian interactions were a lot more ... complex to say the least, even though there was indeed an Achaemenid dominion over various parts of what was once Aryavarta or immediately adjacent thereto; some of what goes on later on on the Steppes amidst the Kushana and their successors is even a case of innovative re-presentation of Hindu-coterminous (or just outright Hindu) elements in Zoroastrian or Persianate looking aesthetic presentation ... but again, I digress]. 

 

Except ... how this fits into the broader Imperium, as I've noted ... is that the broader Imperium doesn't much care, most of the time, what's going on in these squabbling far-flung stellar satrapies. Provided there's no pressing reason for it to be brought up at the decision-making tables in the high spires of the Imperium, it just kinda gets left to muddle through. The Darians have backing by some relatively powerful Ecclesiarchy figures and forces on a Segmentum level, and so have some support and sponsorship to keep doing (or attempting to do) what they're doing in trying periodically to take and 'civilize' Adamantia as the local 'officially designated satrap' we might say ... but that's regional politics for you. The big Crusades that have swept through or kinda are about to sweep through - those are exceptions rather than the norm, and a case of somebody who *actually* matters on Terra or immediately adjacent thereto finally deciding to 'do something' about a particular situation, probably to their own or their agenda's benefit.

 

Although the Damyati Initiative is a bit of a partial exception to that - as it's a tacit recognition that the "just keep having a local feudal client throw men at it" approach isn't really working, possibly because the Darians aren't really competent enough to pull it off ... so instead, install local client-rulers on a smaller scale to reshape Adamantia piece by piece.

 

Now, the inspiration for *that*, funnily enough, was actually the British Partition of India. Hence why there's some factotum on Terra drawing a line across a map of the region that's ... a line on a map, but because nobody's *bothered* to really look into it in heavy detail, it's entire star-systems wide 'on the ground' out in the Spoil. It appealed to me as well as being an expression of how the Administratum really does seem to (non-)function in a lot of establlished 40k  fluff as it is - entire worlds lost to rounding errors or  typos, for instance. 

 

The Markhour Khanate is ... Pakistan. Because the official heraldic animal of that country is precisely that - a Markhour [it means 'Snake-Eater' - something i felt relevant given the Harii are also about and have serpentine conceptry .... as do the Sauromatriae, who have previousy been the road-block for foreign expansion into the Spoil] , and I also rather liked the conceptual .. not quite symmetry, but Manticore in English, comes from a Persinate word that likewise has that 'Khour' [well, the Persian equivalent particle] in it - except there, of cousre, it means 'Man-Eater' [Man-Khour, to oversimplify things dramatically]. Ghor, their capitol, is simultaneously referencing this - as well as the relevant part of Afghanistan and the historic dynasty (interestingly, of more directly Iranian origin) that came to rule therefrom as the rather bloody Delhi Sultanate. 

 

And it's a Khanate because .... well, of course it is - it's the other sort of polity you find on a Steppe, the Pakistanis in military terms are quite big on playing up their purported connections civilizationally to the Mughals, Mongols etc. , you get the idea. [They are also, occasionally, quite keen to tie to the Persians as well - long story, but you can see how this, too, fits] 

 

This has fed into what's going on, because of course, during the Cold War, Pakistan was in frequent receipt of significant assistance or support from various powers - the Americans, the People's Republic of China, etc. ; and we find likewise the Pakistani ISI doing some dodgy things in Afghanistan and elsewhere. 

 

It was also quite big on carrying forward a few *other* ideas from the past as well - including the concept of "Martial Races" and suchlike, which the British dreamed up following their being seriously hard-pressed by the Mutineers of 1857. (There's also some oblique referencing of the way the Princely States worked in India - some of which could work out as quite cordially engaged local proxies for the British and actively *against* the freedom struggle as the result. )

The Markhour Khanate does all of this - and in terms of what's going on in the Battle of Ondlangr writeup that I've been doing, it's quite transparently my re-imagining of certain events in 1971 around the Bangladeshi War of Liberation. I just also brought into the mix the actual Indian-Pakistani wars of 1948 and 1965 as well, somewhat. 

 

Oh, and I *also* added in various other elements from several thousand years of history because really ... one thing you rather swiftly find in the Indian history of the 20th and 21st century is that the past really *is* there and re-emanating all the time through the living memory of the cultures and their constituents in question. 

 

So, when the Markhour attempt to overrun the post-Adamantia rump-states which exist between the two parts of their stellar dominion ... well, the two parts of their stellar dominion are basically West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The fact that the area they then start brutally repressing "due to its status as something of a center for the veneration of the Adamantia female-personification of the Old Adamantine pantheon" ... is of course, Bengal - not only due to Operation Searchlight as it historically unfolded (the genocide of Bengalis looking to be independent of West Pakistan), but also because historic Bengal is a prominent center of Shakta Hindu devotion, and indeed is one of the major spheres of origin for Bharat Mata deific ['Mother India' - Who rose to particular prominence during the Swaraj Struggle against the British; although also carries forward far older resonancies, including Durga fighting against invaders - oh, the buffalo form of one of the latter is *also* relevant for the Minotaurs who've shown up .. ] - Who has understandably been referenced for this female divine personification of Adamantia ['Adi-Mata' being , again, Sanskrit for 'First Mother', and also referencing various theological conceptry around Aditi . 

 

The Vayomani Confederacy is again one of those areas where various things aligned in my head. The 'Wind God' [Vayu] affiliations of the Scythians and other Steppe Indo-Iranic peoples , who yes, are none too pleased about being domineered by their more 'civilized' neighbours .. [perhaps i may have had the Alemanni also in mind at the time ] [we should further note that Vayu is Shiva - the Scythians are interestingly hailed in some ancient Hindu texts as being Shaivites, as well; and to reiterate, my conceptry for the Adamantine Old Faith presentation of The Emperor is The Spear Lord, a figure of strong Shaivite-Odinic resonancy]; but also the Maratha Confederacy founded by ShivaJi (which began the serious fight-back effort to roll the Mughals and re-establish Hindu Rashtra on the Subcontinent] ... and - of course - modern India. [As for the name .. in addition to the obvious, Evyoman is one of the words for a Heaven in Sanskrit ... so Vayoman .. well, you can see where I was going with this] 

 

Now why *that* ? Well, the Battle of Ondlangr .. is really closely based on a certain historical engagement fought during 1971 that really must be read about to be believed. 

 

I wrote a piece upon the current-day temple that's situated nearby that also briefly describes the relevant encounter, and once you know the details of that battle, it'll be pretty obvious where my writing has 'translated' things from. Although I have, of course, also shifted a few things and reworked them to be more congruent with the overarching setting as well. 

 

This not only informs how the battle goes for the Markhour - but also *why* various things happened the way they did, at the operational planning phase and otherwise. Hence that point around 'Martial Races' I'd briefly mentioned earlier ... this British-developed concept was propaganda that the Pakistanis *heavily* bought into themselves (and of course they would - it was about their ancestors, for the most part, talking them up as 'natural warriors' and suchlike; and actively denigrated people they already had decided they did not like, in  terms of Bengali Hindus particularly) - so you can see how a) it worked into their own military thinking; and how it's informed the Markhour attitude towards the native Adamantians. Which also, c), leads to largely the same ultimate outcomes in both cases ... 

 

Anyway, I have digressed a fair amount.

 

The tl;dr of this is probably that what's going on with Adamantia is, as it always has been ... my day-to-day areas of expertise [(comparative)Indo-European theology, with the aiding of the relevant elements' historical settings and contextual conditioning] being projected back out and up onto the stars.

 

So .. anti-colonial? Sure. But with the Achaemenid Empire, Mughals, and other such forces being more immediately in my mind than the Great Powers or European Empires of the past span of two hundred and fifty, three hundred years or so. [which does not mean that they're not *also* there in my mind and informing what's going on; I mean, there's most definitely some CIA style shenanigans in mind as well]. 

 

Preservation of heritage? Yeah, most definitely - although again, with the array of threats against it rather more complex and complexly interwoven than the perhaps more frequently encountered trope of colonial missionary activity [not that, again, that's not *also* in mind - it's just that Pakistan's positions on Hindu minorities; and the aforementioned Zoroastrian culture-jamming efforts of near three millennia ago, and some other developments at varying points in between or more recently, being what the direct 'jumping off' points are] .

 

There is a lot more that I could say about just about all of the above... but that should do for now. 

Edited February 20, 2021 by Ryltar Thamior

[Zebulon]

Oh yes, I see the new thread now. I shall set up an armchair there, figuratively speaking!

 

A couple of things on this:

1) I am very familiar with the saying “unity is strength” which could also be termed “strength in unity” - I am unclear whether it has the same strength reversed, or if this is deliberate, or what’s going on there...

2) I really like this whole thing where occluded memories of things that were or might have been come to the threshold between history and mythology.

3) Yes, standard 40K does incorporate the trope of the “romantic ruin” or even “romanticised ruin” which is preferable in my view to the newer, more hopeful setting. There is beauty in the way that the Imperium appears a civilisation that has passed its peak and is in decline as the darkness grows all around and within it; I am not seeing this so much in the newer 40K material.

4) I would say that however much these worlds/galaxies of possibilities offer limitless opportunities for creation, nonetheless as “gods” of our oeuvre, inevitably a quantity of our “selves” becomes apparent in the stories. Rather as in a smaller way, my Storm Gauntlets showed very clearly my personal leanings towards enlightenment and progress, and was somewhat naive and noble-bright for the setting, while my Black Psalm is showcasing some elements of my darker side in raging against injustices and perceived slights. I suppose all I am saying is that every tale reflects their author on some level.

 

Definitely interested in the thematic resonances when you get to it.

EDIT: Having read it, well, Chapeau. It’s a lot to take in (including the linked articles but I think I am coming to understand better now. It is a rich blend and frankly, bloody good.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Zebulon

[Ryltar Thamior]

Oh yes, I see the new thread now. I shall set up an armchair there, figuratively speaking!

 

A couple of things on this:

1) I am very familiar with the saying “unity is strength” which could also be termed “strength in unity” - I am unclear whether it has the same strength reversed, or if this is deliberate, or what’s going on there...

2) I really like this whole thing where occluded memories of things that were or might have been come to the threshold between history and mythology.

3) Yes, standard 40K does incorporate the trope of the “romantic ruin” or even “romanticised ruin” which is preferable in my view to the newer, more hopeful setting. There is beauty in the way that the Imperium appears a civilisation that has passed its peak and is in decline as the darkness grows all around and within it; I am not seeing this so much in the newer 40K material.

4) I would say that however much these worlds/galaxies of possibilities offer limitless opportunities for creation, nonetheless as “gods” of our oeuvre, inevitably a quantity of our “selves” becomes apparent in the stories. Rather as in a smaller way, my Storm Gauntlets showed very clearly my personal leanings towards enlightenment and progress, and was somewhat naive and noble-bright for the setting, while my Black Psalm is showcasing some elements of my darker side in raging against injustices and perceived slights. I suppose all I am saying is that every tale reflects their author on some level.

 

Definitely interested in the thematic resonances when you get to it.

EDIT: Having read it, well, Chapeau. It’s a lot to take in (including the linked articles but I think I am coming to understand better now. It is a rich blend and frankly, bloody good.

Legit questions, and I thank you again for the kind words. 

 

i) Unity *in* Strength [and I did indeed ponder whethr i should have instead have phrased it as Strength In Unity - which again has different shades of meaning .. where things can lurk, of course!] ; what I had menat there was both the invocation of the aspiration of Unity with which the Great Crusade, of course, began - and which the Imperium strives to present itself as the righteous and never-faltering inheritor of. It's quite a diverse array of strength [different strengths, different contributors of strength] coming together to 'push forward' , 'pull together' for a common purpose - that aforementioned Unity being what exists in the coterminity of all of these Strengths coming together.

 

My vision for what's going on circa M42 is ... the Imperium really isn't that - even more than usual. So you've got those shenanigans from deposed High Lords attempting to call in the Minotaurs to carry out a Palace Coup and undo Guilliman's Reforms, for instance ... and you've got things like what's happening in Adamantia wherein various different cabals operating at various different levels from the High Lords of Terra on down to much more regional, even local powers ... are most decidedly no longer 'pulling together'. 

 

Strength in Unity, meanwhile, is the Strength that flows *from* Unity ... so as Unity in Strength is the result of Strengths coming together to make Unity .. this produces another form of Strength itself. 

 

ii) Legit - it's something i've been turning over quite a bit in some ways - four thousand years is plenty enough time for historical figures to be mythologized .... but given this is 40k - it's *also* worth noting that various of the figures in question might be downright deserving of their legendary reputation and most certainly not be merely mundane anyway. Euhemerism may lead down some .. dangerous trajectories. 

 

And as we'll see when i get around to writing the next part of the Battle of Ondlangr - there's ample space for being unsure as to just what *even relatively contemporary occurrences for which there are still-living eyewitness accounts* are the result of Faith and other such mysterious forces , concealed archaeo-tech or other more esoteric but still not mundane occurences, or simply pretty singularly impressive if ineffably unlikely and post-facto 'rationalized' through other prisms conventionally explicable events as seen by minds under significant pressures of combat or other stressors etc. 

 

Also, it's something I've been exploring a bit in my theological work IRL , i suppose - the 'phase space' between the original (and often mythic) occurrence that becomes the template for later ritual action; or, going the other way, the manner in which something once understood becomes mythologized due to only a narrative understanding being preserved .. and the fact htat something was symbolic being lost because "it's a metaphor" is not *nearly* as resonant to the re-teller as "it's a myth!" 

 

That part around the Minotaurs - I mean, it happened in part because we knew the Minotaurs were going to be involved ; I'd *also* already started integrating the relevant Adi-Mata conceptry into Adamantia's fabric [quite literally] ; so having a situation of buffalo or otherwise bovine demons opposed to the Mother figure was always going to happen - because it's already there in the source mythology that we are using [in this specific part of the case, a combination of Hindu - and Roman via way of Phrygian ]. 

 

Which invites the obvious observation that the *symbolic* importance of the understanding, from the perspective of an Adamantian , is not merely encoding the historic occurrence that it is referencing - but the in some ways deeper and more meaningful knowledge of evil ravaging forces that hate and attempt to snuff out what is precious and may one day return to attempt to 'finish the job' - hence the requirement to actively prepare and plan and be intelligent about counters. You are probably familiar with the Chesterton quote about the purposes of dragons in children's stories - this is the darker equivalent, wherein the point is not to reassure the child that they can be slain, but instead to reiterate just how serious the peril is , and what its 'true' character is [e.g. it may *look* llike a bronze-armoured space marine .. it's actually a demon serving a malefic and anti-Adamantine will, whether it knows it or not] 

 

iii) you're correct that the Imperium's recent NobleBright turn has changed the vibe in various ways. I definitely feel that there's scope for both the 'romanticized Ruin' and the 'some lights shine brighter amidst the ever-lengthening black' - but frankly, it is GW's storytelling in official sources that occasionally is a bit ham-fisted (athoug when it is good - it it is *very* good), so we have this 'whiplash' feel of hopping from one foot to the other, perhaps. 

 

Part o what we sought to do with Admantia was , i suppose, show an idealized society in some ways - a scintillating jewel for what the Imperium could be (and could have been, i suppose, if some of the stuff around the Heresy went different, in terms of an Astartes directed one - it's what Guilliman wanted for his Marines post the Crusade's eventual end) .... and becaue this is 40k, and "this is why you can't have nice things", show *exactly* what happens to 'sounds too good to be true' in this beloved setting of ours. 

 

It gets brought down - dragged asunder by people with their own purposes and petty agendas , and genuinely heroic, noble, even broadly 'innocent' figures are cast instead as .. well .. necessarily evil. 

 

Still, it's difficult to have the marked contrast afforded by 'GrimDark' , without *some* sparks of hope and such. It just becomes incredibly, inhumanly depressing otherwise and one might as well be Necrontyr [and yes, they're .. around - long story]. 

 

Sometimes, that means that we are 'amongst the ruins, smiling'; other times that means a desperate effort to try and provide One More Day for others even if that means the last gasp of possible human effort for ourselves. It may or may not make much of a difference in the *grand* scheme of things - but it matters an awful lot to those more immediatelhy proximate to and bound up within it all. And especially on a longer timescale - individual lives may drift away from any skerrick of meaning [dependnet upon the individual and dependent upon the life, of course] ... but some shifts, perhaps even positive ones, might just so happen to ensue. 

 

lthough in the case of Adamantia - while we haven't thought much furthe than hwere we are atm in the timeline [nor can we, really, i don't suppose] ... just as 'happiness is a warm gun' in some typologies, so too is about the best some can hope for in terms of 'Things Get[ing] Better' ... is that some measure of vengeance shall finally be meted out that may yet enable the dead [and the not-quite-dead] to rest in peace. 

 

iv) you are completely correct - it is a situation hwerein as with any artistic endeavour, we pour ourselves into our work. Whether we realize that is what we are doing, or we don't. I have often said that yuo can tell a lot about a person based around what army they have - because that is their temperament , perhaps, if it is the playstyle; that is their self-image or their predilections, if it is the background that has attracted them to it ; and it is most certainly their interests in other areas when it comes to a lot of the more involved theming that goes on [with the WWII referential forces being an obvious example .. or th profusion of Space Wolves enthusiasm amidst people who have some interest in and often ancestral linkage to the relevant cultures in question] .

 

You enjoyed Bronze Age Mediterranean archaeology - so it turned up in your development. I .. do what i do [to put it succinctly yet broadly], so ti turns up all over the place in mine [indeed, teh 40k fluff development somehow winds up *guiding* a lot of my work IRL as previously noted]. What is in our heads, comes out through our hands. And the Universe - in fact, *both* Universes [the one we currently inhabit, and the imaginary one of our miniatures and our projections] - change and turn in consequences as a result. 

 

As it should be.

 

Anyway, thank you again for the kind words, and for taking the time to read. 

 

[Wulf Vengis]

I really dig the look of that M113 as an off-pattern Rhino. What brand is that kit?

[Ryltar Thamior]

I really dig the look of that M113 as an off-pattern Rhino. What brand is that kit?

Churr :D 

 

I *think* from memory it's a 1/35 Tamiya kit . Went together real easy, too - which is ... we honestly don't realize how lucky we are with GW kits relative to comparably sized historical modelling ones, I tell you. 

 

If I could be bothered , I'd add some additional 40k-ification in terms of a pintle-mount storm bolter [although for Auxilia service, the actual 1/35 scale machine-gun would be fine for a heavy stubber, if a little thin in the barrel] .

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen a conversion or two online that turned an M113 FSV into an ersatz Predator 

[Wulf Vengis]

Thank you greatly. I intend to pick up an M113 of my own now to see if it can be, as you said, 40kified.

 

Edit: Forgive my rudeness, but you do have an awesome build/theme going here so far. Please keep at it.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Wulf Vengis

[Ryltar Thamior]

Thank you greatly. I intend to pick up an M113 of my own now to see if it can be, as you said, 40kified.

 

Edit: Forgive my rudeness, but you do have an awesome build/theme going here so far. Please keep at it.

Not sure how it's rude to say something so complimentary :D 

 

Thank you for the kind words.

 

I've also just about finished the Bradley - just need to work out what suitably resonant mytho-theme naming we're going with for the writeup. 

 

I *also* have a (mostly complete) 1:35 scale Sturmpanzer that I'd initially intended to do for the now-shelved Unification Wars effort we had going, but which may yet show up here instead ... plus a LAV III that's recently been started and a G6 Rhino that were always both destined for Adamantia. 

 

 

[Ryltar Thamior]

Realized that it had been ... awhile since I'd actually uploaded any pictures-of-miniatures. 

So, because most of what's 'current' is still near- but not yet at- completion ...

Some we prepared earlier. From the glory that *was* Adamantia ... and my painting skills circa 2017 ... [the modelling on these was done by Umbral - it'd be another few months before I started converting things in earnest] [and yes, one Adamanticore is featured twice]