Morphing Obliterator
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I am soon to be buying a dark eldar army off a friend, and this is a little fluff I put together for them:
The Kabal of the Neverborn
The tale of the Neverborn begins as a story of slavery and persecution at the hands of a ruthless and uncaring master. Bred as a force of expendable shock troops, the Neverborn were in thrall to Archon Mordrain of the Broken Soul Kabal. Mordrain was loath to throw away the lives of his Trueborn warriors in unnecessary realspace raids against the prey species of the galaxy, reserving them for the choicest conflicts that held the most promise for glory and souls.
Thanks to the Broken Soul’s long standing association with the Haemonculi of the Coven of Eternal Agony, Mordrain was able to maintain a force that could be replenished at will in the Coven’s oubliettes beneath the Dark City.
Led by Khirameth, a disgraced Dracon from the Broken Soul, the Neverborn (as they came to be spitefully known amongst the denizens of the Dark City) were thrown into near suicidal conflicts across the galaxy at the whim of their distant overlord. Khirameth was once a promising lieutenant in the ranks of the Broken Soul, his ascendance forever halted by a failed realspace raid against the kin of Craftworld Alainash, which not only made the Broken Soul look weak in the eyes of the other Kabals, but also earned them the wrath of the sinister Mandrakes when the raid failed to obtain the quantity of Eldar spirit stones bargained in return for the aid of the shadow creatures.
Mordrain originally had an inventive fate planned for his fallen lieutenant, perhaps as a guest of the wych cults or a future as a mindless beast at the hands of his Haemonculi allies, but, knowing of Khirameth’s pride and ambition to rule, decided that humiliation was a more fitting punishment.
Khirameth was chosen to lead the tank bred scum of the Neverborn into battle against the enemies of the Kabal. They were the first to be thrown into the most suicidal conflicts and the first to be chosen to satisfy the desire for pain of the Archon and his closest followers, especially if slaves of other races were in short supply.
As the centuries passed, Khirameth’s bitterness and hatred of his former Kabalite brethren grew and grew until his thoughts were consumed with nothing but vengeance. He bided his time, secretly gaining allies amongst the Hellion gangs and even swaying the Wych Cult of the Silent Blade to his cause. Disguising himself and his followers as members of the Broken Soul, Khirameth led raids against other, stronger Kabals, particularly those with a known enmity for Mordrain and his kin. These raids served the dual purpose of providing weapons for Khirameth’s rebellion and also inciting the wrath of the Kabals against his foe.
Khirameth’s strategy eventually paid off as the raids inspired the Kabals to pool their resources to bring down Mordrain and the Broken Soul. The streets of Low Commorragh ran red with the blood of both sides as the Kabals turned the city into a battleground. Thousands of warriors on both sides were cut down by blade and splinter fire as gangs of Hellions and Reavers soared above, lopping heads and limbs off their chosen victims with hellglaive and bladevane alike.
As the war intensified, entire districts of the Dark City were reduced to burnt out, corpse choked ruin. The Broken Soul could not hope to hold against the combined forces of the other Kabals and stronghold after stronghold fell. Eventually, the Kabals’ holdings were reduced to Mordrain’s heavily defended palace in Sorrow Fell. The last remaining Trueborn warriors of the Broken Soul gathered here to make their final stand, but even the elite of Mordrain’s followers was not enough to hold off the tide of vengeance that boiled out of the lower districts of the city. As the Archons of the other Kabals lead their assault against the Broken Soul’s final bastion, Khirameth and the Neverborn finally showed their hand.
Khirameth and a small force of his followers infiltrated the palace whilst the warring armies fought corridor by corridor and room by room for control. Disguised by reality bending shadow fields they bypassed the defences of the palace and struck at Mordrain as he languished in his throne room. Easily disabling the few bodyguards that could be spared from the defence of the palace, Khirameth strode forward and removed his helm before tossing it to the floor. As Mordrain gazed unbelievingly into the black eyes of his former lieutenant, Khirameth drove his blade straight through his enemies’ heart.
Khirameth decapitated his fallen foe and silently disappeared with his surviving followers. Once they had reached a safe distance, the vortex bombs that had been earlier placed by Khirameth’s spies within the Broken Soul detonated, drawing the entire palace and every living soul within into the warp. The remainder of the warring Kabals and their Archons, thinking that their quarry still remained inside the palace, were wiped out in one fell stroke.
On a pre-arranged signal from Khirameth, the remaining forces of the Neverborn surrounded the holdings of the warring Kabals and offered them an ultimatum: surrender or die. When they refused, the Kabalites were told of the deaths of their Archons. Knowing that, without an Archon to protect them, they would be at the mercy of the Dark City, every surviving member of the Kabals swore fealty to Khirameth and the Neverborn. With this one act, Khirameth became a new and deadly power within Commorragh.
Not trusting the subjugated Kabalites for even a moment, Khirameth had every one of them fitted with control chips by his new allies in the Coven of Eternal Agony, who, seeing the opportunity the Neverborn offered, extended the same terms they had previously enjoyed with Mordrain and the Broken Soul. These chips ensured the loyalty of his new servants by, in the event of any treachery, sending a signal to toxin canisters forcibly implanted under the Kabalite’s skin. These canisters would then inject corrosive toxins directly into the unfortunate Dark Eldar’s bloodstream, literally melting them from the inside out.
Khirameth’s first act as Archon of the newly founded Kabal of the Neverborn was to settle his score with the Eldar of Craftworld Alainash. Khirameth’s fleet ambushed and crippled one of the Craftworld’s cruisers and slaughtered the crew before using the vessel to infiltrate the interior of Alainash.
Gaining access to the Craftworld’s Infinity Circuit, Khirameth used Soul Traps taken from the Broken Soul armouries to forcibly abduct a large number of the fallen Eldar spirits from their eternal rest. These spirits would be used to secure the loyalty of the Mandrake kindred’s whom his former masters had failed so long ago.
Their primary mission complete, Khirameth’s followers gained access to Alainashs’ drive core and detonated explosives within, destabilising the Craftworld’s orbit around the sun it was currently using to recharge it’s solar sails. As the Craftworld began to pick up speed towards the sun’s core, the Neverborn returned to the landing pad and made good their escape upon their stolen vessel. As the Dark Eldar returned to their fleet, Alainash and all the Eldar that dwelled on her ploughed into the sun’s core and were incinerated.
As news of the Craftworld’s demise spread around Commorragh, Khirameth’s power and influence grew tenfold overnight. Eventually news of his exploits reached the ears of Asdrubael Vect himself. Impressed with Khirameth’s rise to power and his ambitious raid against the kin of Craftworld Alainash, Vect allowed Khirameth a place within his Royal Court. Since his ascension to advisor to the Supreme Overlord, Khirameth has cemented his powerbase amongst the Kabals by means of careful bargaining, but has also proved to be willing to gain influence by conquest and assassination when these methods prove necessary.
Khirameth continues to play the role of the dutiful servant, knowing that upon Vect’s eventual demise, he and his Kabal are poised to take the throne in the inevitable and bloody civil war that will follow.
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Pragmatic Primus Commanding Cult Forces
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I don't like those control chips. If they are so good at ensuring loyalty, than why doesn't every archon use them? I 't think the Dark Eldar have such devices, if they did, everyone would use them. Also, I don't think Vect would let anyone outside of his own kabal become his advisor. And why does Vect need an advisor in the first place? Also, Sorrow Fell was the district of the ancient noble houses of the Dark Eldar that ruled Commorragh before the rise of Vect and the Kabals. So unless the Kabal of the Broken Soul somehow is one of those noble houses, I highly doubt its archon would have a palace in that district. Apart from those little things, it is a very enjoyable story. You might want to expand some more on the interesting parts of your story. How was Khirameth able to gain the support neccessdonary to attack the stronger Kabals and launch his coup? How did his attacks go unnoticed by the Broken Soul? How did he gain access to the Craftworld's Infinity Circuit? Those are the things that make a story entertaining.
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