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So we have a local team tournament this weekend, and its pretty soft-score heavy (its based off of the Adepticon format). One of the requirements is an army backstory, and well... this is it. My teammate, while a good writer in his own right, wants to play it safe and go with a generic copy-paste type background, whereas I'm a bit more of a risk-taker, and want to have some fun with it (in keeping with the old-school style where there was a crate of milk bottles sitting outside the gates to the emperors palace during the siege...) instead of the usual grim-dark drudgery that seems prevalent today.

The story is a bit of a ripoff (again in keeping with the GW tradition) of one of my favorite works by a certain american-gothic writer... hope you enjoy, c&c welcome... please do.....

Eons ago, long before the ancestors of man crawled on their bellies from Terra's primordial seas, existed a powerful galaxy-spanning xenos empire. At their peak, they would come to rival even the ancient Eldar for dominance of the stars. Just like the Eldar, they too would be cut down at the height of their civilization.

The few remaining Eldar texts that reference this civilization, referred to as Marb'ailtor (lit. corpse-jokers), speak of a terrible plague known as Eop’nalla Rag’de (lit. Red Death). The source of the contagion is not known, but it is said to have swept through the Morb’ailtor civilization within a manner of days, killing its victims within minutes of being contracted in a most gruesome and horrific manner. It is written that upon contracting this most terrible of plagues, the victim would be seized by convulsions. First the victims sweat would run red with the deep crimson of the Morb’ailtor blood. As the disease ravaged its victims body, blood would begin pouring from every orifice, even the pores of the skin. Finally, as the victims internal organs and bone structure was liquefied into a red ooze, horrible sores would burst forth on the victims skin, leaking a red pus, until even the victims skin was liquefied, and all that remained was a crimson puddle.

As the plague brought the once mighty and proud Morb’ailtor Empire to its’ knees, it is said that a young Prince, led one-thousand of his most loyal nobles to a secluded keep on the Morb’ailtor homeworld. There they would quarantine themselves from the outside world, living their lives in luxury and opulence while the rest of their people met their ignoble end. After years of seclusion, the survivors came to the grim realization that the very atmosphere outside the walls of their keep was tainted by the disease, and for their bodies there would be no salvation, for they could not remain in quarantine forever, but with an arcane magickal ritual, their souls could.

Before the ritual, they would enjoy their last moments alive with a celebration of the pleasures of the flesh and insane debasement and debauchery. At the appointed hour of the ritual, indicated by the alignment of the great wheels of their gyroscopic chronograph, they would march through seven rooms, each decorated and illuminated in specific colors. The first of blue, followed by purple, green, orange, white, and violet, until finally they would come to the last room, the color of the void, a deepest darkest, absolute black, at the center of which was a pyre of crimson red. As they passed through each room, a portion of their soul would be torn from their body, so that it may more easily be stored in its new vessel. Into the pyre they would march, as their corporeal form was vaporized by its flames, their souls would finally be entrapped within a talisman worn about their necks. The talismans, known as B’nana (translation unknown) to the Eldar, were formed of a material not native to this dimension, a cylindrical stone of golden radiant light, within which their souls would forever be protected from the ravages of time… but all would not go according to plan.

At the appointed hour of the ritual, the great doors to the impenetrable keep burst open, and in glided a solitary figure, tall and gaunt, shrouded head to foot in crimson. The Prince, horrified at the exposure to the outside, and disgusted with the bizarre appearance of this unwanted guest, convulsed and seized with rage. He rushed towards the intruder in an attempt to apprehend him, but as he threw aside the veil which enshrouded the guests face, he found nothing tangible to inhabit the form. In horror, the Prince collapsed, as the plague took hold of his body, and blood began to flow, and now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. The rest of the nobles began to flee towards the crimson pyre, in an effort to complete the ritual and save their souls before the contagion took hold of them.

Seven-hundred and seventy-seven of the nobles were struck down by the phage before they could reach their funeral pyre, but the partially completed ritual in which they had embarked upon had resulted in a fate worse than death. Their souls were trapped within the talismans but so too was the disease, for the Red Death was not merely a contagion of their flesh, it was a contagion of the very spirit they had sought to save. The talismans deformed: their cylindrical shape rendered imperfect and twisted, the stone becoming soft like clay, and the golden radiant light vanishing, replaced by a dull green-brown color, the very color of rot and decay.

For the remaining three-hundred and thirty-three nobles, the fate was far worse. Though they completed the ritual, and their souls were cleansed of the horror which they sought to avoid, the frantic and rushed pace at which they had attempted it resulted in a surge in the magickal energies which they had employed. The energies coalesced in the vicinity of the these talismans, and then exploded outwards in a maelstrom of magick and sorcery, destroying them, the keep, and the planet, wiping out the last vestiges of the once proud civilization, and scattering the seven-hundred and seventy-seven rotten talismans to every corner of the galaxy, and with them, the Red Death disappeared...

But Papa Nurgle has not been at rest, for the Red Death was not one of his creations: it was a spontaneous result of natural processes and thus is perfection in its purest form. Nurgle wishes to bestow the Red Death as a gift upon his beloved children, but his attempts thus far have been dismal failures. In order to create the Red Death himself, Nurgle requires all seven-hundred and seventy-seven rotten talismans so that he may unlock its secrets. To this end he has sent a mighty Great Unclean One, known as the Leper Messiah, and a warband of Phagemarines, led by one known to the servants of the false emperor as Typhoid Marius, to scour the galaxy in search of the talsimans.

When all seven-hundred and seventy-seven rotten B’nana have been found and tallied, Nurgle will concoct the most deadly plague the galaxy has ever known, and Darkness and Decay and the Red Death will hold illimitable dominion over all.