Thursday, December 6, 2018

Hobby: Ankouvian Berzerkers

All is not well on the surface of Ankou, its population infected by a psychic scrap code leading vast tracts of its enslaved augmetic population to revolt against their masters. 



A painted example of an Equites Redempto






A painted example of a Renegade Ankouvian Miner 



A squad of corrupted Ankouvian miners 




The traitorous hordes of Jornath's mining moon grow larger. I hope you have enjoyed the look at them.


-Your Favorite Madman-




Friday, November 30, 2018

AoS: The Unmooring of County Ledzuit

 The County Ledzuit was watched over by the family Henrich for over two centuries, in that time the county has seen a great deal, in 2084 beast tribes fleeing the scouring of the Sun Knights reaved through the coutryside, and in 2131 the lesser necromancer Yertari Ov had her occult rituals thwarted by an assembled party of Ledzuit militia and footmen of House Henrich. 

Nothing in its history would prepare the county for the strange event, recalled by later historians as the Unmooring. 





Investigation of Coll's Manor

It would begin with an unexplained forest blaze coming from the direction of Coll's Manor, a secluded estate, its Lord Barthe was singularly known as especially peculiar and reclusive, living for many years without incoming revenue off the bequeathed wealth of his deceased father. He had only a handful of working farmers and a pitiful assortment of roving livestock. Which is all to say that he was a recluse, and not well liked. Regardless, it was the responsibility of the Henrich's guard to look after all the people of the land and Barthe is nobility after all. 


The footmen, upon treading through the blackened and smoke wreathed remains of the fallen tree trunks came upon the blasted open shell of the Manor house.  A singular figure stood silhouetted by the still burning fires of the interior. Perhaps once it was the eponymous Lord Barthe,  now what stood before the handful of footmen was a malformed ghoul of weeping flesh and dripping muscle, crowned with a blasphemous helm of bone. Spotting the footmen the creature shambled forth, clutching an unnatural mace, which pained the eye to look upon for its otherworldly origin.  Unsheathing their weapons, the footmen moved to defend themselves, as the monster lumbered into striking range.  In a burst of impossible vigor, the thing lunged at them, bringing its mace below the guard of Jerik, smashing into his torso.  As the flesh began to sag and drip from the screaming footmen his comrades descended upon the thing, hacking, and stabbing with terrified abandon.  


Even with the creature lying in a pulpy mulch of gore, a rasping wet breathing could still be heard. The two remaining footmen breathed frantically with the rush of adrenaline that terror had brought them. Before the high could leave them they saw the other shapes in the trees, dozens, or possibly more smoke veiled figures limped silently towards the manor.  The footmen fled back to their masters in House Henrich, to bring word of what they had encountered. 

Battle of Fannhollow


As the might of House Henrich gathered, reports filtered in from around the county. Gibbering bands of the unquiet dead and maddening shoggoths of hateful flesh stalked the land as the impossible harbingers of a nightmare invasion.

With greater numbers and the lords roused, the guardians of sanity lent themselves to the defense of the land. The footmen and militia under Lord Henrich himself found battle within the still burning ruins of Fannhollow village, a particularly grotesque monster and his retinue of fleshy pus weeping knights met the men of house Henrich along the stream on the southern edge of the ville. 



With immense effort the creatures were battered down, each flesh thing taking dozens of grievous wounds to succumb to the damage. The unnatural leader of the force, in particular, was seemingly immune to harm, while using a blade of fused spinal vertebrae to scythe down any that stood against it. 


At the height of the fighting, as one, the creatures turned and simply withdrew from the field, as if called as one by a greater will to another more pressing concern. Lord Henrich marshaled his surviving men, and taking his most trusted personal guard with him, gave chase to the fleeing monsters, sending the rest of his retinue to gather as many additional fighting men as could be found. 

Ascent to the Ebon Pyramid


For hours the men of Henrich's household guard tracked the creatures through the woodland. Though night should have long since fallen, the woods were lit by a persistent baleful twilight. The origin of this light and indeed the source of the creatures themselves was at last revealed to the men of County Ledzuit.  A sinister obsidian pyramid stood at the center of a clearing surrounded by esoteric statuary, a ragged portal shone above the structure, weeping corposant and ichor, the doorway spat forth more of the horrors.  A pitched battle was already raging around the nightmare portal, barbaric knights of an unknown alignment hacked into the throng of creatures, each one of the armored warriors chanted a hymnal that burned the ears and made the skin itch with the sound of the un-words.   


Resolute to bring an end to the situation, Henrich and his footmen move into the pitched fighting. Banking on sword and shield to subdue the portal's unholy influence. 




In moments, the outcome of the fighting would be moved into certainty, the men of Ledzuit laid low a half dozen of the revenant creatures and came within reach of the chanting knights who were still crowded by a throng of the monstrous entities. As the Lord Henrich ordered his forces to support the strange men, an overwhelming stench of ozone flooded out from the weeping portal. Several of the men around the Lord suddenly dropped their weaponry and clutched their heads or fell to the ground screaming in total agony. In horror Lord Henrich watched as his men's skin melted away revealing a bloody goosepimpled hide, twisting spurs of bone reached forth from the skulls of the dying men.  Still screaming in agonized death, towering bloodsoaked monstrosities stood up from a pile of flayed skin.

In desperation, the surviving men crowded around their lord, resolved to die standing against the horrors. To their surprise, the bloody creatures turned away from them descending upon the twisted flesh monsters besieging the strange knights. In short order, the blood monsters defeated the revenants, and after a guttural order from one of the strange knights, they bounded up the black pyramid and into the portal. Silence fell across the clearing, the only warriors still standing on the grisly field were humans. The largest of the knights turned towards the huddled knot of Henrich's footmen, and held up his sword in salute. Before he and his attendant warriors followed the blood creatures into the portal.  

After the last of the knights had entered the portal, the tear in reality snapped shut with a wet sucking noise, that made all in the vicinity dizzy and nauseous. None of the creatures have been seen since, nor any of the knights despite through investigations by members of the Collogia Aracanis. The only clue was found by investigators in the charred remnants of the Coll Manor, an aged leather bound book untouched by the flames, with an odd tri-lobed symbol embroidered on its cover. The interior filled with barely conceivable word forms, only one word was discernable to those that viewed it, a phlegmy unpleasant word...


NURGLE





Saturday, October 20, 2018

Jornath Location Profile: The Moon of Ankou [pt1]








Ankou is one of several planetary bodies within the solar system of the Imperial world of Jornath. While considered by Imperial auguries to be a moon of the system’s capital its distance from the coreworld, would truly classify the stellar body as its own settled dwarf planet. The planets role in the social and political organizations of the Jornathii culture is curiously part guardian and part enslaved penal world.
Ankou was founded early in the systems settlement in the dawny days of human expansion to these regions significantly before the onset of Long Night, though the original intentions of the planet in these early days have long since been forgotten. During the period of the Unification Wars on Terra, several centuries before the great crusade would bring the light of the Emperor to Jornath, several histories suggest that Ankou enjoyed a status as its own free state within the system, engaging in trade and at times conflict with other colonial holdings and the crownworld of Jornath itself. However, by the time that Jornath and its satellites bent the knee to the Throne of Old Earth, Ankou had been thoroughly brought under the administrative control of Jornath. Like all places, Ankou enjoyed a great deal of lively development with its reconnection with wider humanity, and its immense bounty of mineral wealth which had already started to be exploited was broken open by the immense capabilities of the Mechanicum

The vast majority of this mineral bounty was in the form of Gypsum, indeed Mechanicum Surveyors calculated that the composition of the moon may be as much as 45% made of the mineral. Tantalized by the numerous practical industrial applications of gypsum, the Adeptus of the Imperium began establishing hundreds of servitor controlled harvesting installations across the surface of the moon, each linking to one of three hub cities with an interlacing web of terrestrial roadways, promethium pipes, and kilometers of cabling.

In these early days, before the heresy, the Imperial Truth still reigned as the predominant ideological current of humanity. On Ankou though, this truth was being manipulated by the early vestiges of groups which would become the Cult Imperialis, these groups viewed the Emperor of Mankind and his sons as divine and held the early colonial ruins under the surface of Ankou as holy places. The Mechanicum overseers of the mining efforts were only too happy to corroborate and promote this view, as the number of converts willing to accept the suite of invasive bionics to survive unaided on Ankous airless surface increased significantly as these groups grew in popularity. It was decided by the Ankouvian High Civitian and the Mechanicus Magos that these groups should be given a formal voice in the administration of the moon if only to better control the masses. Thus the Moulding Gate of Gouibon was founded, the Moulders established chirurgical centers around each of the cities of Ankou, these places were known as Gatehouses, and within aspirants would worship the Emperor and the Omnissiah, progressing through the ranks of the order, by doing good works within the wider community or by fundraising for ventures into the subterranean ruins. As an aspirant progressed, they would surrender more and more of their body and organs over to mechanical augmentation until they could survive without aid on the surface. These followers would be known as the Gouibon Susareian (the name for the Men of Iron in Jornathii Low Gothic, and the term for explorer) and it is these souls who would go forth into the darkened depths of the world in search of divine answers and archaeotech.




When the Horus Heresy erupted in the Imperium, and loyalties on planets across its breadth were tested, Ankou found itself in a particularly favorable situation. On Jornath small skirmishes broke out between families and guilds loyal to the warmaster and those who still held the emperor as master, but on Ankou the spread of the Moulding Gate and the singular control of only one group of the Mechanicum ensured that only limited rioting and a rather pathetic miners uprising in the warmasters name occurred.

In the wake of the Heresy, Ankou was lauded for its loyalty. It was given the task of re-educating those that stood against the Imperium in the Civil War. A task which the already zealously enthusiastic men and women of the moulding gate and the vengeful scions of the now mechanicus took too with particular vigor. The punishment of the families sent to Ankou in disgrace for their transgression of betrayal would be 100 generations of servitude in the Emperor’s name. None of these generations could enter their deeds in the noble enscroll of the families of Jornath, though they would still retain their noble titles and wealth. All were permitted to bring their associated retainers, huscarls, cohorts, and servants to the surface Ankou. It was seen as completely un thinkable to kill the traitors, they were after all, still nobility. So it was that the Equites Redempto, was created on Ankou. These Penal colonists would comprise a huge amount of the workforce, the noblemen acting as the defacto overseers who were, in turn, ruled over by the true Imperial administration of the High Civitan of Ankou and those Ankouvians not beholden to the penal sentence of the Equites Redempto.




For thousands of years, Ankou continued to grow in scope, its cities growing into hives, and its mines running ever deeper into the flesh of the planet. By this point the Ecclesiarchy had taken firm control over the doctrine of the Moulding Gate, seeing its beneficial nature to the function of the planet, they contributed their own assets to the furthering of the Gate’s goals, all while making enormous sums of money from the sale of augmentations. To expand this enterprise the leaders of the Moulders, reached out to the chartist captains in the region who ferried pilgrims around the sector to its various cardinal worlds. They signed an under the table agreement called Concordant 92d, with a chartist line heading through the neighboring Bantin system en route to Casa Urients seaborne cathedrals. The Concordant meant that every tenth vessel would deliver its cargo to the surface of Ankou instead, a journey which took a quarter of the time, and the Moulder’s were willing to pay the same amount as the Cardinals of Casa Urient.  It was not hard to convince the captains that this venture was worthwhile. The pilgrims on board these vessels, were of course less enthusiastic about this prospect, though many have little money left to them to get off-world, leaving the mines and the Moulding Gate as the only real alternatives left to them.

When the War for Jornath broke out, Ankou’s roll in the systems defense would be early warning and limited defensive outpost for the systems monitor fleet.  The moon is in a far orbit from the planet, placing it closer to the systems cardinal mandeville points, and this makes it perfect to act as a staging place for defense forces. When the initial Ork invasion force arrived, Ankou was on the opposite side of its orbit from the fleets approach, meaning that Jornath’s orbital platforms and a limited number of its monitoring ships were available to counter the Ork’s arrival. For the first several years Ankou continued in its mandated roll guarding the systems perimeter, and harvesting material for export, awaiting the potential call to send aid to its liege world.

In the early months of the War’s third year, a massive burst of psychic and digital energies slammed into the moon from the heart of the combat zones on Jornaths surface. This event was called the Emerald Scream by Imperial authorities and would send the entire battlespace into chaos. The long range vox and astropathic choirs were scrambled or killed, leaving communication with the moon during this period totally severed. On Ankou this immense burst of energy would have much more extreme effects, each of the Hives on the moon began transmitting repeating psychic and electromagnetic signals into the void on repeat. Every device capable of sending the transmission into space was bent to that task. For many within the society of Ankou, the signals brought madness. Converts into the Moulding Gate, were affected severely their minds wired into the planets digital network were affected by a form of orkoid psychic scrapcode. The Equites Redempto were similarly affected, the inhibitor circuits, implanted in their brains from birth as insurance of loyalty acted as conduits for the screams corrupting influence. Ankou turned into a bloodbath, in later years it would be called the Ankouvian Civil War, though this name implies that uncorrupted forces on the planet were able to mount any sort of significant resistance to the Berzerker’s tearing the moon apart. What resistance was available came from the High Civitan Sabrina Tursur, and roughly ten thousand miners, and novitiate converts into the Moulders, who were spread across each of the three hives. Their resistance to the corrupting influence of the Emerald Scream, was also the thing that trapped them inside the hives, unable to survive for any length of time outside the protective bio-domes, the loyal Ankouvians that remained attempted to fight their way into the Hive Spires using mining equipment, and cheap autoguns. They suffered incredible casualties in the attempt, and by the time that Battlegroup Ankou arrived to the planet, to reinforce it against the encroaching alien reinforcement fleet, and to shut down the screaming void signals. Only about 2500 loyalist Ankouvians remained alive, held in the High Civitans palace at the pinnacle of Linces Hive. These loyalists would be reinforced by the Imperial Dragoons of Task Force Gideon, and would be removed to the Battlegroups flagship for through investigation by the Ordos of the Inquisition, who were hoping to glean some useful morsel of information about the mysterious and catastrophic situation which had unfolded here.




Thanks for reading!  This post was a part of an ongoing narrative campaign, in the "living setting" of Jornath. For more information about Jornath as a setting, including units, missions, and posts from other Jornath bloggers be sure to click on the Jornath [40k] tab at the top of this page for an up to date list of all posts.


-Your Favorite Madman-

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Jornath: The Sect Recidivia


Pontry Contras, scrabbled through the dust-choked valley of bookcases and data terminals, the soft hum of his flock of servo-skulls the only sound disturbing the crypt-like silence of the Librarum Est Tricondriari.  He arrived at his objective in short order, picking up with his work, where had left off only a few hours before. A hand of pistons and iron gripped yet another book of deeds and actions of the noble families of the Jornathii, and deftly begins to turn page after page, Contras' cognito-enhancements absorbing and categorizing the information on each page in a heartbeat, while a lexigraphic node scribbled away on an auto-quill implanted on his back, recording the necessary alterations the adept superior felt needed to be implemented.

"Thrice benighted planetaries..." Contras breathed annoyed to himself
"What even is a..."Jurl"... that will have to go." he continued stumbling over the unfamiliar titles.

With a harsh metallic screech, a data log popped up from the mechanisms on his back, the lexigrapher having finished its work.  With the tone, one of the servo skulls descended and picked up the log, before floating off to add it to the ever-growing mountain of such logs filling the chambers of the Sect Recidivia's chamber house here in Kula Hive. 

Barely paying the skull any mind, Contras placed the book back upon the shelf and moved to the next, and the activity of exasperation and annoyed scribbling would play out once more. 




The Sect Recidivia

The Sect would find its origins upon the Sector Capital of Casa Urient, that shrine worlds various factions of the Administratum constantly battling with one another and the Ecclessiarchy about what version of history should be preserved and which should be placed upon the crematoria pyres. The Sect, believes in homogeny above all else, attempting to get as many worlds as close as possible to mirroring the titles and systems of the Adeptus Terra as it can, which means in many cases the destruction of local held titles and systems of government, which they typically view as unnecessary fat on the body of government. 

While they have been met with limited success on Casa Urient, the Sect has tried to preempt its rivals within the neighboring systems, setting forth thousands of adepts to hundreds of worlds within the Urient Sector.  On Jornath, the Sect Recidivia has been viewed with at best suspicion and disgust, and at worst with outright hostility. It is no secret that the Jornathi are not fond of off-worlders and are very proud of their traditions and culture.  Though, the Sect Adepts come from the capital and carry the licenses of authority from that governmental position, and so must be tolerated.  

For nearly five centuries, several hundred members of the Sect have combed the major libraries and studied Jornaths system of administration and each year have compiled an exhaustive list of changes and alterations, that should be imposed upon the planet.  Not least amongst these changes was the total abolition of the Roll of Honored Families, the cornerstone of the Feudal system on the planet, and the forfeiture of all private property over to larger state-run blocs controlled by the Administratum. Each of these proposals has "tragically" been lost or mired in beauracracy as to have been effectively stopped indefinitely,  though the Sect seems not to notice the outward hostility, nor the seemingly pointless nature of their exercise on the world. 

With the outbreak of the Ork Invasion and the struggle for the Jornaths survival spurring on sweeping changes to the military organization of the planets defense forces to be more effectively coordinated in mutual defense rather than in opposition to rival lords and guilds. The Sect Recidivia pushed their agenda of homogenous governance ever harder, even petitioning high ranking off-world members of the Astra Militarum for audiences to back their proposed changes to the government of the world. While none of the Imperial commanders even bothered to entertain the notion, many members of the Jornathii Noble families and of the Honored Guild Houses saw this as a blatant attempt at a coup by the Sect.

Tensions would continue to rise, until the autumn of the War for Jornath's third year, when a high ranking member of the Sect Recidivia on Jornath, a man named Jakub Gendricoll was found dead in his private apartments in the Deadalus Spire of Oakenzid Hive. The enforcers who investigated the man's demise blamed heart failure, though the Sect's own investigations quickly blamed the multiple gunshot wounds as the cause of death.  The Sect Recidivia accused the Guilder Houses of Oakenzid Hives as having conspired to kill an agent of the Golden Throne, a bold accusation which would on many worlds have caused a series of Arbites raids and the deployment of a PDF regiment to maintain order during the investigation. Jornath though was embroiled in the middle of a system-wide battle against Orks, and the Sect was despised as political dissidents by the systems government.  With its hand forced the director of the Sect on the planet requisitioned the aid of a Rogue Trader named Isandore Mandic, hiring his Voidsmen to act as a personal security detail and "enforcement body" for the vital work of the Sect on the planet.

There are some that worry Sect aligned Voidsmen might soon come to blows with Guild Mustermen in the terraces of the Deadalus Spire, though even if fighting should break out among the two factions it will likely be eclipsed by the greater conflict, becoming just another footnote in the War for Jornath.



Thanks for reading!  This post was a part of an ongoing narrative campaign, in the "living setting" of Jornath. For more information about Jornath as a setting, including units, missions, and posts from other Jornath bloggers be sure to click on the Jornath [40k] tab at the top of this page for an up to date list of all posts.

-Your Favorite Madman-


Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Jornath: Firelight Parallel


With 10 Wing JSOB's highly successful Raid on Urzagz Shack, the rest of TF Crimson Pendant scrambled to support the PDF strike team as it moved through the outskirts of the Stabheelz to intercept the closest ammunition convoy bound for the Xenos Flakk Rokkit Tower.  With Ork mobs beginning to swarm, an understrength Sons of Medusa force reconnaissance asset was able to link with 10 Wing, and together the force made a desperate push through the last block of Xenos held positions. 






With a larger concentration of Imperial forces present in the area, and with the alert already raised Ork warriors fall upon the beleaguered special forces in significant numbers. Though whether this was an intentional attempt to delay the attack on the convoy or just typical Ork gusto to get to grips with the enemy is difficult to say. 





The arrival of the Ork ammunition convoy into the killzone coincided with a wave of Ork warriors falling upon 10 Wing JSOB bogging them down and preventing the force from engaging the Ork vehicles effectively.  Surging forward to prevent the Xenos vehicles escaping the Sons of Medusa blitz forward into the last vestiges of the Ork left flank. 






With a great effort the Sons of Medusa attain the roadway and begin their attack on the convoy, as the men of 10 Wing start to withdraw towards the Astartes Predator in an attempt to disengage from the waves of Xenos warriors pouring into the AO from the west. 









In a flurry of violence, all other members of the Astartes tactical squad are laid low by massed ork weapons fire, leaving only the squads sergeant, who blessed powerfist ripped apart the alien's vehicles like paper. In the smoke and flame of cooking off ammunition stacks and ignited fuel tanks the handful of Imperial survivors consolidate back onto their armor. Their vehicles destroyed, and many of their number slain the xenos beat a hasty withdraw for a time.  

With the Ork convoy destroyed, it will only be a matter of time before direct close air support strikes can neutralize the Ork Flakk Tower with impunity, and the Hunt for Blakkstaff can begin in earnest. 


I hope you enjoyed this post, in the game we utilized a rough set of home brew rules to spawn in "AI" controlled Ork warriors, allowing for a joint player controlled operation, which yielded some truly interesting results. If you'd like to check out the rules you can click on the link 



Thanks for reading!  This post was a part of an ongoing narrative campaign, in the "living setting" of Jornath. For more information about Jornath as a setting, including units, missions, and posts from other Jornath bloggers be sure to click on the Jornath [40k] tab at the top of this page for an up to date list of all posts.

-Your Favorite Madman-


Monday, October 8, 2018

Jornath: Raid on Urzagz Shack


In the Aftermath of the Emerald Scream event, Imperial forces scrambled to meet a new wave of unexpected Ork reinforcement and redeployments across multiple battlefield sectors, from the growing crisis in the Airfields of Altheri Hive to the xenos armada amassing beyond the moon of Ankou the situation was chaotic to put it simply.  While forces were gathering to travel to Ankou and present desperate holding action to allow for Jornaths defenders to retrench and train many more times the number of fighting personnel originally expected. Jornathii and Astartes Special Forces moved to discover the origin point of the Scream's signal output on Jornath.   In short order Imperial auguries located the origin point within the Ork Rokk landing zones in the Kulan Exclusion Zone, specifically in an Ork Scrapburg known as "Da Stabheelz" so called for its higher than normal proportion of Gretchin.  The forces responsible for hunting down the origin and its suspected mastermind, an Ork named Bonebeard Blakkstaff, was dubbed Task Force Crimson Pendant, which would prioritize small unit insertions and lightning raids to cover large amounts of ground and ideally promote in-fighting amongst the alien war leaders, driving Blakkstaff into the open where he could be killed.

The Initial primary target for TF Crimson Pendant would be the massive Xenos Flakk Rokkit Tower on the southeastern side of the Stabheelz. This tower was being supplied by regular convoys, operating from outlying Mektowns and fabrication yards, though where these routes were exactly still needed to be identified. Intelligence gathered by scouts from the Dreadmare Companions suggested that an Ork Nob by the name of Urzagz Smunch, was an acting Xenos logistics chief in the area of the Flakk Tower.  10 Wing of the Jornathii Special Operations Battalion, were thusly tasked with paying a visit to Urzagz base of operations to discover any clues as to the ammunition convoy's whereabouts. 

Neutralizing the Convoy would allow close air support to better engage the Tower itself and with the alien's major AA emplacement silenced, drop craft could then land with relative impunity within the Stabheelz proper and the hunt for Blakkstaff could begin in earnest.














In a textbook sweep and clear operation with the support of a Helstannon troop carrier and Scout Sentinel, 10 Wing quickly assumed control of Urzagz's Shack, discovering a wealth of crudely drawn maps of the Stabheelz itself.  Not wanting to waste any time, the men of 10 Wing JSOB, opted to immediately continue through the city to an intercept point for the closest convoy route and set up a hasty ambush for the Greenskin column. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed this post, in the game we utilized a rough set of home brew rules to spawn in "AI" controlled Ork warriors, allowing for a joint player controlled operation, which yielded some truly interesting results. If you'd like to check out the rules you can click on the link 



Thanks for reading!  This post was a part of an ongoing narrative campaign, in the "living setting" of Jornath. For more information about Jornath as a setting, including units, missions, and posts from other Jornath bloggers be sure to click on the Jornath [40k] tab at the top of this page for an up to date list of all posts.

-Your Favorite Madman-