User:MercWithMouth/The Age Of Dusk

A Teaser:

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The Age of Dusk.

It is the 61st Millennium. The galaxy has been moving at a blistering rate. Ancient prophecies are being fulfilled; grand engines are grinding into gradual and unstoppable motion, finally free. All across the galaxy, forces and factions mobilise. Some are old beyond comprehension, and others are so young that the dread of second Strife are but troubling, primordial dreams.

Little can they know that those dreams are all horrifyingly true, and those things that have been thirsting and fasting for so long finally see their chance to inflict themselves once more upon a generation of beings only just recovering from the trauma of a galaxy gone mad. For the old legends were wrong; the tumbling of mankind into the pit was not the herald of the End Times. It was merely the beginning of a wider game.

On the world named after a site of Apocalypse, Armageddon, one of the lost Sons had returned. Vulkan, the father of Salamanders and one of the Primarchs of long forgotten myths, appeared to the broken people of that world, and began to forge the Empire of man anew, as a smith might re-forge a blade, founding a new Imperium founded upon his humble and earnest ideals. His Imperium has re-ignited a zealous crusade of re-unification across the stars, yet progress is slow. Robbed of the Astronomicon, and determined to ensure every world he takes is a secure bastion of his new world order, Vulkan's millennial advance has yet to expand his realm to encompass more than a scant fraction of the worlds the former Imperium held dominion over. His most important contribution, however, is not the realm he creates, but his own genetic legacy. A new Astartes Founding has begun. The Space Marines rise again! A new breed of Space marine, to sweep away the corrupt and putrid Space Marine 'free companies' as they bring Vulkan's word to the galaxy.

Other bastions of man, over the endless centuries, also began to consolidate, as the hundreds of Petty Imperiums began to swallow each other in colossal cannibalistic wars. The Tallarn and Ophelian Imperiums merged after hundreds of years of bitter conflict, forming a vast human realm, founded upon unthinking obedience and religious mania, and with a unique form of warp travel developed through mass witch incinerations; their death screams propelling fleets further than normal non-navigated flights. They worship 'The Emperor of the Wasteland', a bastardized belief based upon the Emperor they had never known. The twisted realm of Grand Sicarium, after war after war, has been tempered into a diamond hard series of systems, each world an impregnable fortress, populated with insane humans with near psychotic siege mentality ingrained on their souls. Led by despicable remnants of the once noble Astartes founded before the fall of the Imperium, this realm is one of evil and oppression. Astartes are worshipped as gods, and they in their hubris believed their idolaters. Sicarius, the ancient villain on the throne, has looked upon the Vulkan Imperium, and deemed it a ruse, and has begun to plan against this. The black-fleshed daemon is no Primarch. It cannot be...

Both the Eastern Chaos Imperium, under the Megalomaniac Huron Blackheart, and the Western Chaos Imperium under the eternal traitor Abaddon the Despoiler, have been steadily growing. Their influence grows, and more and more worlds fall to the worship of the transcendent warp powers. Yet, Chaos is as Chaos does, and these realms are constantly in flux. The two powers detest each other, and have engaged in constant blistering wars. Not only this, but each Imperium also suffers internal conflicts at all times, as the inherently individualist warlords of chaos vie to ensure their own dominance. Abbadon s rule is constantly opposed by the squabbling Daemon-Primarchs. However, while he spreads his influence outwards, they remain contained within their own hellish dreamlands, fighting like the brothers they are. Yet, more worrying reports have begun to reach Abbadon upon his dark Capital of Cadia: the ancient Wulfen are abroad once more, led by the largest and most fearsome of their breed yet to emerge. Some claim it is Russ himself, returned to the realm of flesh for some coming conflict, so vast it is too large for mortals to perceive as it comes into being. Not only this, but Abbadon has the further concern regarding the foe he bound within the Solar System. The devices created to contain the unnatural potency of the Void Dragon have finally begun to crumble. Even now, previously orphaned Tomb Worlds and world engines are shuddering to life once more, hollow eyes gazing upon the world of flesh with distain and hatred immeasurable.

Just as the force of dissipation and entropy grows in power, its opposite paradox builds in influence. The Star Father, the dread Lord of Obedience and blind faith, is now a great galactic titan. Every mortal, no matter how corrupt or defiant, has a niggling urge, buried in their primal brains, to kneel before the Forces of Order. The Angyllic Hosts and their Angyll-Worlds spring up everywhere. Yet, it is claimed the Star Father is searching for someone. A being, an avatar capable of channelling a significant portion of his power. That way, he may manifest upon the world of flesh, and hence dominate both the material and immaterial dimensions. A fate no sane being should desire.

In the Eastern galaxy, the greater part of the Ultima Segmentum is now Tau-space. The Tau Terra-formed on an unthinkable scale throughout the Fifty-first millennium, and the fruits of their labours showed. The council of Tau'Va now could call upon untold billions of Tau, Gue'Vesa and other vassal races. Yet, their rule is not the idealist paradise they once promised. It is a rule of enforced Unity under the Tau, who some say are seeking to eliminate all thought that does not conform to proscribed philosophies of the greater Good, and destroy the dissent of freedom. Nor is the Tau Empire a peaceful one. Unseen by the Western Powers of the galaxy, the Tau are grappling with something immense and ungodly. Garrison-Septs to their western flanks are being drawn away to reinforce the eastern Septs. The Tau and the bloated Thexian Trade Empire have even signed truces in order to provide a united front against their newest foe. Worlds are dying, suns splutter and dim, as the endless and eternal Silver Hordes finally mobilise for full scale war, for the first time in millions of years.

The C'tan have dropped the facade. They hide no more. The War in Heaven is renewed. The Golden skinned Jackal has not only the immortal machinery of the Necron at his disposal, but also his other unspeakable allies. The Ophiliam Kiasoz is moving, and systems simply end when it passes. The splinter entities of the trans-dimensional non-place are no longer bound by their exile, and their temporal holocaust effects have chronologically crippled entire planetoids at the behest of the Star God Deceiver. The Lord of Death is abroad also, a black shadow that kills simply because it IS killing itself.

Even the greenskin, long presumed extinct and consigned to legends and cautionary childhood fables, return inevitably for the great conflict to come. The tiny spore-morsels, left on worlds the galaxy over, slowly spread and developed over the millennia. Gradually, feral ork tribes began to spring up on even civilised worlds. Officials, dismissing these feral beings as mere savage beasts, simply began to cull these Ork nests with military force. Thus, the feral orks grow and spread, fuelled by war once more. For the first time in twenty thousand years, the galaxy rang to the sound of waaaaaaagh once more. However, not all the Orks returning were feral. Some were anything but. A new breed of ork emerged. Fully-armoured in heavy armour of high quality, with potent weapons and flawless discipline, these elite bands of Orks emerge from strange portals or from well-maintained warships, taking and holding worlds with horrifying efficiency, turning a world into a fortress within days. These Orks are like no ork ever encountered. It is claimed that they were exiled orks who found their brainboys. Others claim they are in thrall to a powerful warp being. Others claim a being may have figured out how to 'pilot' the Ork Gods themselves, wielding the entire Orkoid race as a single vast weapon. Either way, the orks are amassing for some purpose, as yet unseen.

Not only this, but the Eldar also gather, returning from their shadows with new insights. Some intensify their spiteful wars against the galaxy, while others take the long view. The dead Craftworld of Malantai stirs. Something is building within its nexus. Something vengeful...

Fate is weaving these rising empires into a great and deadly embrace. As each grows, the inevitability of the coming conflict is growing and building. We cannot escape it, nor can we oppose it. We can only try and survive it, and hope against hope, that when the end comes, it will drag suffering and pain into its fires as well.

It is the 61st Millennium, and the Age of Dusk is upon us. Let us hope dawn will break on a new universe. For hope is all we have, screaming against the storm.

Additional Background Information 1: Armageddon Rising.

The rise of the Armageddon Imperium is one of the most important events of the ten thousand years following the Second Age of Strife, and is a truly inspiring tale. However, the story begins within the darkest period of the troubled world of Armageddon's history. As it had always been, the polluted hive world had been a site of sporadic warfare during the collapse of the Imperium. On the eve of M51, the world's population found itself speared between three dreadful and relentless foes. The Kazan Imperium, a culture of men driven to madness and narcotic indulgences, filled the system with their narc-barges and gunships, pounding and assaulting the worlds of the system relentlessly, pillaging the supplies of the beleaguered realm in order to create more drugs to ship back to their crazed populace. The second foe was the Rand, an Imperium of rebellious abhumans and mutant freaks, who wished to annex the hive world and steal the world's military manufacturing capabilities for their own ends. Wild beastmen hordes and serf-ogryns were common amongst the armies of the Rand, who butchered and performed the most cruel of acts upon the cowering people. Not only did these Imperiums relentlessly assault the planets, a far worse force was drawn to the scent of battle, and the opportunity for sadism:

A warband of the Emperor's Children, which dragged a dozen enslaved chaos warbands in their wake as they burst from the warp to partake in the debauchery and torment such a war offered the chaos-twisted superhumans. The Steel Legion and the Hiver Militias tried their best to hold off these forces, but there was never any real hope. Slowly, over almost three years of horrendous, murderous fire-fights and blood-drenched desperate struggles in the dirt and rubble of Armageddon's countless smashed hive spires and ruined homes. Bodies were piled high in the streets. The pavements and pathways ran a dull black-red, the taint of congealing blood filling every nostril.

The Emperor's Children bestrode the battlefields like malevolent gods. Their noise marines deafened and liquidised fleeing remnants of humanity, while other deranged elements of the twisted monsters stalked men through the streets like animals, before putting them down with fitful giggles, pulling out eyes while men flailed uselessly against them. Many dark legends began to form amongst the despairing populace, some fair, some ill.

Across every world of the Armageddon system, one name was spoken with quivering, fearful whispers. The Eternal one, Lucius. Lucius the Eternal was a nightmare by this period, a towering giant covered in the screaming faces of those slain by the Eternal beast's blades, or subverted by his blessing. He travelled from world to world, challenging and murdering the greatest heroes and leaders of the near-broken defenders. Over the twenty thousand years of his vile existence, Lucius' body had stretched beyond his natural physique, his body expanding to accommodate the hundreds upon thousands of agonised faces bound within his accursed battle plate. His lash whipped about him like a viper, slaying men and women with every venomous, languid stroke of its barbed tendrils, while his glittering blade cut down warriors by the score, his skill beyond anything a mere mortal could hope to match.

Yet, there were other stories propagating through the misery. A giant, with eyes like the fires of hell, was fighting across the system too. Where ever the resolve of the defending humans seemed weakest, this hooded titan of obsidian flesh would appear; the hermit of glorious myth, now made flesh. Where he appeared, the tide of battle turned. His strength and power was unthinkable and wondrous; tanks were ripped apart, entire brigades of narc-mad berserker men from Kazan slain by his fists and his flamers, even the howling warriors of the Emperor's children felt the brutal exactions of the hermit who killed them like presumptuous bastard children.

Eventually, the last of the Defenders were pushed back to the blazing ruins of Hades hive. Backlit by endless purple flames, the last of the Steel Legion formed up into a defensive ring, using their Chimera as barricades, while their basilisks and Russes unleashed a constant barrage of ordnance into the onrushing hordes of madness and despair. Lord Delorr, the last of Armageddon's ruling leaders, bedecked himself in the ancient Imperial guard navy of his ancestors, his power sabre flourishing as he rallied his defenders with an impassioned speech where he called upon his people to put up such a fight, that they would be remembered forever in infamy amongst their enemies, as the last true Imperial outpost. His men cheered bitter cheers, as they shouldered their las rifles one last time.

Delorr was dragged from his lines as the hordes overran the Chimera blockade, by the brutal lash of Lucius the Eternal, who chuckled with a sadistic arrogance which did not cow Delorr, but drove him into a rage. Lucius dropped the mortal man into the dust at his feet. Both sides paused, as Lucius demanded all to witness the death of hope on Armageddon. Delorr, unafraid despite his broken arm and the many cuts ripped into his side by the vicious lash of torment. He spat blood, and slowly raised his sabre into a guard position. His arm was shaking with pain, and the defending men, women, and war-haunted children of Armageddon looked on with internal groans of anguish. Lucius towered over three metres above the frail, wounded old man who vainly raised his blade to challenge his foe.

Lucius smiled a hideous smile, his overly scarred features splitting like the glaze on an old piece of pottery, his fangs and serpentine tongue flicking around his jaws. Delorr attacked with all the skill he could muster, and Lucius lazily blocked and deflected every single blow without even effort. Each time, he would gift Delorr with another shallow cut, and the leader would stumble to his knees, before slowly rising once more. Finally, Lucius split Delorr from head to foot with a single stroke of his blade.

'And so, mankind falls to the eternal blade of the Emperor's Children, never to rise!' Lucius the eternal was recorded as cackling across the battlefield, his daemonic voice carrying across the entire field easily.

'There is only one Emperor's child upon this world, and you are not him. I have fought from the shadows for too long. I decree that this shall continue NO MORE.'

The voice which replied was effortlessly powerful, and filled with a humble yet firm authority which evaporated the effect of Lucius' vile tirade. It is said every warrior on the field that day was briefly knocked into silence for a few moments, as the hermit himself emerged from behind the ranks of the Rand, tossing the abhumans aside as he burst into the forefront of the battle, striding forwards to point at Lucius directly.

Lucius turned and cursed the presumption of the pathetic beast who thought to challenge him, drawing his sword once more. His venomous words caught in his throat, as he realised who removed the hooded cloak from around his shoulders, revealing a giant armoured in dragon-sculptured emerald and glittering green plate.

The Primarch, the demi-god of War, Vulkan. Though Lucius still rose to a greater height than Vulkan, the Primarch was powerful and filled with a presence the Eternal one couldn't hope to match. Vulkan raised his burning spear in one fist, aimed at the Chaos marine. Lucius grinned in response.

'At last,' was all the monster said, before charging to engage Vulkan.

The swirling melee lasted for almost twelve hours, daemonic energies and light spilling from the conflict in great boiling waves. The arena of conflict which sprang up between the defenders and attackers was turned molten by the fury of the conflict. Vulkan's spear was like a living being in his grasp, darting and spinning to engage Lucius with ever more complex assaults. The Eternal one, for the first time in millennia, was struggling to defend himself and counterattack, simply trying to defend himself. He however, was simply weeping with joy. At last a true challenge.

Yet, for all Lucius' hateful abilities, Vulkan was the greater. He hacked off the legs of the chaos marine, before slicing through his arms from his torso contemptuously. Lucius merely giggled, spewing black blood from his mouth in a great torrent. He jeered at Vulkan, even as the primarch stood over him.

'Go on, slay me Salamander prince! Just like we slew your Legion on Istvaan! Finish your victory, take your bloody vengeance! Feel the pride and joy of avenging your fallen brothers, your fallen Imperium, your broken father! Kill me, and learn of your folly!' Lucius pleaded, with malevolent eyes.

Vulkan slammed his boot down onto Lucius' head.

Except, he didn't. His boot paused inches from the killing blow. The arrogance drained from Lucius' face, as Vulkan smiled humourlessly, and turned back to face the hordes of enemies who were ready to murder every defender of Armageddon without mercy. He raised his spear, twirled it in his hand, and plunged it six feet into the ground, before raising his arms up from his sides. He declared his name, what he was and what he represented. He declared how he would rebuild the old Imperium, and drive despair kicking and screaming from his new realm. His speech resounded across the landscape, as his passionate voice reached the men who stood poised to destroy the last remnants of resistance.

The Emperor's children however, cared not. They advanced once more, weapons raised... and were then assaulted by the Rand Imperial forces, who threw themselves into combat with the superhuman butchers with rekindled zeal at the words of the Emperor's true child. The Emperor's children, believing both of their allies had turned, attacked them with spiteful vengeance. The Kazan, Rand and Emperor's Children thus turned upon each other, and this conflict expanded out into space and unto every planet in the system. Enemies divided, Vulkan led, at last, a counter offensive. He battled in person where he could. The few surviving Steel Legion desperately followed him, and as he engaged the enemies across the system, he gathered more and more supporters from the local populace. Those soldiers and people who had hidden from the onslaught of the Astartes now rose up, buoyed by the arrival of their new champion.

After a decade of further conflict, Armageddon was reclaimed, and those who opposed Vulkan were forced to withdraw. The Daemon Prince Kadious, who led the Children from his Pleasure fortress in orbit, fled from the might of Vulkan, his howls echoing throughout the warp as he chose to abandon his physical form rather than risk defeat by the Primarch. His howls of hurt pride reverberated throughout the warp. Somewhere, deep within a daemon world formed from tattooed, mewling flesh, an ancient serpent-thing's eyes flicked open, in recognition of the word 'Vulkan'. A slow smile spread across its distorted face, as it recalled its brother. But this story will be told later...

Vulkan's consolidation of Armageddon ended when he returned to that world, and returned to Hades Hive, at the head of an army of refugees and grizzled soldiers, some Kazan, some Randian, others genuine surviving Steel Legionnaires and citizens of the planet. Here he found Lucius, howling and cursing. He had been guarded by a dozen soldiers while Vulkan had been at war. They had each shot themselves, as the influence of Lucius corrupted their minds. Still, the Eternal one was alive. Limbless and broken, but definitely alive.

When Vulkan returned, Lucius cursed and spat his name, eyes wild with malice. 'I shall never die dog of the Emperor! I am eternal! Even in defeat, I am made stronger! You cannot slay me, or you will fall just like your fallen brothers!' Lucius cackled manically.

Vulkan's face, it was said in later Legends, was set like stone as he responded coldly. 'No, Lucius. You will not die. You will live forever. My subjects; dig a pit,' Vulkan requested, as he hefted Lucius up to his eye level.

'You will live your corruption in darkness and impotence! You shall be Eternal, I promise you that. Yet, should you suffocate in your living tomb, and your soul once more seeks reincarnation, know this: I take no pride or pleasure in your demise, for you are beneath me. I feel NOTHING for you.'

Thus, as Lucius screamed his defiant misery through his bleeding jaws, he was entombed within a bladed coffin of admantium, and was tossed into the vast pit delved into the crust of Armageddon by the adoring allies of Vulkan, before being buried forever.

Lucius the Eternal was finally bested, forever.

Vulkan turned his attentions inwards, and he remade Armageddon from the foundations up. Militarily secure, the Primarch had the structures of the planet rebuilt, he enforced mass infrastructure renewal projects, including increasing agriculture, both on the surface and in dedicated underground greenhouse vaults. As food and security increased, manpower increased and the population slowly began to recover. He formed enforcer units to keep the peace, had medical facilities and factories constructed, and the people of Armageddon began to prosper over the decades, under their immortal Lord's rule, who ruled alongside a council of Senators and celebrated thinkers. Eventually, this rebuilding spread to every planet in the system. Once his world was secure and as perfect as his vision could imagine, he began to look outwards.

His new armies, forced to utilise the captured barges and warships of the Kazan and Rand, progress was slow. Yet, as he made short warp jumps to the nearest systems, be began to encounter and defeat realms with useful technologies, knowledge and equipment which he could utilise to reclaim much of the lost information of manind at its height. He liberated scores of Tech Priests and their acolytes, bringing them to Armageddon to found the first of Vulkan's Promethean Technocratic Academies, where the cult mechanicus was reborn upon the world. Using the rebuilt factories and industrial equipment of Armageddon, the Academy began to produce many new and glorious technological wonders. After a century of campaigning and reconquest, Vulkan had brought a dozen star systems under his rule, and the Academics cloistered within the Tower of Knowledge, situated upon Armageddon, had designed and had constructed three vast battleships, by disassembling dozens of older vessels, and using those parts in conjunction with newly designed equipment.

These were soon used to lead the fleets of captured vessels Vulkan had brought under his heel, a million different hulls and weapon load-outs for a million different purposes and wars. Old, disbanded remnants of old Imperial Guard regiments and recruiting worlds also began to be incorporated, adding to the skill and effectiveness of Vulkan's armies.

Each world Vulkan took, he would stay upon for almost a decade, carefully rebuilding much of what he destroyed, and converting the populace to his views using his powerful rhetoric and skills as a diplomat and orator. Yet, despite the influence and power of Vulkan, he could not lead every fleet of his, and his mortal armies were struggling to advance his new Empire, as many other older petty Imperium began to oppose them with ever greater stubbornness. This would not do.

As Vulkan's Imperium became more well known amongst the galactic population, he began to encounter Space Marines, in various guises. On the worlds of Domhald, Vesker and Hoinkaz respectively, Vulkan found these fortress worlds were defended by fearsome defenders, who would not yield to Vulkan's armies. Eventually, Vulkan realised these were Imperial Fists. After much argument and war and debate, the Fists were persuaded that Vulkan was, indeed, who he said he was, and they reluctantly agreed to an alliance, finally relieved after their lengthy sieges. Every few decades, Armageddon would be visited by black-skinned warriors, clad in faded, cracked green armour, tears trailing down their features as they made pilgrimage to Vulkan's residence, a relatively mundane tower within the vast rebuilt Hades Hive. The surviving Salamanders returned to their father. Vulkan joyfully accepted the refugee Salamanders into the fold once more. Occasionally, word reached Vulkan's campaign forces of bands of rogue Space marines raiding and pillaging various human worlds across the segmentum. When Vulkan actually encountered many of these bands, he discovered most were not actually chaotic renegade marines, but were actually simply rogue aimless Astartes causing trouble and starting wars simply because they wanted to. Doom Eagles, Marines Malevolent, Dark Star marine, Minotaurs, White Scars, and a hundred different chapters had elements running rampant and uncontrolled across the void. Vulkan forcibly brought these warbands to battle. Those who did not submit to his Imperial rule were defeated and their arms and armour was captured. Those that realised who this Vulkan was, eventually submitted to his will. Yet, despite these recruits and converts, the Vulkan Imperium could only boast around three hundred aging Astartes, and this was simply not enough to be useful to the ever expanding realm.

By 006.M52, Vulkan's Imperium spanned roughly one thousand worlds. Each world was well fortified, and his army was still expanding and re-organising into a more unified galactic fighting force. Institutions and bureaucracy sprang up, and many complex industrial and social systems developed, turning Armageddon into a bustling metropolis of Vulkan's new Imperium.

Not only were the mortal armies changing, but the forces of the Astartes began to be remade according to Vulkan's new plans. He used genetic information from his own flesh, combined with much of the geneseed of those Astartes who came to him, to begin a new project of Astartes-creation. Countless boys and families begged to join this new revolution of god-making . These new Astartes were formed into forces known as Commanderies, each two thousand marines strong. They were led by veterans of the ancient old Imperium's previous Astartes Chapters, who knew of the intensive training required to make these superhumans into true Astartes killing machines. In total, two hundred Commandries were formed, and many would be remembered with infamy amongst the foes of Vulkan; the Jade Princes, the Supplicants, Nemenmarines, the Dorn Revenants, and countless others (which we shall not go into here). Those Salamanders who returned to Vulkan formed the first Commandery, and kept their title. They devoted themselves to protecting their Primarch. They became a force of guardians and counter-insurgent force, used to stifle any violent revolutions against Vulkan's regimes. However, Vulkan had no desire to crush all dissenters. Those who had concerns over his rule were allowed to have their opinions voiced in the councils of the Vulkan Imperium. While most concerns are ignored, at least they are acknowledged.

With the Commanderies at the forefront of the reconquest, the Vulkan Imperium expanded to almost three thousand worlds in half the time it took to claim the first one thousand. As the Vulkan Imperium expanded, Vulkan encountered the larger menaces that filled the galaxy. South of his realm, the vast Theocractic nightmare realm of the Tallern-Ophelian Imperium resided. It was a dark realm of suspicion and hatred, where witch hunters and preachers drove the realm into religious mania. The Ecclesiarch was the highest authority there, and he declared, from his monolithic Cathedral world, that Vulkan was no Primarch, but was instead a daemon in disguise. Those that face the daemonic red eyes of the warrior king of the Vulkan Imperium, could hardly deny he seemed truly diabolic. To the North and West of the Vulkan Imperium, the two Chaos Imperiums began to react to his consolidating actions, and many were the vicious wars fought between these three powers, in anticipation of some vast unseen engagement yet to come. To the east, Vulkan received emissaries from a realm he had never known before; Grand Sicarium. The multi-coloured Astartes to arrived in Vulkan's court were clad in fine burnish armours, expensive furs and jewelry, and bore ornate bolters across their chests. They declared that King Sicarius, being King of all Astartes, would be happy to accept the Commanderies of Vulkan into their Empire, as long as they accepted Sicarius as their lord and master.

Needless to say, Vulkan was not pleased, and demonstrated great restraint by only killing one of the emissaries of Sicarius, sending the second one back to his master, to inform Sicarius that no, the Commanderies would not join his den of infamy and oppression. They would fight them to the very last.

For, amidst the growing tide of dangers throughout the galaxy, Vulkan had formed a solid core of sanity in the middle of the former Imperium's heart.

Additional Background Information 2: The Greater Good drives on.

By the dawn on the 61st Millennium, the Tau had truly learned their place in the great tumult of the galaxy. Spread across a thousand sectors, and hundreds of sept colonies and systems, the Tau were an industrial powerhouse of the like not seen in almost ten thousand years. Their technology had reached beyobd what the original Tau, in their naive ignorance, believed was possible, and client races by the dozens have integrated into Tau culture (with varying degrees of success. The Hu'sta Gue'Vesa Colonies of To'Kann had become almost idendical to most Sept worlds, filled with beautiful white cities and wondrous technologies, while the Kroot worlds remain semi-civilised auxillaries, still on the fringes of society despite their ancient pedigree.)

The furious process of Terra-forming enacted throughout the second Age of Strife has worked in their favour; while other cultures faltered and disintegrated, the Tau fashioned themselves into an ever harder force. Their cutting edge weaponry was awe-inspiring to behold; it was noted during the protracted war with the Zaffian independent human league (in 473.M55), how their newest gunships could move to fast and strike so lethally, entire battalions of foes were vanquished before the order to retaliate could be given, their armoured columns instantly shattered into molten slag by a hundred thousand simultaneous missile barrages, followed up by direct engagement by agile battlesuits who never seemed to miss.

Yet, as we have seen, all this technology was painfully necessary simply for the Tau Meta-Empire to survive. In the Northern and Eastern sept clusters of the empire, and beyond, titanic forces were arrayed against them. A great silver tide threatened to drown them all, and undo their bitterly difficult expansion before it could be completed. The Necrons ( or the Mont'Ka'Vesa, as they were known by the Tau) were at full gold mobilisation. Titanic spider constructs bestrode worlds, drinking them dry of life, before spewing green oblivion into their fleets. Endless tides of Necrons warriors and Immortals lived up to their undying titles; the constructs repaired almost all damage, and those necrons truly destroyed were ripped from the very air, repaired by a million machines upon their tomb worlds, and spat back to another war front to fight again, all in the space of hours!

In early phases, the Tau lost hundreds of worlds to these terrors, entire planetary populations vanquished before they could be evacuated to safety. Billions died, and the Tau empire wept for these horrendous losses. The Water Caste propaganda machine had a pitifully easy task uniting their entire empire against this nightmare; made all the simpler when even the most secure sept-dwelling Tau from the safest most peaceful septs, only had to look into the sky and notice that stars were vanishing from the skies before their own eyes. For this menace was not some petty dynast looking for land and a galaxy to rule. It was a force of utter oblivion, led by the personification of such nightmarish ideals; the Nightbringer himself. Many times had the Tau mobilised full battlefleets of the new 'Avenger' class warships and millions of Fire Caste warriors, to fight the Necrons in open war, only for a great black cloud to enter the system, and drink the local star dry. This doomed a system, and made defending such places pointless. Many were the solemn poems written at this time upon Elsy'eir, about the terrible agonising decisions Sphere-Maintainence Commanders had to face by leaving so-called 'dark-septs' to their doom.

Yet, by 972.M55, the Tau had somewhat found a method of holding the darkness at arms length. Munitions were developed that burrowed into Necron constructs, and continually burned no matter how many times they were repaired. This forced Tomb Worlds to abandon seriously damaged Necrons and to build entire new Necron bodies for the consciousnesses stored in the nodal grid. This took time, and allowed Tau Sept colonies to summon aid through the immense waystation grid network. When Necron forces transported their swarming monoliths upon a planet or station, they found the Tau were ready with all the fearsome weaponry their Empire could fashion. Fighting in such wars, with such hideous and unthinkable powerful weapons was always a harrowing experience, and Earth Caste specialist hospitals were set up by the thousands to deal with the influx of battle-damaged and mentally scarred soldiers evacuated from such warzones. In many cases, these hospitals became euthanasia centres, due to the unnatural and sometimes impossible conditions of some soldiers. The things they saw could not be unseen, and their bodies and minds were consumed by the revelations that gnawed upon their very souls.

The Tau had also made a grand alliance with their old foes, the diverse and fickle Thexian Trade Empire, which had also suffered painfully at the Necrons' silvered hands. The Concord between the two great rivals was binding so long as the Necrons remained 'a credible and pressing danger to the survival of the overall galactic community'. Little could the two factions realise how many thousands of years this would remain the case. One must also note that though the Thexian Elite did sign this treaty, many of their less controllable elements still cause problems in northern Sept districts, where the rule of the Tau is lax...

The great Necron wars affected a great many aspects of the Empire throughout its history. There was much desperation amongst the corporate leaders of the Grand Septs (such as T'au and Bork'an in particular). New weapons and means of combating the silver dread were demanded at all times. In particular, the dreadful loss of life resulting from the war (an attrition rate of almost 80% throughout the years 387.M54-999.M57) was widely decried by most non-military elements of the Empire. Bork'an made tentative attempts to develop pilot-less drone controlled Battlesuits for mass-production. However, such machines had slow reactions, and were generally deemed useless. Reluctantly, the secret projects which had de=populated the ancient world of N'dras were ordered by the council of Aun'Va to continue their old research into hyper-sophisticated drone processing and development. This led to the terrible events of the N'dras conflagration in 555.M57, but we shall come back to this at some future date. However, before that date, the N'drasian 'Cold-suits' became an essential element in future Tau conflicts; they could be deployed by the millions directly from Demiurg factory vessels, into combat. The distinctive blue-grey form of the N'drasian XV333-78 combat battlesuits were far more slender and manoeuvrable than their predecessors due to their lack of a pilot. They could accelerate more quickly and were more agile, as they didn't risk the well-being of their occupants. Also, each suit could contain greater payloads and more weapons and more complex targeting systems, and had extensive sophisticated drone networking systems, allowing drones to become an extension of their own minds. What was more was that rather than being mere programs, the CPUs of the XV333's could actually think for themselves; Artificial Intelligences. A whispered abomination in the old spluttering cultures of the Gue'Vesa, the Tau did not fear these thinking machines. Their arrogance and ignorance would later serve as a warning to all. Beware the Ghost in the Machine...

On 397.893.M58, the single most important development in Tau culture and their wider society came to pass. It wa son this day, upon the world of Jaa'Vorl, that a Tau child known to history as Kor-Pivin, was the first Tau to undergo experimental Earth Caste genetic tests. These long and gruelling tests had be begun barely seven kai'rotaa (each equivalent to 50 Terran Days) previously, after reports across the empire spoke of strange Tau who could perceive the world in a way never before seen, and could even manipulate local physical constants to a minor degree. On some of the more far distant Sept colonies, such talents would often go unexplored, but the pattern began to reoccur within the more metropolitan sept worlds and sept-dominated colonies. Once the tests were completed, the results were revealed to the Earth caste much to their astonishment. They had confirmed the existence of the first ever Tau psyker. This information was of course withheld from the majority of Tau society for almost a hundred years. By the time the Ethereals had properly 'prepared' society for this revelation, Vior'la and several other military academies across the Empire had already performed their own hunts for psykers (or 'vortex singularities' as the Tau propaganda machine hurried to call them to avoid unpleasant associations with the destructive and insane warp-user strains of humanity, who had caused so much destruction of the millennia), and had gathered them together into secret breeding programs.

In typical Tau fashion, these psykers began to be developed into a distinct caste, the M'yen caste (aptly translated as 'the unforeseen' caste, as one could easily argue none amongst the Tau predicted such a development). Clad in strange purple robes, and utilising odd energy focussing crystals in their ornamentation and armaments, these figures became a strange and unsettling presence within Tau society. Most were hastily deployed to the eternal Necron front, bolstering the other psychic races of the grand alliance, who were essential in keeping the silver menace at bay. The rest were used by the Ethereals, to ensure the compliance and adoration of sept worlds and those living within them, to the Greater Good. The M'yen'Vre were the perfect tools for the Ethereals to enact their dominion over all living being beneath their united facade. And dissidents would give themselves away simply by thinking against the system. Such dissidents were taken from their homes and taken to re-education centres, where a combination of M'yen hypnosis techniques and powerful chemical olfactory were employed to re-align the loyalties of the discordant elements. They returned to their home worlds speaking of the beautiful verdant lands they had visited, and how they had spoke personally to Aun'Va, who told them the true meaning of the greater good. So far, not one of the re-educated citizens of the Empire has ever been known to re-offend. Such is the destiny of unity.

On the western borders of the Tau Meta-Empire, things are rather different, throughout this period. Growing mobilisation on the eastern borders meant the Tau could not afford to supply these colonies and distant Septs with the latest technology and weaponry. On some worlds, they were even still using old devilfish chassis and gunship variants, as well as the old battlesuit designs. These colonies shared greater trading and cross-cultural exchange with outside societies than the very insular inner colonies of the Empire. Numerous human Imperiums and civilisations trading ideas and technology with these colonies, or, more often, would raid or make war upon these weaker Tau societies, thinking they were unable to defend themselves. Sometimes this was accurate; most of the time it was not. Many were the foolish brigand-captains who, clad in their stolen finery and armed with pillaged vessels, who try to blast the Tau into submission. Their rail guns and Hero-class cruisers often demonstrated with defiant clarity just who was the real power in the area.

The semi-independent Enclave known as the Farsighted Enclave, is a rare example of a truly independent Tau civilisation, completely distinct from their authoritarian neighbours. It is a bizarre feudal culture centred around archaic battlesuit-wearing Kasar-princes, who maintain personal armies and vie with one another for influence. There's is a bastard culture of many different origins, which can only really unite when under threat by a faction more powerful than all of the princes combined. Such a foe reared its head in 222.M53. In this year, the outer waystations of the Enclave picked up the distinctive signature of a large battlefleet entering realspace from the warp. Accordingly, Kais'Kasar'Koilgu, the local Kasar-prince, gathered his forces and his battlefleet and thundered to intercept this fleet. Over the moon of Jubza, the two fleets met. The enemy fleet didn't even attempt to communicate with Koilgu. Instead, the vast fleet of boxy, bulky vessels, each distinctive and colourful in its livery and decoration, opened fire upon Koilgu's armada. The battle raged for days, until the flagship of the mysterious fleet fired boarding torpedoes directly into Koilgu's own command vessel. The Enclave Tau fought hard with pulse rifle and bloody-minded determination, but they were easily cut down by the arrogant giants who rampaged through the ship, accompanied by flocks of adoring human worshippers who fired lasguns and cried prayers to their masters. Eventually, the leader of the foe burst onto Koilgu's bridge. Koilgu was armoured in a beautifully maintained battlesuit, covered in honour markings and inscriptions of glory. Before him, God-Captain Flaegren, Astartes-Under Lord for the seventeenth crusade of Grand Sicarium stood in ornate power armour with glittering power fist, his shoulders swathed in a thick lion pelt, his head covered by ostentatious jewellery of the most garish kind. The two opulent and corrupt figures stared each other down for but an instant before the charged. Bolter and melta raged against plasma rifle and burst cannon, crackling power fist clattered against a sparking Mechanicus power glaive, granted to Koilgu by a captured Adept long ago. Though the battlesuit made Koilgu fiendishly strong, Flaegren was a veteran of almost a millennia of bloodshed and warfare. His skill was phenomenal, and the duel ended which the psychotic marine carving opn Koilgu's chassis, before having his sycophantic minions pour molten gold inside the suit with the screaming Tau still inside.

Koilgu's gilded corpse was delivered to the Grand Kassar of the Enclave scant months later. The retainer who brought the grizly trophy to the Kassar arrogantly recited the God-Captain's message.

"Here is a valuable gift to the great Kassar of the Farsighted Enclave. A token of the benevolence of Lord King Sicarius and the Grand Sicarium. You shall receive more of these mighty gifts, should your foolish peoples choose to oppose the dominion of the true master of the Galaxy, and the King of all Astartes!"

Needless to say, but the remains of the retainer, after the Kassar was done with him, would have barely filled a small paper cup. The challenge of Flaegren had bee accepted, and it would be many years before his crusade could be stopped by the Enclave. Over a dozen worlds and a hundred battlefronts, the insane Marines of Grand Sicarium and their men at arms fought bitter world to world wars with the Enclaves. Each side fought like smoke, fluidly attempting to out manoeuvre their opponents before delivering a killing blow. Guerilla campaigns were launched by desperate or hate-fuelled enclavers, and the Astartes responded with vast bombing runs over civilian population centres. The sheer number and variety of conflicts that raged for decades throughout the lawless border regions could fill a library themselves, but eventually both sides were exhausted, numbers dwindling to but a fraction of their previous forces. Bitter and driven by a blinding arrogance, Flaegren continued his campaign, initiating a blistering and penetrative offensive with his remaining fleet, which plunged like a spear deep into the soft tissue of the farsighted Enclave. The capital world itself was besieged by two great battlebarges. These massive floating cityscapes were almost impossible to destroy; time and again dedicated bands of battlesuits and drones would sally forth on covert missions to infiltrate and destroy the colossi, but to no avail.

Then, something truly disastrous occurred. In his hubris and mania, Flaegren had neglected to maintain his stocks of ordnance throughout the war. His logistical lines were stretched to breaking point, and this breaking point came sixteen months into the final siege. A vast Astartes supply vessel, the bride of Sicarius, burst into the system without escort, hoping to resupply the vast barges who had been constantly pounding any large cities or settlements they could find upon the surface. Before it could reach Flaegren's vessels however, the Kassar's men finally leapt into action. Over seven hundred battlesuits, three hundred orcas filled with loyal fire warriors, supported by a tribe of the mercenary Kroot, boarded the vessel, and destroyed all the munitions in a great storm of gunfire and screams. Now helpless and unarmed, the battle-barges were easy meat for the reinforcements that came to wreak their terrible vengeance upon the hated Astartes. Kasar-princes from across the Enclave burst into the system with their attendant fleets, spewing glistening arcs of blue and purple energy into the stricken behemoths. Missiles and ion batteries of a dozen different configurations and designs pumped their destructive force into breaking apart the ancient Terran constructs. Armour plates splintered and blistered, men and women howled as the void reached in to snatch away their lives in a fiery instant, and slowly but surely, both the great ships collapsed under the pressure, tumbling into pieces like the decomposing corpses of whales.

It was said Flaegren went down with his ship, insaley ordering his men to stop dying, as the air was sucked from the bridge. He died hacking apart his own minions as they asphyxiated on the floor at his gilded boots.

This is, of course, but a brief glimpse into the actions of the Tau of this period, as destiny called out to all races in the wake of building giants in both the void and the warp. Soon enough, the Tau, the young race turned into a cynical monstrosity by grief, were forced to reassess their place in the galaxy, and to choose a side in the final great and enduring conflict of our, and indeed all, times. For it was coming, and no dynasty would be secure from it in the end.

Additional Background Information 3: The Asur Revenant: The actions of the Eldar .

It would be remiss of this history to ignore one of the prime movers throughout the Eternal War. By the close of the second Age of Strife, to an outside observer, the Eldar race would have seemed utterly extinct, save for those last few burning embers. Indeed, most of the vast Craftworlds were naught but ghost ships, rumbling silently with the souls of the countless dead Eldar slain in the hopeless task of awakening their god of the Dead, while others were victims of the great Chaos Empires and Necron uprisings in the ascent throughout that darkest of times. Of the Craftworlders, only Biel-Tan remained active and defiant, attracting those few outsiders and rogues of their race to them, and forging a moderate empire of hundreds of worlds (though these remained scattered across the galaxy, thus making their empire seem impossibly diffuse and hard to notice).

Yet, this is but a fragment of the Eldar race in total. For, running through the veins of the webway like black Tar was a realm which had never stopped, and never repented of their actions.

Commorragh. The Second Age of Strife had a different name in the Dark City of Sin. It had been considered a golden age. With the fall of the Imperium, all order vanished and collapsed. Once secure worlds across the galaxy were now helpless before the Dark Kin and their ever-draining souls. Worlds were repeatedly ravaged by the Dark Eldar Kabals. Slaves souls and tortured screams filled the City in a great tumult. Yet, for all their building prosperity, the drain upon their own gangrenous souls grew too. Their raids were ever more frequent as the coiling embrace of slannesh tightened as her power built in the anarchy of the wider galaxy.

The Dark Eldar continued on as they had always done, driven by insanity and malice and utter evil. They continued to conspire against one another and the dark pits were ever-filled with the shrieks of the damned and the dying. And at the centre of this all, was Vect. The Overlord of Commorragh, however, was truly mad. One of the eldest beings alive, the Dark Lord's life drew on long beyond his ability to rejuvenate his soul; millions upon millions of slaves and minions had to perish every day to keep his soul from being drained away like bile in rainwater. He grew desperate and ever-more dangerous as his mind began to slip from him. To begin with, this mania was merely a deception; a lure to draw out conspirators against his position. But after thousands of years, deception became truth, and Asbruael Vect became something far worse than a monster and a Tyrant to the dark Eldar; he became a liability and a threat to all Archons.

Kabals who didn't bring back sufficient souls were destroyed as they entered the Port of Lost Souls, and their ruins were picked over by the parched and rival Archons alike. His punishments for perceived slights and threats against him were brutal even by his own standards. Some Archons were carved up into a thousand parts, re-grown through the oceans of agony generated by the Haemonculi, and each one was then butchered and tortured, before being deposited upon Slanneshi daemonworlds.

Yet, there was but one Archon who could hope to challenge Vect's entrenched position. Lady Malys. Disgruntled Kabals flocked to her banner secretly, and the old Noble houses slithered to her throne with tributes of the caged screams of billions of wailing infants and the hearts of an entire race made extinct in her name. And it was not just they who had her ear. The Harlequins, it was rumoured, came secretly to her chambers, and danced the secret dances that nobody knew. Secrets and prophesies and words uttered only once and never uttered in all the countless eons of existence before or since. (The rumours of bladed shadows that descended upon worlds assailed by the Nightbringer's forces during the eastern campaigns are perhaps not so far-fetched as once believed... but this is another story...)

Yet the Dark Lord was not without his own allies; his sycophants and those Eldar who truly wished to see the world sicken and misery to reign, simply to see what would happen, and how it could be rebuilt in a vile manner of their own choosing. At every level of the twisted Hierarchies of Commorragh, a new division was brewing, amidst the various and multifaceted feuds and ambition which was normal and encouraged across the twisted realm.

Of course, to the outside galaxy, this was an unseen war, but it was not unfelt. The Dark Eldar were being bred on an unprecedented scale, and the Haemonculi rejoiced as they could breed more eventual fodder for their labs. Abominations were released on millions of worlds across the galaxy, and no one could comprehend what these misshapen things were, or why they so desperately tortured, raped and destroyed them. Raids became even more frequent, as the raw material that formed Commorragh's bedrock was in ever greater demand.

While ambition brewed in the dark city, the rest of the Eldar race was not idle. Biel-Tan engaged in a war against the Eastern Chaos Imperium. The realm of renegades and brigands was vast, bordering both Vulkan's new Imperium and the western domains of Abaddon himself. Yet, it was a cumbersome beast, with little order beyond the great fleets of Huron Blackheart, the rotting heart of the Chaos Imperium. The war was predominantly a naval conflict, as the Eldar made up for their lack of numbers by using Waystones and spirit gems to guide and control the massive numbers of orphaned craftworld fleets, greatly bolstering the numbers available to Yriel. Yriel was a genius in void warfare, yet Huron, despite his age and his increasing chaotic taint, was also a master of fleets.

There were far too many naval actions, spread across centuries upon centuries, to document in their entirety here. For Yriel was a persistent threat and nuisance to Huron. His ships were arrow-swift and they only fought battles when they had no other choice. Most of the time, they avoided his great Corsair armadas. When they did strike, it was while Huron's armies were occupied in other wars against lesser Imperiums and against Abaddon and his Legions or the Astartes Commanderies of Vulkan. Whenever Huron was weakest, Yriel struck. It is testament to the skill of Huron and his Lieutenants that these battles were rarely one-sided; they always knew of some means to reply to the Eldar. Indeed, Huron's familiar whispered of coming threats weeks before they arrived.

One such battle was in the system of Maniforge, where Yriel came close to being destroyed. The world was a Dark Mechanicus forge world; a world infested with the Obliterator plague right to its very core. Huron's vessels, limping back to an allied port after a failed campaign against the Lead Bastion, one of Grand Sicarium's core worlds, were attacked by Yriel's hidden Void Stalkers, cruisers and wraithships as they burst into reality. Like daggers through silk, the Eldar engaged the chaotic vessels, laying waste to hundreds of vessels within hours. But Huron had picked the Maniforge for a very particular reason. He had made a pact with the Deep Entity known as Valchocht the Maker, the Ravager of Terra, Lord of the Obliterator contagion. These great Daemon was promised all of maniforge, as well as the sanctified sacrifices of two hundred betrayed Red Corsairs. But what really sealed the pact was the promise of bright Eldar souls to devour. Eldar were so very rare, and it would please Valchocht to deny the young upstart God Slannesh some of her prize delicacies. When Yriel destroyed the first wave of chaos vessels, he sealed the deal, and maniforge opened. Valchocht and his ilk were daemons from the deep warp; ancient and vast beyond all imagining. When he was reborn upon the plane of flesh, he bodily possessed all of the wrecked hulks at once. Vine sof sulphurous daemonflesh and churning technologies flowed between the ruins, knitting them together into an behemoth as vast as a star fort. Huron eventually arrived hours later, and the battle of Maniforge began anew. Both sides were heavily battered and brutalised and not one vessel escaped unscathed. Yriel's flagship was almost consumed by a great destroyer-wide maw which burst from Valchocht's stolen flesh of steel and souls, but skilful piloting and the spear of twilight spared him of this end.

Another engagement in the long war led the two enemies to almost be destroyed by a third force, when they became becalmed in the dead warp around the Angylworld of Zone. Their engines failed and their crews became sluggish and weak, as the cold influence of the perfectly symmetrical world of order and obedience spread out from it like a vile halo. Luckily, they managed to repair their vessels just as their sensors picked up the great silver pinions of the Angyls of the Star Father, come to break their spirit and enslave their minds. Biel-Tan would never bow.

The hollow tombworlds taht were once the craftworlds echoed with the sounds of skirmishing and violence. Bands of looters and pirates attempted to ransack these ancient worldships for their hidden technologies and the secrets that lay within them. They often learned too late that the capering ones in their cloaks of many colours still defended their kins' graves. And yet, Craftworld after Craftworld was pillaged by some great force, which could evade the defenders easily. They did not cause damage though, and they only took one thing. Each craftworld found their Avatars spirited away. Only gory offerings and broken spirit stones marked their passing.

When the war of Commorragh finally came in M67, there was carnage (which will be detailed further in later parts). Yet, soon, the two rivals found that a far greater war had come to the galaxy, and for once, they could not hide from it, for it came for them. The full extent of this war will become apparent in later sections, but the Dark Eldar experienced their first real taste of this conflict when the great Jackal God began in earnest, his war upon the webway. Though the deceiver had little power there, the greater war had begun to awaken his more... esoteric allies from their slumber/imprisonment/banishment. The Ophilim Kiasoz, that great unknowable terror, had dimensions that bisected the webway in certain sections. What is more, it had allies amongst the Dark Eldar themselves; creatures that had bonded themselves to the anomaly through some means mortals were not meant to know.

The dark Kin would fight in the war for existence, or they too would perish.

And of course, all true Eldar grew to fear and despise those who rose from the Crone worlds. Those who were Her favourites, brought back to drink deep of the fall of flesh and the accent of excess. The Chaos Eldar, who would attempt to bring the galaxy to its knees, at the head of the impossible legions that gathered for the End.

Additional Background Information 4: The Blind Eagle; The Empire of the Theologian Union.

At the close of the Second Age of Dusk, the very heart of the Ophelian Imperium was suddenly and violently ripped out by the sudden and thunderous birth of the Star Father. The entire world was dragged into the warp and becalmed by legions of Angyls. It became the Angylworld of the ArchAngyl Malcador, and reappeared as a world of thoughtless drones deep within the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath, many thousands of light years removed from its former location.

This loss was a near fatal blow to the Ophelian Imperium. In one fell swoop, over half the Sisters Thanatine (the Elite monastic Military Order which formed the elite core of the petty Imperium's colonial forces), as well as the Ecclesiarch and most of the Cardinals versed in Saint Karamazov the Martyred's Doctrines of the faith, enforced as the official faith in the manic realm. The Imperium's precarious administrative organisation was compromised and rendered inoperative.

Within ten years of M51, the Ophelian Imperium had descended into anarchy, as the Governor-Kings of the thousand-strong Empire fought and bickered in bitter conflicts of succession between each other, sometimes besieging their own fellow Imperial worlds with their PIFs (Planetary Invasion Forces) and what ships they could spare. Though trade continued betwixt the realms, it was carried out with paranoid wariness; much revenue being expended on simply defending cargo fleets from attack during their long short-warp jump journeys between the strongholds of each individualistic despot. Some Governor's were utterly unscrupulous, hiring outside human and alien mercenaries ( even Krieg Serf soldiers) to overcome their rivals, often entering into surprisingly disadvantageous alliances in order to assert their claim Capital-status for their own world, and desperately each tried to get their own candidates elected by the Cardinals to become Eccliesiarch.

This of course meant that the Ophelian Imperium was much weakened at this time, and many of the border worlds were sacked by opportunistic enemies, such as the carnivorous amphibious Cythenan empire, and the Vazineren Imperium, with its cadres of Psychons, terrible soldiers recruited solely from the mounting Psyker population of that particular Imperium (which was formed around an unstable warp rift known as the Kazid). It was at this point, after years of anarchy, that the Tallern Imperium really began to take an increased interest in their troublesome neighbour.

While the Ophelians had been laid low by the events of the Age of Strife, the Tallarn Emperors and their Nobles ruling over their many thousands of worlds managed to endure the terrors which destroyed many of their weaker neighbours. Through a combination of cunning and logistical might, they fought off hundreds of major invasions during the first century of the Age of Dusk. The rise of the Vulkan Imperium was fortunately timed, its expansion drawing their hateful eyes of many of the worst and most powerful nations and races of the galaxy, including the Twin behemoths of the Eastern and western Chaos imperiums.

Thus, they were in a strong position to take advantage of the Ophelian Imperium, orphaned of its former Capital. It began under Emperor al-Fonze Ma'karib II of Tallarn, in 132.M52, during his campaigns of reconstruction in the northern fringes of the Ophelian Imperium. He besieged and took these worlds forcibly, but was incredibly merciful in his treatment of these worlds after their defeat. He permitted the terrified Lords of the Hive cities to buy their passage of retreat from the worlds, and he did not install massive colonisation forces on the captured worlds, but instead sent preachers and supplies to help rebuild the smashed and in some cases starving populations of these worlds. Forced conversion was kept to a bare minimum. Yet, al-Fonze's assassination by one of the mysterious 'Heracles' Faction of ex-Temple assassins meant his campaigns were halted after only seven years. Nevertheless, the impression was made upon the Ophelian population (at least in the outer worlds).

In the 160s of M52, the Governors of the outlying Ophelian worlds began to cooperate to a greater degree against the old guard of the Inner worlds, who still looked inwards in despair of their lost capital world. They looked to the Tallarns to aid them in this task. They offered the Tallarn ruling aristocrats trading privileges and even lands and estates upon their worlds, in exchange with funding and weapons in order to face the inner worlds, who maintained most of the Ophelian Imperium's manufacturing worlds and subordinate Forge Worlds. The many fleet engagements, pitched planetary sieges and raids that ensued could fill a dozen history books themselves, but in the end, the core worlds were driven into a corner and forced to sue for a truce. The Thrarantine Guard (who had expanded to a massive size during this period, as they were seen as the most Theologically 'pure' force in the secular conflict) arbitrated the terms of the treaties, and their was a semblance of peace. Nevertheless, the Tallarn were now intrinsically involved in the diffuse and fractious politics of the Ophelians.

Over the centuries, the two Imperiums began to merge, via dense trading corridors that (though they took many years to traverse) provide wealth and prosperity to the rulers and their magnates. At the council of Thezibebe, hundreds of Tallarn-orthodox, Ophelian Kazamarovite and Ascensionist Cardinals gathered to discuss the election of a new Ecclesiarch to once more unite the faith of the 'true' Imperium. The debate was not a success, and had to be called off after many of the lesser radical sects tried to set fire to the debate podiums, and the Ascensionists caused a planet-wide riot in which four hundred thousand acres of industrial sprawl became a mangled warzone as vast hordes of zealots and fanatics battled like insane animals in the streets.

Between 100.M53-200.M53, it was said that at any one time, five Ecclesiarches and 'anti-Ecclesiarches' were in place on Pontifical thrones from Tallarn itself to at one point a small mining colony in an unstable star system. Each claimed to be the true Ecclesiarch. Despite this schism amidst the clergy, the worlds themselves became closer, and their cultures began to merge and develop. Fear of the outsider and the xenos began to mutate into a creed of 'Humanism Absolutism'; that is, the creed of Human survival at all costs. Humanity must survive, and let everything else be damned.

In 487.M53, Emperor Santargo III of Tallarn crowned himself 'Lord Protector of the Imperial Mysteries'. This strategically side-stepped the theological issues of the newborn super-bloc of Imperiums, and allowed him to justify his secular campaigns, and to impose military tithes upon the worlds nominally under his thrall. Though the worlds of this Imperium were still bitter rivals for the most part, Santargo could still launch his huge crusade to expand the realm in 568.M53, gathering together a force of diverse colonial troops and mercinaries, held together by the Thrantine Orders, other growing religious warrior fraternities and sororities, and the iron will of the Emperor Santargo himself, who went to war in one of the perishingly-rare Leviathan Moving fortresses . Though he died before even his first crusade could be completed (due to the monumental distances involved, and the poor quality and pitfalls of Astronomicon-less warp travel) his sons and grandsons managed, over the next hundred years, to swallow up a dozen other Imperiums that bordered the Ophelian/Tallarn alliance, subsuming them into the great web of commerce and religious violence which codified the realm of 'Imperial Mysteries'. Also, during this period of expansion and conflict, a centre of commerce built up around the ruins of a former Star Fortress known as Haanab the Ravaged. Here, trade from across the sprawling realm came, and the ruler of the space station was often a key figure in wider decisions on tithes and tax and what could be imported. Santargo XXII had this fortress massively expanded with subsidiary-stations and had asteroids towed into orbit with this expanding colossus of industry and trade. He then declared Haanab the new capital of the realm of Imperial Mysteries and himself its governor (even though he was on campaign for his entire life, and never once visited the fort himself), with little objection from the powerful nobles and Governor-Lords of the Imperium, as it was relatively neutral.

It would be a mistake to consider this realm of captured and consumed Imperiums to be a singular super power that that point. It was a huge area of space, covering a huge swathe of the south-west of the galactic plane. Such a realm could not be administered by a government with such slow FTL capable vessels, and for much of the time huge sections of the 'Empire' were like lawless realms of border princes and robbing Wolf Packs of bandits, and squabbling Governor-Lords vying for advantage or pressing assumed claims of heritage. Amidst this anarchy and misery, there was the undercurrent of a building popular faith. The Emperor of the wasteland.

There were no longer any survivors from the time before the Second Age of Strife, and no man had ever seen or heard of the Emperor's actions beyond vague recollections of priestly chroniclers, who had hastily scribbled down scripture from memory after the loss of all the written records of the Ministorum upon Ophelia. Thus, the image of the Emperor became horribly distorted. The vile concept of the Corpse-Emperor merged with the creed of human survival at all costs, turning the Emperor into some legendary undead figure of vengeance and pragmatic, who ruled a universe of broken worlds and failed systems, yet refused to relinquish them, like a jealous child. This creed was paradoxically both horribly cynical yet fervent in its prosecution and practices. A faith of nihilistic mania, where only suffering and miserable stubbornness could get one closer to your god. So what if his empire was of ashes and ruins' It was still HIS. His ashes. His ruins.

When a necrotic warp plague ravaged the allied Imperiums in M54, the tenuous hold of the Tallarn Emperor's was undone, and a power vacuum was soon created with their failure.

The Cardinal known as Ceylan was to be the very man to fill this void. His name would grow to be one whispered in awe and utter terror by his subjects. This cardinal began his life as a mere clerk in one of the priestly houses of sanctioned invention, where he made friends easily and swiftly, due to his serpent's tongue and charming demeanour. All of which hid his great pathological personality and truly evil ambition. Through a series of coincidences and sinister ploys, he manipulated his way into the priesthood, worming his way right into the meat of the Ecclesiarchy like a maggot in meat.

He used his power and influence to place his friends into powerful offices and in particular patronised the work of his questionable-disciple Deng-Vaal. This man claimed to be a warp scientist, and made a major breakthrough in the method of warp travel. He found if one could torture psykers and witches sufficiently, and somehow captured and stored their torment and lingering death-screams, one could power a ship through the warp at tremendous speed. Ceylan quickly seized upon this idea, taking it as his own and tying it into the natural distrust for psykers prevalent in the realm. He turned this process into a form of benevolent penance; the death of the psyker would purify both their soul, but also allow the Emperor's children to spread to the very furthest reaches of space. He managed to acquire Secular support from a number of prominent Tallarn old-born Noble houses, as well as the favour of some of the radical factions who desired to build a stronger Empire, under a powerful leader.

As reward for his discovery, Ceylan was granted the position of Ecclesiarch by his fellow Cardinals. His exact theological leanings were always slightly in question, but the devious man could never be pinned down to a single definitive answer, and thus was elevated to the post without noticeable opposition. For the first time in a long time, there was only one Ecclesiarch of this Imperium. As the 'Excruciator' Engines were being created and tested by the forge worlds under Vaal's watchful gaze, Ceylan subtly and smoothly began to undermine the central faiths of the Cardinals, playing them off against each other, but avoided any responsibility himself by claiming he was merely arbitrating between wronged parties. As he sowed discord there, he discreetly promoted the more popular faith of the Emperor of the wasteland. He stealthily inserted known rhetoric used by the Creed in his sermons and speeches. Just as the faith of the Imperium was becoming unified in religious wars and reform, the means to propagate this faith across the entire Imperium was finally completed and made widespread use of. His influence grew as the Imperium consolidated itself via the new cruel means of breaching the warp.

Eventually, with this greater unity there came a chance for a new Emperor to take over. Naturally, Ceylan manipulated the processes of selection and influence, until a candidate of his preference was selected. Ceylon made sure never to publically claim leadership or secular power over the Imperium, but rather worked behind the scenes. The Tharantine and his own spy network, known unofficially as the Aquila-men, discreetly carried out his orders and kept the various other armies and factions within the Empire under control. As a final demonstration of the new focus of human unity of purpose, the Emperor renamed the Empire the Theologian Union.

By M55, the Theologian Union was the third largest human Imperium in the galaxy, able to hold its own in campaigns against the very largest of empires. Initially, the Union struggled to maintain a strong focus, for the source of direct outside enemies to attack were few. They were engaged with semi-persistent wars with Pirate nations, Hybrid Cults of strange aliens with bulging heads and snapping claws. And a large scale siege of the world of Rokfal, where the race of feral greenskins had made a sudden and unheralded resurgence, smashing the industry of the planet almost annually, as the force of barbarians continually threw itself against its attackers with mindless vigour, getting stronger every time, as if feeding upon warfare itself for nourishment.

However, Ecclesiarch Ceylan the first Found the perfect foe when Vulkan sent his envoys to the Theologian Union, bearing banners of compromise and hope. When the envoys refused to show fealty to the Ecclesiarch (the Emperor's representative), the Emperor cast the ambassadors out. Ceylan began to order the preachers of the Union to spread themselves amongst the people, and spread the word. There was no Primarch upon Armaggedon. There couldn't be. They were dead. This 'Vulkan' was a daemon disguised as a primarch, they claimed.

And so it was that the blind men of the deluded realm of the Wasteland Emperor turned their hand ever against their own kind. In their own way, these vainglorious zealots brought upon themselves the terrible events that marked the Dusk of all things, in the final war of conclusion and defiance.

Additional Background Information 5: The War-race Tempered: The Ork Risen.

In the opening years of the Second Age of Strife, the orks as a race battled their nemesis, the New Devourer, and in doing so were destroyed in that titanic struggled which raged across hundreds of sectors. Though they had not been aware of it, their actions had inadvertently saved the entire galaxy from the New Devourer. While their war had been futile, it had delayed the hybrid Tyranid-Ork menace, which eventually found itself drawn away to fight some unseen foe beyond the galaxy. In the midst of the horrors of the strife age, people dared to hope that perhaps the orks themselves were made extinct in this great conflagration.

The audacity of hope is so easily quashed, for the Orks yet lived.

Minute spores and fungal helixes were left behind on the millions of abandoned greenskin worlds. However, it would take many thousands of years before the spores could fully recover, and spread like a bacterial plague through the undergrowth and organic matter which flourished on their former worlds. One such planet was the world of Lexin Fidorich. The humans there had come from the nearby Feudal Technocracy known as Shunter-beerne, who had eagerly captured this nearby world, which was impossible fecund and fertile. By M52, Lexin was a flourishing world of diverse environments made tame by the sterile crop-scienc eof the cybernetic humans who tended this veritable garden. However, soon the Feudal Hyper-lords of the Shunter-beerne found their woods and forests infested with strange red beasts with ugly tusks and a belligerent attitude. This was intolerable, and long-limbed game keeper constructs cleansed the biomes of these beasts with gunshot and flame.

This was a mistake. Smaller green creatures began to appear in the woods. They watched and scurried through the woods. Occasionally they would steal children or set fires, and stole massive quantities of metal sheeting and cut down sections of woods. Again, the long-striding machines killed most of them; but not all. Those who were birthed afterwards filled in for their fallen, and the building of crude settlements began.

Within the space of a decade, Feral monstrous warbands were roaming across the planet. Tranquil glass cities were smashed by the tread of hundreds of vast squiggoth beasts, and the crude firearms of their riders. Throughout the now-infested woods, an ancient cry not heard in millennia rang out; waaaaaagh!

More and more powerful constructs were deployed on the surfaceby the Shunters, with ever deadlier weapons, but this only speeded the advance of their foes. Soon they had to abandon their planet. They did not possess exterminates grade weaponry however, and thus they could not prevent the Feral ork spread.

This story reoccurred on dozens of sectors and systems across the galaxy, followed by hundreds upon hundreds after that. In particular feral orks tended to thrive just on the cusp of the various inter-power struggles which were ongoing across the galaxy; there were veritable masses of feral orks on the border with Grand Sicarium and the Kassars, as well as the unruly space between the Thexians and the Tau, and on the fringes of Maelstrom space. One of the Demiurge brotherhoods (The collective of Hashut) even began to enslave feral ork bands for use in their schism against their rival Brotherhoods. As the shattered galaxy had no singular authority to recognise this building force, every lesser faction assumed these were localised threats and barely contained them.

However, these feral bands of barbarians were naught but the wisps of powdered snow before an avalanche. At the close of the 52nd Millennium, there were signs across the galaxy. Feral orks were driven into fits of prophetic madness, and weirdboys chanted and babbled insanely. Something churned up the warp, and the powers realigned, for they could sense what was coming back.

The Orks were returning. But not simply orks...

It began on the planet of Galgoroth, a rich mining world which had the protection of a coalition of minor xenos and human enclaves. The year was 999.M52, and the world reported fearsome warpstorms; the biggest seen since their records had begun (in practice, their records hadn't begun until M50, during its founding). It was then that they detected that a space hulk had translated into the system, a Hulk known as St. Jollepur's Bane.

Their Managing Governor-Director was not pleased. Hulks were dens where minor xenos (perhaps even an isolated gang or feral orks had managed to survive in the warp upon the hulk') and pirates infested the hideous amalgams of vessels and asteroids. He had experienced hulk-drift while on another core-wards world centuries before, and he disliked what they promised. The world's PDF and system ships would have to be diverted from guarding his planet from real threats, to mop up the degenerate scum that would surely be squatting within its haunted depths.

So, reluctantly, he unleashed his large fleet to engage the hulk on its brief incursion into his planet's local area. His fleet was composed of old mass produced Tau cruisers re-fitted for human use, Vulkanian vessels traded with the rising human power, and even some antique Mars Cruisers were amongst this diverse and lethal armada. On board the transport vessels, Krieg Serf Soldiers, Kroot and Fremen were hired on Galgoroth's ruling Corporation's expense, alongside a Free Company of Obsidian Falcon Astartes and as much of the local PDF forces he could afford to send in support.

Eventually, the fleet reached the hulk. Initial scans and intel gathered by the fleet showed that the hulk was like nothing they had ever seen before. The hulk was no longer merely a mass of weaponised ruins drifting through space; it was a warship. Uniform, sturdy armour covered its colossal flanks, alongside thousands of rows of vast weapon batteries and gun emplacements. And jutting from its shark-like sides were great spurs and towers, from which it seemed an entire fleet was at dock. That was when the firing started, and communication was lost with Galgoroth. The skies were aflame as the battle raged for almost three days. Ships were blown apart, or pulled open by tractor beams and high explosive ordnance, as well as more arcane and strange weaponry deployed by the new foe. Enemy soldiers were teleported directly into the striken human vessels, and proceeded to massacre everyone with extreme efficiency, barely a sonorous growl escaping the butchers' lips as they killed.

Only a handful of vessels returned to the mining world, including the utterly-mauled Strike Cruiser of the Obsidian Falcons. Their leader, Captain Eregious, immediately deployed one of his squads to the surface of Galgoroth. The Governor demanded to know what was attacking them. Was it xenos' Pirates' Enemy Marines' Orks'

Eregious responded with a simple phrase. "Those are not Orks..."

His squad attacked and broke into the treasure vaults of the world, securing their payment before deploying back to their Cruiser. Eregious refused to stay and defend the world, because he wished to preserve his brothers. For the foe arrayed before them was too powerful and too numerous to defeat; not with such depleted resources.

So, the Galgorothans waited and fortified their planet as the bulky, well-constructed warships of the enemy hurtled towards them. The Kill Cruisers and huge battleships of the enemy easily swatted away the System Defence Ships, and deployed their ground forces after a bombardment of all the centres of military resistance. City-scale factories were dropped directly upon the planet, and began to work as soon as they slammed to the ground with a thunderous rumble that resounded across the mountains themselves. The few pockets of resistance remaining were dealt with by hulking armoured figures that deployed right at the heart of their battlelines, stepping through warp portals with ease. They wielded weapons like bolters, but far more destructive, alongside strange weapons, such as a device which teleported not gretchin, but miniature plasma warheads inside the bodies of their opponents. After barely two days, the planet was conquered, and those humans not slain in the bombardments were rounded up and used as slave labour in the mining districts, which were expanded and enhanced by the mysterious foe, who deployed huge titan-scale excavators and walking machines to heft out vast quantities of raw material for the hundreds of factories deployed by the orbital fiends.

This was the galaxy's first taste of the new greenskin race. Ten Hulks at least were reported with similar modifications, but that first hulk remained the largest of this new phenomenon. These creatures did not call themselves the orks, but rather merely called themselves 'War', or at most 'the War of the Krork'. Few people have subsequently breached the armoured hides of the War-Hulks, but it is claimed that the Krorks are in fact the commanders and driving force behind this new breed of elite Ork. It is theorised that these new creatures are in fact modified gretchin or grots, altered to be tacticians and schemers beyond the ken of the larger breeds; it has to be noted that no smaller greenskins have been sighted within the battle-hosts of 'the War'. Who manipulated them or remade these intelligent creatures remained unknown for many millennia, during the age of intertwining fates, but we shall get to that in due course...

The warriors of the Krork were a distillation and perfection of previous ork concepts and natural abilities. Each warrior wore flexible powered armour, which captured the spores released by them and sealed them in flame-proof canister inside the suits. These canisters were collected after a battle, and were taken to their manufacturing shops or their hulks, and dozens more generations of orks were thus spawned, or the spores were carefully cultured and spread upon worlds deemed perfect for Ork-forming. The powered armour also further enhanced each ork's strength, and was flexible enough to expand as the ork expanded.

Each soldier ork was first forced to fight against hundreds of its peers inside the war-hulks, and this swelled each beast to vast scales. Most were taller than even an Astartes warrior when they were finally allowed to construct their armour and weaponry, which each and every ork instinctive knew how to build, unconsciously building their gear according to the exact specifications of higher authority, tailoring their weaponry to be optimised for whatever battlefield they found themselves on.

Though the unseen 'brainboys' of the numerous hosts were never seen on the battlefield, powerful War-bosses led the armies of each Hulk, and were brilliant tacticians, as their size naturally made them more intelligent, each war making them more efficient and more intelligent. Each Hulk, though separated by lightyears, had some means of psychic communication with their fellow Hulks, due to either the psychic might of the brainboys, or their manipulation of psyker Orks placed upon modified warp-reading thrones as a form of telepathic network.

Needless to say, these Krork hosts spread quickly, and created numerous huge empires. The thirsting Bloodknights of Baal were fought to a standstill around the Juerellian warp gate by the Krork, denied their prise of a whole world of mortals which they could taint and then drain to stave off the black rage. A task force comprising of two whole Commanderies had to be deployed to drive off an Armada of Krork who had managed to cripple the logistical supplies of dozens of Vulkan's systems. That war was known as the war of renewed vengeance, and eventually the forces of Vulkan (only after the sacrifice of the legendary hero Lord Captain Hexatrin of the Silent Panthers Commandery) prevailed, but the Krork could not be finally defeated, as they divided their fleet and began a guerrilla campaign which lasted for five hundred years. Numerous battles and wars were found against krorks across the Western and Eastern Chaos Imperiums, and both factions lost dozens of worlds to the disciplined invaders. Abaddon managed to defeat a Krork force by utilising the planet-killer's awesome firepower to destroy a war-hulk, which seemed to be the only method of permanently crippling a Krork Armada.

The Krork had special hatred for their feral ork brethren surprisingly, and often accelerated asteroids into planets with them on, or made a special effort to exterminate the entire population of feral greenskins on the ground, before burning the mountains of corpses.

The Krork were a menace to all factions, for they seemed to have declared themselves to be a war against all elements of the galaxy. From the Star Father's dread Angyl-worlds, to the blasted ruins of the Shatter-wake and their bone-feeders, the Krork were fearsome opponents. In particular, they seemed to lose some of their cold demeanour when fighting the necrons. On some instinctual level, they just knew what their eldritch function was, for it was encoded into every fibre of their green, war-forged flesh

Their faith is unknown. All that the world at large could decipher of their brutal, complex language spoke of 'awaiting the two, the facets of the god-mount'. Some claimed, in those early years, that they were merely referring to their primitive ancestor gods, Gork and Mork.

Alas, if only it had been that simple. The true relevance of their creed would not become evident until it was too late to stop what had been started. But that conflict shall be documented in a later section, once these chronicles have been properly reinforced to withstand the telling of the tale of the Nex-

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