I have started this blog mainly because my amazing Girlfriend @postie6 suggested to use it as a space to be able to post my D&D and Warhammer homebrew lore posts and OCs as well as my miniature painting, book reviews and odd bits here and there.
I have been DMing D&D sessions for over 6 years now and have been collecting Warhammer for over 15 Years!
I'm pretty offline so I'm new to whole posting stuff but if I you need me to tag anything please let me know and I'll get that done.
As is the nature with the Warhammer setting and life I will probably be discussing things that are unsuitable for minors so I would prefer if you don't follow me if you are under 18 years old.
Meet the Kabal of the Ivory Talon: Archon Azeshi Ashruebris' Personal Ravager. For this one I really wanted to emulate the look of a Wraithbone Ravager that had just been through the works, like it hadn't been cleaned of the dried blood and filth it had accumulated since it was made. With Azeshi's whole avian aesthetic and her love for her skyborn Scourge warriors, I wanted her Ravager to feel like a pack of raptors had nested aboard it and thrashed it with their preys innards. She nasty...
Meet the Kabal of the Ivory Talon: The Flensed Hand's Raider. The free-handing on this one was certainly better than what I was able to do on the Mirrored Masks Raider and I found it quite fun inverting the colour of the thorns on the sail but I still defiantly need more practice with it.
Meet the Kabal of the Ivory Talon: The Mirrored Mask's Raider. I tried to free-hand the Ivory Talons icon on the banner and the side of the raider (heavily inspired by the Red Talon chapter symbol) but my free-handing skills are nooooot good...
Meet the Kabal of the Ivory Talon: The Mirrored Mask's Venom. I wanted to switch up the hangers-on to be Kabalites instead of Wyches to fit with the lore that this was the personal venom of my Mirrored Mask Kabalites so I gave them all helmets but now I think they kinda look a little goofy. I also gave the pilot the only head option I have available that has a full fringe that obscures their vision lol
have a gm who insists that story comes first. this had led to 1 dozen sessions without combat, followed by an announcement that we would be performing a 30 round combat against "infinite" level 1 guards. we were level 6 at the time. there was no way to stop "the story." i quit the campaign, immersion broken forever
The only thing worse than a player who thinks the story comes before the rules is a GM who thinks the story comes before the rules. This is not only obviously really severe railroading, but that scenario is also treating the game like a video game more than a TTRPG.
I actually think there is a lot that TTRPGs can learn from video games (like “your game should ship with playable levels”) but a scenario like that doesn’t really play to the strengths of TTRPGs as a medium.
“Survive for a set amount of time against infinite enemies” is really fun for an action video game, but will usually very quickly get repetitive in turn-based combat, especially if that combat is relatively slow to play out like in most TTRPGs.
While I don’t think a concept like this can never work (like for instance it could be a puzzle of some kind - infinite goons until the party figures out how to close the portal or whatever), I think that turn-based tactical combat in TTRPGs should almost always aim towards relatively low numbers of rounds, with majorly impactful tactical decisions to make each round. In one of the best dungeon crawls I have ever played through (it was in AD&D2e using an AD&D1e module, which in my opinion is the best way to play D&D), the most tense and nail-biting instance of combat in the entire thing lasted about 2.5 rounds. Every other instance of combat lasted 1 round, because the party either snuck up on the enemies, tactically surrounded their enemies and forced a surrender, or at one point just paid the dark lord’s mercenaries to jump sides after a tense stand-off.
Absolutely none of this was planned as part of “the story.” The only planned part of the story was “the party (mercenaries currently in the employ of the Castellan Sir Raul) are being sent to [this village] to figure out why they suddenly stopped paying taxes.” Of course the answer to that question was also already known to the GM. It’s because the dark lord’s mercenaries had been sacking the wagons carrying the taxes, and the dark lord’s lieutenant had set up a secret forward operating base in an abandoned castle in preparation for a larger invasion. How the party finds this out, however, and if they even survive doing so, is up to their own actions.
The GM didn’t adjust anything on the fly to make sure the party won, no fake dice rolls, etc.. Just playing the game straight; and it resulted in a “story” that we still talk about all the time.
A lot happened that we didn’t want to happen, too, but in the moment that’s the adversity and challenge that makes the game engaging to play, and in retrospect it makes the resulting story much better. One of the characters got taken out pretty early on in a fight with the dark lord’s spies (the ACTUAL scariest fight in the adventure, but it happened nowhere near the dungeon), and another character got badly injured by a trap (technically a monster but basically a trap since it drops from the ceiling and only attacks one person) really early into exploring the abandoned castle (the dungeon). Both characters ultimately survived. The first character was dropped to 0 HP with a dagger buried hilt deep in her gut and “died” mechanically but was able to be taken to a surgeon which in this campaign is just reskinned resurrection mechanics but with a much higher chance to fail. She spent the rest of the adventure on a cot being tended to around the clock and made a near miraculous recovery, though with -1 total Constitution. The second character was very very narrowly saved from going below 1HP by quick thinking and action on the part of everyone else in the room. If they had been just 1 round later she would’ve died.
Anyway if you are going to play D&D any edition please just play normal dungeon crawls without a plot (beyond just some kind of framing device to give the PCs a good reason to go into the dungeon), it’s what the game is built to do and itll even produce a good story a lot of the time. If you don’t like dungeon crawls please play something besides Dungeons & Dragons - and im not saying that to “gatekeep” people out of D&D I am saying that because if you don’t like dungeons then there are so many other games out there that you would probably enjoy so much more than D&D.
There’s a term that has gotten thrown around since long before I even entered the space of TTRPGs, “rules lawyer,” and in the time I’ve been in TTRPGs I’ve seen it take a massive shift in how people use it and what they intend it to mean. I think that’s been a very bad shift, not because language or definitions can never be allowed to shift, but because the shift itself is downstream of a much larger issue of TTRPGs not being treated as art, Hasbro’s dishonest marketing, and game design not being treated as real.
I'm gonna go over the new definition i keep seeing, then explain the original definition, compare them, and explain why the new definition is bad.
How I Keep Seeing “Rules Lawyer” Used Now
“Rules lawyer” was always a pejorative term with very negative connotations, but super often in the past few years I’m seeing the term “rules lawyer” used pejoratively towards people for no other reason than they know the rules of a given TTRPG, want to play by those rules, and want to use the rules to their/their PC’s advantage. Here’s a few examples of where I have seen someone be called a “rules lawyer.”
Example 1
Like, saying in any context that you should try and understand and play by the rules of a game before you start modifying, overriding/ignoring, etc. the rules so that you actually understand what you’re modifying.
Example 2
Saying that people should find games whose rules natively support a certain type of campaign they want to play, and play by those rules, instead of changing all of D&D5e’s rules to sort of look like that concept.
Example 3
Saying that it’s good to read and be familiar with a TTRPG’s rulebook at all.
Example 4
A player reads the rules of [TTRPG with a heavy focus on combat] and figures out that by combining certain equipment and abilities, their PC can be very good at a certain aspect of combat. I.e. battle axes get bonus damage when used by characters with high Strength, so if they pick character options that maximize Strength, and pick a battle axe, their character can be very powerful with that battle axe.
Example 5
A GM says “If you want your PC to kick the gun out of [NPC]’s hand, they have to succeed on a Disarm Action because that’s what the rulebook says is the mechanic for when one character tries to knock a weapon out of another character’s hand. They can’t do it automatically just because it would be cool.”
Example 6
A character attacks another character in a game where this requires a roll, and the roll at first appears to be a success at the bare minimum number required to roll, and everyone starts going with that as the outcome. Then, the “rules lawyer” speaks up and says “Wait, since [character] was behind cover, according to the rulebook there should be a -1 penalty to the attack, so that would actually be a failure.”
What “Rules Lawyer” Means Originally
“Rules lawyering” or “being a rules lawyer” by the original meaning actually doesn’t even always have as much to do with knowing the rules as it does relying on other people not knowing the rules, to get away with cheating. “Rules lawyering” by the original definition describes a specific form of cheating.
It involves making spurious arguments you know are wrong or otherwise against the intent/spirit of the rulebook to gain an unfair advantage, and applying those spurious interpretations of the rules selectively rather than consistently. I.e. conveniently ignoring the rules interpretation you made just minutes ago now that it no-longer favors your character to interpret it that way.
I’m going to take the examples above and rewrite them to actually be examples of “rules lawyering” by the original definition. I'm going to skip examples 1 and 2 because there is no way to possibly twist them into fitting this definition.
Example 3
Saying “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying hard enough.”
Example 4
A player reads the rules of a TTRPG with a heavy focus on combat and figures out that the rulebook says “A character can attack once per turn with each weapon held in their hand.” but it never specifies exactly how many weapons a character can fit in one hand. The player gives their character 20 swords and argues that because the rulebook doesn’t place a limit on the number of swords per hand, his character can make 20 attacks per turn by carrying 20 swords. (Extreme example for demonstration purposes, an actual rules lawyer would probably more realistically only try this with like 3 swords.)
Example 5
A GM enforces the rules arbitrarily and inconsistently, either relying on the culture of GM fiat and “rule 0” to get away with it or just getting by on nobody else at the table being familiar enough with the rules to argue, leading to the rules not actually mattering, since they only get brought up in defense or support of something the GM has already decided is going to happen no matter what. (Usually this will also be combined with the GM lying about their dice rolls or lying about the stats of NPCs/changing them arbitrarily in their head but that’s not really “rules lawyering” that’s just more conventional cheating.)
Example 6
When the rules lawyer’s PC is attacked, he says “The rulebook says ‘Cover’ is ‘any object a character could hide behind from an attack’ and [PC] was hiding behind the curtains when the bad guys saw him and started shooting, so the curtains should count as Cover and they should get -1 penalties to their attacks. Also, the rulebook says ‘Characters who are moving when they attack get a -1 penalty to the attack,’ and the bad guys had to move to draw their guns and pull the triggers, so they’re moving and should get another -1 penalty.’ Notably, earlier in the session when a character was getting shot at while hiding behind a small chair, the rules lawyer stayed silent and didn’t bring up the Cover section of the rulebook at all. Next turn after the bad guys miss their shots the rules lawyer has his character shoot back. (Even though his character would have also needed to “move” to draw a gun and shoot and so accounting to him would have a -1 penalty, he stays quiet and hopes nobody is paying enough attention to realize this.) When the GM says “Goon #2 is hiding behind the bed so he is in Cover and the attack has a -1 penalty,” the rules lawyer says “Oh come on, bullets can go straight through a feather mattress, there’s no way that counts as Cover.”
What is This Shift Downstream of and Why Should You Stop Using the First Definition?
Besides the regular Dunning-Kruger Effect of people having a couple of D&D5e rules explained to them and then thinking they know everything there is to know about TTRPGs as an artform, this is, like most things in the hobby right now, ultimately traceable to Hasbro’s dishonest marketing of D&D5e and its resulting toxic play culture.
This post
💬 39 🔁 777 ❤️ 880 · I don’t know what’s more detrimental to the health of TTRPGs as a medium, D&D5e players who think that TTRPGs are “col
sorta gets into it with a lot more detail, but the short version is D&D5e wasn’t really created with a lot of thought put into how it would actually play by its rules, but that doesn’t matter to the shareholders as long as it makes money. To make more money, Hasbro/WotC has to maximize the number of people playing D&D5e. To do this, they market D&D5e as “the game that can be whatever you want it to be” and encourage a culture of play where if you don’t like the rules you can just change or ignore them (instead of playing a different game that already has rules that you would like following).[1]
[1. Sidebar] I promise that learning a different game’s rules is not as hard, time consuming, or expensive as you might think. D&D5e’s rules are at the upper end of all of these metrics. Even rulebooks which have twice as many pages are often easier to learn than D&D5e’s rules.
By treating any of the first set of examples as a faux-pas and subject of derision or mockery you are playing straight into the hands of a monopoly that has a deadly stranglehold on the TTRPG industry. Ironically by treating the rules text of D&D and by extension other TTRPGs as essentially meaningless, you’re actually more of a corporate bootlicker than you would be otherwise.
How Does this Affect People Who Enjoy Playing by the Rules? Can’t They Just Mind Their Own Business?
I am extremely aware of the fact that many people who play D&D(or some other popular TTRPGs but mostly D&D) don’t really care about the game part of D&D, but rather treat it as a sort of “social lubricant,” an excuse to hang out with friends more so than a specific activity. They would be just as happy (perhaps even more happy) if D&D was swapped out for any activity on earth, like bowling, sitting around a campfire talking about anything, watching a movie, etc.. To these people, being told to pay attention and understand the game they’re playing is an offense. After all, “it’s just a stupid game, who cares, aren’t we here to have fun?”
Yes, we are here to have fun, but have you considered that the fun of the people asking you to pay attention is being disrupted just as much? Would you have the same reaction to somebody leaning over and telling you not to talk or use your phone in a movie theater? Come on. Or even in a home viewing experience, your friend asks you to come over and watch this movie he really likes, and you’re just blowing it off as some stupid movie, not caring if you talk over all the cool scenes he wanted you to see. In simplest terms, that’s rude.
The shift of the pejorative “rules lawyer” from “cheater who makes spurious arguments about the rules to gain an unfair advantage” to “player who wants to play the game by a written-out and consistent set of rules” is making the guy who actually wants to do the activity everyone nominally said they would do into the bad guy. Imagine if it was the activity or piece of art that you were passionate about.
Convincing people that it’s not “just some stupid movie” becomes much harder for that person when it was already hard as hell because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Many people don’t realize that it can be anything more than “some stupid movie” because they never paid attention to a movie before. They are skeptical that paying attention might result in them having more enjoyment than just talking, and now getting them to pay attention is that much harder because the act of going “shh, don’t talk over the movie.” is the subject of mockery.
I am also extremely aware of the large percentage of TTRPG players who are passionate about D&D and other TTRPGs, but are passionate about the version that Hasbro marketing presents(this is completely synonymous with the “folkloric version of the game” that exists in oral tradition and “not letting the rules get in the way of the story”), not the version that actually exists in the rulebooks. This post has already gone on long enough and beyond this point I would just be repeating things I have already written other essays about so I’m going to just link a few posts. The TL;DR of these posts is that buying into this marketing of the rules not mattering supports Hasbro and disadvantages anyone else who wants to make it in the industry or even just cares about exploring and evolving the medium as it exists. As Hasbro’s marketing goes, if the rules don’t matter because you don’t let them get in the way of “the story,” then there really is no reason to move away from D&D5e.
💬 85 🔁 5158 ❤️ 7202 · I've had a couple of people ask for a digestible version of the whole "the real problem with Dungeons & Dragons is f
💬 39 🔁 777 ❤️ 880 · I don’t know what’s more detrimental to the health of TTRPGs as a medium, D&D5e players who think that TTRPGs are “col
💬 39 🔁 777 ❤️ 880 · First of all thanks for the good faith response.
The thing is you’re pretty much right, but I think it would be more
If you object to anything being said in the last paragraph, read these posts before arguing.
My primary emotional interest in RPGs is character and story.
I absolutely have no interest in RPGs that function as "guided improv-theater". If that's what we're doing, I don't want to play.
I think people think that's a contradiction. It is not. But it does require a couple things.
1) Reframing the relationship of characters to story that mostly involves dumping things that have mostly been fed to us by marketing, consumer culture and the increasing commercialization of fiction.
2) Being vulnerable and open to the idea that whatever happens to the characters and the story that unfolds from play might not be something you wanted or even enjoy. (Hopefully not but it might happen). The game does not exist to service your desires and no one is responsible for entertaining you.
One thing that makes me kinda sad is seeing people who feel like TTRPGs just aren't for them because they bounced off of some element that is clearly just a symptom of them trying out D&D5e. Like people who have had a hard time with learning the rules would probably do well with any system where the rule formatting and play culture around learning them aren't a mess. One friend of mine didn't like waiting a long time for turns to come up in combat, not even knowing that many games don't even use a turn-based structure.
A lot of D&D5e defenders on here like to claim that asking someone to learn a new system is "gatekeeping" somehow, but I'd argue that acting like one game is emblematic of the entire medium to the exclusion of people who don't click with that one game is way more meaningfully a form of gatekeeping, even if it's fully unintentional.
I strongly believe that not all RPGs are gonna appeal to everyone, but there is an RPG out there for everyone, and I just hope that people who haven't clicked with the most common option to be introduced to can find something that works for them.
I’m not going to reblog the source because I don’t want to bring negative attention to someone but I just read that “the most important skill of a GM is pretending what happens is what you were planning all along.”
Absolutely not. This pressure to “be in control”, “‘maintain the illusion” and “be a magician” style advice is precisely why people are terrified to GM.
You have one job as a GM at the table. ONE. Play your NPCs and other situation elements with the same earnestness as the players play their PCs. That’s it.
The “plot” is what happens when your toys and their toys meet and uncertainties between them are resolved via the game at hand.
You are not responsible for anyone’s fun.
You are not responsible for anyone’s entertainment.
You are not there to stroke the players egos or service their fantasies or “story beats” or whatever self-insert wish fulfillment BS they have projected onto their characters.
Stop making GMing harder than it needs to be. Just play the damn game.
Orks are so great because they’re like TF2 pyrovision but as a Warhammer faction. Everything they do, from their own perspective is hilarious and silly. Just the boyz having a good time. All their wacky tech and funny accents though would only be funny to other orks.
From the outside, if you’re a human in 40k, they are the most ancient enemy of mankind and have massacred untold millions across every corner of the imperium. When the emperor first set out to conquer the galaxy, his number 1 priority was often to eradicate orks lest they become too powerful.
In the war of the Beast, the orks largely united as a race for a brief period and immediately laid waste to wide swaths of the imperium and got closer than anything since Horus to actually invading Terra itself.
This contrast between how they are portrayed is really interesting to me because it lets stories about or just containing orks have a huge variety of tones. Sometimes when painting I imagine my orks as silly goobers looking for a good scrap and sometimes they’re a living nightmare who bring devastation upon every world they touch.
Meet the Kabal of the Ivory Talon: Ogres of Commorragh. I haven't thought of any lore for these little guys unfortunately! If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them :D
ESPRIT DE CORPS [ Medium: Success ] – If an assault were launched on this building right now -- if the windows came crashing down and the whole world descended upon you -- this woman would hurl herself in death's way to save you. You are sure of this -- but why?
This is a short story I wrote about my Drukhari OCs Garaserius and Verinarian, soul-linked twins and Sybarites of Ivory Talons Kabal as they lead a covert operation into the bowels of a chaos void ship alongside member of their Mirrored Mask Kabalite squad.
G&V were heavily inspired by Vyriadh and Xyril from 'The Treasures of Biel-Tanigh' by Andy Chambers. They too are "Pair-Bonded" and share a telepathic link between one another. Andy uses the + symbol like speech marks to indicate that they are communicating telepathically. I wanted to emulate this but not copy it entirely so I ended up using ~ for telepathic speech and * for when they shared a thought.
The Mirrored Mask are seen as the rejects of the Ivory Talon Kabals Kabalites, experiments and fuck-ups stuck in a squad but somehow keep ending up victorious through their shared skills and dumb luck. It was fun to have my first Warhammer OCs as lovable idiots whilst still maintaining a serious tone of grimdark, for at the end of the day they are still Drukhari.
Anyway, enough of me yappin, Enjoy!
~Brother, this seems *wrong*~. The final word echoed twice within the twins psychically link minds as they both thought it in unison. ~I couldn't agree more, dear sister, but we are never in a position to disagree with Azeshi's wishes~ Verinarian projected back to Garaserius, his telepathic voice shuddered with a sense of unease. They both knew they were right. Garaserius needn't have voiced her concerns, she could feel the sense of dread welling in her brother’s half of their linked souls. Things didn't seem right as soon as the mission was handed to them. They had been instructed to only bring half of the Mirrored Mask Kabalites with them. Neither of them liked that. The Band of the Mirrored Mask were certainly not a quality over quantity Kabalite squadron and both of them enjoyed the slight reassurance that they had strength in numbers if nothing else. But now, they only had 3 others to cover their backs.
Yirresh stuck close behind, youngest of the Kabalites in the twin’s cadre and the least experienced. Despite this, the twins found her the most trustworthy. She clung to the pair like she had something to look up to, she listened to every command and always sought after them as soon as the plan deviated from the intended outcome, which often happened. Regardless, the twins had both agreed she was more than capable. They could hear Yirresh's tensed breathing through the comms link as she struggled to remain calm and quiet in their current situation, her finger routinely disobeying her attempts to keep it off the trigger of her splinter rifle. She was scared. They could taste it.
Behind Yirresh, hunching under the tight confines of the maintenance shaft was Sisico. She was quiet, uninterested in theatrics, keen on hanging back, perfect for a stealth mission. She had not spoken since they had boarded the vessel, other from the occasional soft grunt of compliance when a hushed order was given. The only sound she made was the soft, rhythmic patter of the occasional drop of blood dripping from the iron crown of thorns built into her helmet. An oversight, the twins had both cursed one another for overlooking, but their adversaries where too dullard and brutish to differentiate it from the other sounds the void ships rusting carcass made whilst it propelled through realspace.
Finally, there was Terberous. She was not chosen out of want for her on the mission, far from it. She wasn't even chosen due to her reliability or trustworthiness, any of the other Kabalites of the Mirrored Mask were probably more trusted than she was, not like that was a high bar however. She was aggressive, unpredictable, backstabbing and a liability, but in hand-to-hand combat in such cramped conditions as the lower decks of a chaos warship, there was no one close to her skills. Precautions had been put in place though. As this was a stealth mission, she had been forced to wear a tongue-trap. A sharp, gag like instrument that took all of the members of the Mirrored Mask to restrained her long enough to insert into her snapping maw, her tongue suspended in a nest of barbed metal that stabbed and nicked at her mouth if she tried to talk. Despite this precaution, she had insisted in trying to hum the occasional tune as they walked through the bowels of the vessel, much to the group’s ire.
~Does she still have it?~ Garaserius asked telepathically, now was one of the few moments where their twin-souled communication proved advantageous. Verinarian swung is head about whilst his sister kept watch as continued at slow pace to look back at Yirresh. She was only slightly smaller than the rest of the Drukhari, certainly taller than Terberous, but when he looked down at Yirresh, it felt like looking at a child. Yirresh gave a quick nod and adjusted the device slung under her arm, as if she was also privy to the twins’ psychic musings, but she knew that she was always on edge to be tested and evaluated at any moment by her superiors. A smooth but miniscule sliver of calm caressed the twins. ~acknowledged~ Garaserius responded needlessly. They had been silently passing through the maintenance shafts and access hatches of the chaos cultists battleship for what felt like an hour now, save for Terberous' incessant humming and the dripping of Sisico's blood. They had passed by rooms of chanting Mon'keigh and felt the distant exhilaration of life being torturously ripped from mortal bodies, but not once had they engaged in combat. That was good, but it annoyed them. Each of them was itching for a fight, every time they had to wait and let a chaotic horde pass by as the watched and waited, their patience wore thinner. It was beginning to get to them now more than ever. Yirresh's finger kept excitedly thumbing her trigger. Sisico would occasionally stop to desperately listen out for the sound of a lone target. Terberous was growing more agitated by the second, she'd begun playing with her knife at this point, growing ever closer to coiling around Sisico for a cheap thrill of bloodletting.
And the twins, they were beginning to bicker. ~This is torturous! We are being *punished*~. Again, Verinarian finished his sister’s sentence before she could herself. ~We are on a mission! This is not punishment. Chaos vessels do not simply appear for Azeshi to send us on! Besides, I don't think we have done anything recently...~ His psychic lamentations trailed off as he tried to remember when they had been last reprimanded, it wasn't long ago. ~See fit that you remember why we are here sister~ Verinarian said, making an attempt to sound commanding. ~Our mission is twofold; we must first plant a tracking device upon the vessels warp drive and then we must *find the Mon’keigh priest with the scripture tattoo's*~ Garaserius interrupted with a large degree of annoyance. ~I know all of this! Our mind is one, you have no need to lord over me acting like you are more enlightened! I am merely stating that this is obtuse. Why does she want the priest alive? Why even track the vessel in the first place? What have we to gain if we track this dingy full of madmen?~. She did not wait for her brother to answer, for she already knew what he was going to say. ~*It is not our duty to question Azeshi, simply to follow orders*~. The mocking tone her inner voice took as she mimicked him made Verinarian want to clip his sister round the back of the head with the butt of his pistol. But he knew that he would only feel the pain of his strike as well.
It was only then that the twins realised that Terberous had stopped humming, and that the air suddenly felt heavy and twisted. They needed not signal to the rest of the group for their nerves had already been on a hair-trigger. Everyone had raised their weapons, covering either ends of the long, tight corridor. Terberous had drawn both her daggers now and had assumed a stance like that of a Khymera ready to pounce at the slightest flicker in the gloom. That's when they heard the low growls coming from either end of the corridor. Two flesh hounds, one from either end, approached from the shadows. Their thrilled jaws shuddering with aggression as they growled, low and evil. How foolish they had been, their inane argumentations had clouded their senses and had let them be stalked and surrounded. Almost instinctively, Verinarian raised his blast pistol aloft to strike the daemonic entity before his sister almost slapped the weapon out of his hands ~No! If we are found, the mission is a loss and we will bring the inhabitants of the entire ship upon us! Pray that these beasts were merely hunting the rabble on the lower decks and were not sent~. She turned her head as she carefully unclipped her agoniser "No guns unless necessary, Yirresh, protect the tracker-" she was stopped mid-way as she looked back at her squadron. Terberous had already broken into a quadrupedal sprint at the hell hound. Sisico dropped her aim as Garaserius' command hailed over the vox and instead readied the array of blades on the front of her splinter rifle to charge the beast. Yirresh had her weapon up in the middle of her two defending parties, she would fire, only if things looked bleak. "Affirmative" Yirresh croaked, her fear welling up in her throat.
Turning back, Garaserius was shoved aside by Verinarian as the beast broke out into a sprint. Venom blade drawn, he too would meet the beast head on. ~Distract the beast, Sister, my blade will fare better than your whip in these conditions. Try not to hit me~. Garaserius and Verinarian felt a dual shudder as the idea of the agoniser striking their skin washed over their minds, she followed him. A moment of hesitation halted her hand momentarily before she closed her eyes and try to focus on what her brother was thinking. He was going to try to slide under the beast, using his blade as a shield to catch its mouth if it struck. Leaving just enough space for...a strike from her agoniser! She allowed the faintest smile crack across her face as she opened her eyes and cursed her brother’s intellect. In the same instance as the twins clashed with their hulking war hound, the bounding Terberous propelled herself in a diving pounce at the flesh hound’s neck. She planted a blade into its jugular and used the momentum to rotate onto the fiends back. Withdrawing the blade in a shower of blood, she arched back to deliver the two blades clutched in either hand directly into the creature’s eye sockets. The beast responded to the Drukhari’s mounting by thrashing furiously against the sides of the shaft, crushing her leg against the rusted metal and bucking her off its back.
Without a moments reprieve, the hound bared down its oversized teeth into the plates of Terberous' shoulder, making light work of the thin material and finding flesh and muscle to latch onto. Terberous tried to let out a guttural cry, but the tongue-trap made her catch her breath and instead let out a faint mist of blood from her mouth. The flesh hound went begin shaking its prey, trying to separate flesh from bone and tear away her shoulder before a figure loomed over Terberous and sunk its bayonet into the beast. Sisco grimaced and held onto her rifle the best she could as the beast writhed to free the metre long blades that were now in its back. As it let go of Terberous to let out a howl of pain, she was there with the knife, jaggedly ripping it across the beast’s throat before it could vocalise, tearing out its vocal cords and letting great arcs of warm blood bathe the Kabalite. Her body shuddered with joy. Seeing her fellow squadmates take out the daemon spawn, Yirresh quickly pivoted on the spot to face back to her twin Sybarites. She could see the arcing cracks of Garaserius' agoniser twist and sway between the lithe form of Verinarian, as the beast yelped at the painful snaps of the whip, stunning it briefly. Verinarian slip to his feet and positioned himself. With one smooth motion, his venom blade separated head from body, the hound probably never feeling the strike as its pain receptors overloaded with the agonisers kiss.
When the beast was slain, everyone froze. They looked at one another, not speaking, listening, waiting for a second wave, another assault, the beasts master to reveal themselves from the darkness. It never came. Quietly, the band reformed back into the centre of the corridor before proceeding. Terberous was injured for sure, but she would not slow the mission, she was already trying to wordlessly snap at Sisico for trying to lay hands on her to deliver medical attention, joyously caressing her slight form with her injured arm as her blood mixed with the hounds over her body. The twins grimaced and left her to her oddities, she would not be an issue, the mission relied on it. The group carried on forward, their bloodlust satisfied but their nerves were frayed, fearing they had been found out, they doubled their pace. They were close.
According to Azeshi, both the warp drive and the chaotic preacher were in the same area. From what she had found through her Croneseers, the Mon’keigh freak enjoyed the vast warp hallucinations that occurred when one spent far too long next to the nexus for warp transit. The twins had agreed that for a Mon'keigh priest of the ruinous powers, sticking your head into а warp reactor was as close to meeting God as those lowly worshippers could get. That and the mental image of a crazed Mon'keigh dunking his head into a warp reactor had made them chuckle. As the group rounded to the end of the maintenance shaft, Garaserius carefully wrenched the heavy door leading to the upper walkways of the ancient vessels warp reactor. She froze. Verinarian let out a small whine of pain as he felt the dread hit is stomach as well. Careening his neck, he could see that the room housing the warp drive had been entirely converted into a makeshift Chapel. At least 20 raving lunatics dressed in ramshackle armour and brandishing rune etched weapons sat kneeling on the floor. A man in a robe of dark crimson approached a lectern in front of the warp drive. As the Mon'keigh turned to face the crowd, corrupted servitors either side of him swinging foul incense, he dropped his hood to reveal a bald head covered in demonic runes carved deep in his flesh.
~Of course that’s him~ Verinarian’s dejected voice rang into his sister’s mind as he leant his back against the wall. ~What now?~. A few minutes passed as the group came to terms with the situation and tried to come up with a plan whilst the Mon'keigh priest yelled and screeched at his flock in their crude language. As of yet, all of the members had "come up" with a plan that all revolved around simply going in, slaughtering everyone and leaving with the priest before reinforcements found them. Each time, the plan was shot down with the fact that Azeshi wanted them to be as covert as possible. As Garaserius quietly argued with Sisico on the logistics of dropping monofilament grenades from the top beams, Verinarian sauntered over to Yirresh who was sitting quietly after her own plan to pick off the sermon was rejected. "Good job keeping that safe." Verinarian smiled, pointing at the strange tracking device slung over her shoulder. "Thanks sir, but it was everyone else that protected me, I just had to stand in the middle and watch." Verinarian could see Yirresh's gaze dart over to Terberous who was stretching her injured shoulder, her face wincing at the exhilarating pain. Yirresh owed nothing to her, Verinarian wasn't even half sure if Terberous had been so reckless out of pure boredom, but still she cared that her fellow Kabalite was okay. These feelings were rare in Commorragh, caring for one another, guilt in one's inaction, regret. He could chalk most of it up to her age and her naivety, but he and Garaserius saw something special in Yirresh, she would make a great Sybarite one day. As he looked on at her, he tried to think of a way to cheer her up.
"How about we switch on that tracking device? Might make Archon Ashruebris happy knowing were still alive and in position." He smiled again, trying his best to hide his own stress over the situation. "Uh, yes sir. It’s an odd system, not a tracking device I'm used to, a very big one, though I assume it helps detect it during warp travel." She went on as she rotated the dinner plate sized contraption in her hands. "I'm sure Dhar'nyr said it was activated via the-" she thumbed a small hatch that revealed a button underneath. "There we are, now it should be-" She paused and Verinarian could visibly see the colour drain from her already pale complexion. "What is it? Was it brok-" Yirresh turned the devices face towards Verinarian. A small hololythic display had appeared over the device '59 minutes' it read. Garaserius shot past the still bickering Sisico and over to her brother’s shoulder, feeling the sharp pain of fear in her heart. ~By Khaine, it’s a bomb~. Her telepathic voice stuttered with fear. ~ Why didn't she tell us?~ trying to probe her brothers mind for an answer. They both reached the same conclusion. ~*Because we would have cocked it up if we knew otherwise*~.
Archon Azeshi Ashruebris was like a mother to them, in a strange, creationist sense. She was the one that had commissioned Grand Haemonculi Akhaunet to create a pair of soul-linked Drukhari from her own genetics to serve under her. The twins often considered the fact that they had massively underperformed and disappointed their Archon in this regard. They were unruly, unwise, prone to failure and their powers were more of a hindrance than a boon to the themselves and the Ivory Talon. Many a night the two had laid awake, wondering if one day she would finally run out of patience and have them disposed of. Those thoughts did first come to surface when they saw the explosive, boiling over their psyche like hot lava, stinging senses with the pain and embarrassment of their prior failings. But the two steeled themselves. The mission was two-fold, and their Archon was cunning and calculated. Had they known that they were carrying a device capable of detonating a warp drive and imploding an entire void ship, they would have not been anywhere near as calm and calculated as they had been on this mission, and there was still the matter of the priest. Azeshi was expecting their return, Mon'keigh in hand, and so the device had exactly enough time for them to return back to the Venom and leave the ship before it detonated. Exactly enough time if they had planted it on the warp drive and not activated it prematurely.
Verinarian cursed internally, it would be a while till his sister let him live this one down, if they survived. But now the twins finally understood the true intentions of the mission, they felt the cool wind of assurance in their actions. "Form up!" The two said simultaneously. The small group formed around Yirresh, still sat on the floor next to the device, rocking sightly. "This device is no tracker; it is a timed explosive. Our lady Archon saw fit to mask its true purpose so as not to panic us, leaving us prone to fault". The room was silent; the sudden revelation and subsequent explanation did not bring any consolation to their predicament. Terberous attempted to voice her displeasure but was only able to accomplish a short cough as she choked on more blood. "This does change the mission parameters for us now. Now we know that this void ship is destined for fiery oblivion in...56 minutes...our only objective is to get the device closer to the warp drive, capture the Mon'keigh and get out before the ship explodes. The enemy is unaware of our presence and we have the height advantage. We shall use the rafters of the room to drop extract the target with our chain coils, deploy the device closer to the warp drive and then pick off as many crazed lunatics that stand in are path between us and the Venom". The Kabalites stood bewildered. Partially because the twins had begun to speak in unison during the mission re-brief, but mainly because they had just suggested another guns-blazing shoot-out that everyone else had suggested. Sensing that they would most likely be questioned if they let the moment sit any longer, the twins made their way quietly towards the door to the upper walkways of the warp reactor room. The rest reluctantly followed suit.
Using the innate athletic prowess of their race, the Kabalites expertly climbed from the rusted, sheet metal walkways that hung over the sermon to the equally rusty, grime-slicked support beams. Setting up, Yirresh passed over the device to Verinarian as Garaserius unhooked the chain-coil from her waist. This was going to be tough, she thought, as she played with the weight of the hook in her hand. The chain-coil was made for such moments, helping the Drukhari traverse vertical terrain and hang off ledges for better firing angles. But she would need to be quick, descending to grab the priest and then returning to the rafters. The cultist looked scrawny, too much time near the warp drive had wasted away his body, making his skin sag around his neck. He shouldn't affect her speed too much, she guessed. Verinarian gently patted her shoulder, sensing his sibling’s apprehension. ~We do this together,*as one*~.
As the heretical sermon was reaching its crescendo, the ghoul of a priest raised back his arms, calling out to the void in his guttural tongue, flinging his head high to the sky above. But instead of seeing some vision from beyond or some immaterial warp beast form from his faith, he saw the slender figure of a Xenos rapidly descending at him. The surprised priest had no time to react before an armoured hand snapped around his neck and brought him skyward. To the sermon, many were bowed or deep in Eldritch meditation at the climax of the ritual chant of the priest, some did not even see him get hoisted skyward, they simply opened their eyes upon the priests’ sudden silence to see that he had disappeared. Others However, saw as a long, bone clad Xenos snatched their prophet away and made a break for it back to the rafter. As their gaze followed the wretched creature that had stolen their master, they were met with more of the aliens looking down at them from above, dropping what looked like small, silvery baubles down onto them. Many then, did not see the monofilament grenades detonate, turning them into a fine red mist before their primitive brains could comprehend what had occurred. In the ensuing carnage of the previous few seconds, none had seen the final Xenos intruder stealthily descend behind the warp reactor and plant the bomb onto their warp drive. Those on the fringes of the sermon that had survived the blast had immediately set to gunning down their revealed adversaries or had fled, screaming for reinforcements in what sounded like grunts and howls to the Drukhari’s ears. As the group made their daring escape along the beams of the warp drives sarcophagus, Garaserius had already relinquished the horrified priest of his consciousness and had slung him over her shoulder. Verinarian, farthest back as he had planted the device, expertly dodged and dived through the cascade of immaculate light arms fire from the cultist’s ramshackle weaponry. Despite his acrobatics a light round struck him in the weaker parts of his thigh armour, sending both he and his sisters stumbling to the knees as they rolled in agony through the door back to the maintenance shaft, both clutching their leg in shared suffering.
But they could not stop now. From what Verinarian could remember and what he had projected to Garaserius, they have but 47 minutes until the entire ship would implode, dragging its flaming carcass to their fetid god’s dominion. They had to move fast. Getting back up to their feet and reclaiming the priest that had been flung a short distance ahead of the twins, they gave each other a single nod before the entire squadron broke out into a sprint. "Back to the Venom!" The twins cried. For a few brief minutes, nothing happened, they continued to run at as fast a pace as they could with their target and 2 injured members. But as soon as they could briefly dream that the enemy had simply never made it to raise the alarm or had suffered multiple simultaneous heart attacks from their surprise attack, the groaning klaxons of the alarm system and the red blaring lights announce their incursion the entire ship. Following down the maintenance shaft that seemed three times as long as it had prior, they could begin to hear the echoing cries of the crazed Mon'keigh from behind them, pathetically trying to keep up with the lithe Drukhari. When they reached the ruined and abandoned hanger bay in which they entered the void ship, a great wave of twinned relief washed over the two Sybarites. Loading everyone in as Sisico furiously activated the engines, they all breathed a sigh of relief. They had done it. As the venom embarked off into realspace back to the Webway portal on the planet that the chaos warship rested in low orbit of, they're vehicle still shuddered with the overwhelming force of a warp drive detonation as the ship imploded in on itself. As Sisico wrestled control of the venom back from the shockwave, Garaserius and Verinarian thought the same things. Perhaps the entire squad of the Mirrored Mask had too. ~*Too Close*~.
