Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part Seven: Twice Cursed Abomination

Brugoyle was clad in a long coat. It was buttoned and a high collar reached around his neck to his pointed ears. His head had been shaven clean. The few lights that illuminated the dark area reflected off his pale dome. Delicate tattoos traced circles on his forehead and high cheeks. Small bones hung as earrings from his pointed Eldar ears. He stood in a space between the walls of two buildings. The red night shy of Commorragh whaled above him. A slight warm wind caught his coat and made it move as if it were alive. The buildings were left from the old times. No slaves had built these walls. They had been crafted by the minds of the Eldar. They were crumbling now and in some places had collapsed. These buildings had once been places of pleasure from where the Eldar had ruled the cosmos.

The Kabalite called to the darkness before him. There was very little echo from the night. As always in Commorragh there were things in the darkness that baffled sound. Things that could not be seen but that could kill. A bizarre voice called back from the darkness.

“Why do you come here Sybarite?” the voice seemed to crackle with a restrained energy. It was as though it took all the power of the speaker not to cry out in a rage. “Why to you venture alone down the paths of Cymric Solor? You know this place is not for you”. Brugoyle swallowed. This part of the city was not protected by the Kabals. He was surprised that he had made it this far.

“I come seeking a parlay” he returned.

“Parlay? You know that is not what we do here” the voice called. “These streets are for murder. Discussion and deception are the work of the Archons and their courts. We do not talk. We do not reason. We do not discuss. Cymric Solor is a place of silver knives in the darkness, of muffled pain, and lonesome whimpers. Is that what you come for?”

“No. I have…” his words were cut off by laughter from the darkness. It was the laugher of someone ill. Interrupted by coughs. The sickly laughter was at first simply from in front of him but then it spread and soon it seemed the laugher were coming from all around him. He was surrounded by invisible fiends. He spoke louder than the cackling forcing his voice through the noise. “I come with a message from Archon Actev Nu of the Rancid Blade”. The laughter stopped. "I bare his message" he called out "It was told to me by sixth personal concubine, delivered to her by his second secretary".

The original voice from the darkness called back "Why does the Grand Archon stoop so low to send a messenger to us? Why does he need us? After all these years, decades, since he abandoned us. All the Archons and Players have abandoned us." Anger could be heard in the strange voice. "Kabalites never bring us on their raids anymore. When did you ever hear the names of Mandrakes called through the fields of battle? When did we strike terror as even the lowest Kabalite may?"

There was silence in air.

"The Archons and their politics and the Cults preening by their side. All of them have abandoned our skills" silence "…our talents. Even the Homunculi Covens ignore us at the behest of the Archons. We are forced to remain here alone with no prey things. We crawl through the passages of this cursed city, cursed by the most cursed. We have been abandoned by the lost. You Kabalites leave us here alone with none to prey on but our own kind and those few unfortunates that wander here".

Another voice called from the shadows reclaiming the end of the first speaker's sentence "... unfortunates and messengers who wander here". The laughter began again and this time it was loud, the noise crowding around, pushing in on the Sybarite. He knew it would be foolish to break their laughter. They were right. The Archons had cursed the Mandrakes. The Mandrakes were not to be trusted. They were caught between this world and the demon world and they had been driven insane because of it. To many times their blood lust had led to their own failure. They could not participate in the Kabals or work even with their own kind. The Archons and Dracons had cursed them as the Exarches had cursed the fallen ones and now few even mentioned the Mandrakes. The arrogant Wyches would not even recognize their existence. Sybarite Brugoyle waited until the laughter died down. He stood seemingly alone as the laughter died. "You may kill me if you will but you will never hear my message".

"We shall hear and you shall pray that your message is worthy of our lost time". As the voice spoke a slice appeared before Brugoyle. It was as if a knife had made a cut in reality itself. It was gone as quickly as it appeared. Then another, and another. Tens then hundreds. Then thousands. Through the cuts in the air could be seen a shape as though there were something on the other side of the cut. The cuts in reality became so many that a form appeared before the Sybarite. It was that of Mandrake Lethal stepping forward from the shadows. The Mandrake was twisted and bizarre. He was an Eldar but wrong, even for a Dark Eldar. His face was twisted. A long curved bird’s beak extended out from his nose. Leather armor covered most of his body except where chains linked tattooed and pierced nipples or simply entered straight into his flesh. One of the creature’s arms was mutated into a large curved blade that extended almost twice as long as a natural arm. Brugoyle could see how difficult it was for this Mandrake to stay in the 'real world' of Commorragh rather than his half life in the warp. As the cuts sliced through reality and were sealed again parts of the creature seemed to break out of alignment with the rest of his body or were replaced by the wrong image. He guessed the image of the creature’s thoughts rather than the reality. This creature was a twice cursed abomination. He lived half in the demon world and half in the cursed world.

“The Archon will trade souls in exchange for tasks” the Sybarite slowly said to the shifting image before him. He had never seen the shadow skin before. Some said that in full light these beings could be seen even when they were not projecting themselves on reality. A moving shimmering shadow cast from the warp.

“What kind of souls? His weak slaves?”

“Space Marines” Brugoyle said slowly. The laughter began anew.

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part Six: Cutting

A completely circular door with a seamless metallic white finish. A round orange device in the center of the door activated it and once activated the two semicircular halves of the door slid apart to reveal the small Nestle Chamber beyond. This was his personal space. His sanctum of reflection. Ari’Arshi had lived in this small room for over eighty years. His Tau eyes had watched as his people had continued to bring The Great Solace to the universe. Once he had felt comfort that so many had come to be welcomed by the Tau Empire and he had been a part of it. The chamber was only a dozen feet across and not much taller than himself. He needed no more room than this. The curved walls revealed an alcove for him to sleep in and his few possessions were stored in yet another smaller alcove. A light seemed to come form the center of the room as if projected from mid space.

He had recently come from the Chamber of the Ethereals. A place where they gathered to meet, plan, and reflect. The Etherials had met around a completely circular table. Each sat on his Hani mat on the floor with the low meeting table before them. Holographic projections would arrive describing various strategies and plans. Images were beamed to them from the field giving detailed information to their council. When Ari’Arshi had first returned to the council chamber after his absence some of his peers had been unquiet. He had disgraced himself in their eyes. His warriors had been butchered and many taken as captives. Yet he had found a way to escape. Many thought he should be cast down. The council had agreed to give him preference simply because he had held such prestige in the past. The chair of the council had commented that to cast down such honor, so dearly earned, because of one blemish was foolish and not for the greater good. Many had still looked at him out of the sides of their eyes. He saw them looking. He knew their hatred. He felt it in his head.

After several weeks of rehabilitation he had returned to his duties. Often as they reviewed the trade domination routes or the macro sector conflicts his mind seemed to focus on other things. His usually calm thoughts were conflicted with dark shapes and shadows. Grim faces or the tortured images of his massacred Fire Warriors seemed to arrive in his thoughts. Often he had to chant the Sava’shus in his head to expel the horrid images.

At a recent meeting the council had discussed a string of lost transport ships. The Council struggled with apparent miscommunication messages that the ships had received. The signals from the local Caste World directed the ships into unstable warp space or a gas giant and they were lost. As the Etherials had discussed how the computers could possibly have misdirected so many transport ships Ari’Arshi's mind became racked with the screams of his dead charges. He saw their flesh boiling off in horrible pits of oil. He saw parts of his old brethren sewn together with other creatures in twisted abominations. His mind seemed not his own and as he slowly chanted the Sava’shus in his head the council came to no conclusion about the reason for the lost ships.

Nights would pass and in his mind the images would return. When asleep he could not dispel them. Often it would feel as though he were looking through someone else’s eyes. He would see the grim and nightmarish things that those outside the Great Solace do. Dark passageways would confront him. Tall winding stairways ran with the dark blood of the Tau. The dreadful eldar pirates would appear in his mind, sometimes speaking to him, and other times he would see them terrorizing his captured warriors. One night he woke with a start. A dull klaxon sounded in the halls outside his chamber. As he awoke the faces and horrors retreated from his head. He later learned that somehow Eldar Raiders had been able to override the control codes on the proximity detectors of the Haf'nusu Frontier and attack local Tau Colonies. Soon in his dreams he came to see those very colonists being brutalized by the Eldar.

He relaxed on the edge of his rest alcove. His mind was tired. He had just returned from another long examination of the lost ships. Two more transports had been misdirected in the last week. No system errors had occurred. It was almost as though someone were sending the ships faulty commands. Ari’Arshi had barely been able to keep is mind on the conversation. The images were in his mind. A Dark Eldar pirate vixen queen had stood behind a kneeling Tau warrior. She had pulled his head back. Her hand firmly gripped on his top knot. The young warrior was looking up at her with his throat exposed. She slowly drew a long blade across his throat and let the arterial blood spray out. It hit her splattering wide on her stomach, chest, and chin. The sickly red splattering against her skin and dress. She grinned with blood stained teeth. Ari’Arshi felt she was looking directly at him. Her laughter haunted him.

He pulled his robe back from his leg. His grey flesh exposed. Long cut scars could be seen. They were not as the normal Tau tattoos but clumsy infected wounds. This was the only way he knew solace now. The pain he caused himself rivaled the images in his head much better than his almost forgotten chants. When the blade bit into him he felt the terrible images leave him alone. He felt that the pain satisfied them. He took a small blade from an adjacent alcove. It was a ceremonial weapon with carefully made etching and symbols. He placed it to an unharmed part of his skin and slowly drew it across his flesh. Crimson blood seemed to bubble from the new wound. He breathed out a slow sigh of relief.

Screaming Dragon Cultist

Another wych attacks with stunning speed.

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part Five: The Gift

It was a low cage. About six feet high and across. Some sort of straight wood lashed together held the entire structure tight. It was in a pit about twenty feet deep with straight walls and an opening to the sky. A number of other cages lay about the wide chamber. The wood cage had sustained very little damage as a result of the fall but this could not be said for its contents. When the grots had dropped the cage from the edge of the pit it had crashed down the wall. Its fall was impeded only by a small outcrop of rock. When it hit the rock it made the cage spin as it fell crashing to the ground on its side. Succubus Yanaloo’s leg had been smashed on impact and she had spent the first two days in the pit in a pain filled daze. By now she was so weak and feverish that she drifted from sub-conciseness to an uneasy restlessness.

When she first had seen rats moving about the floor of the chamber she had hoped possibly to catch one and consume it. Several of them converged on a shape in one of the other cages and the form offered no resistance. After some reflection she realized that they were waiting for her to die and consume her. She would rather they eat her alive than be returned to the goblin horde that had brought her here. When captured she and several of her kin had been transported on motorized trucks. With belching engines and large wheels they had bounced across the open territory of the grasslands back to the camp of the grot rebellion. She had been face down on the back of a wagon and seen very little of the camp or the cage before she had been placed in it. She had been surprised that they had not made a spectacle of her. Had things been reversed she would have bathed in the pain of her foe. Given the opportunity she would have stripped them, ridiculed them, and then butchered them. As the cage was carried toward the pit she had seen the bodies of the Dark Eldar warriors, armor removed, limbs removed, and eaten raw. The head and torso of a lifeless Eldar form, solid with rigor, bobbed from a black cauldron, cooking. She could barely fathom boiling something that was already dead. What was the purpose? She pitied the grots. They simply saw the Eldar as a meal.

On the third day in the pit she became aware that someone was watching her. Weak from solace and close to death she struggled to open her eyes. She could barely get them open. She lifted her head, weak from a lack of water and a lack of sustaining pain. The only misery she could take comfort in was her own. It was the only thing that kept her alive. The form that she saw regarding her was repulsive to her. Though he stood confident she could see his age. Long green robes, slightly worn, encompassed him. He wore several pendants and chains each with odd images, bones, and symbols that she didn’t recognize. Behind him she thought she saw several shapes. One seemed to move behind his head, several lights emanating from it. She could not see his companions but the man was bathed in a sickly almost putrid yellow light. The human spoke several words she didn’t understand.

“What gift is this that my old friend has sent me?” The confessor stooped down closer to the form in the cage. Yanaloo groaned and forced herself up onto an elbow. She could feel her life sapping away from her as she willed herself upward. The dried blood on her leg cracked and she moaned as her broken bones shifted. She reached her hand to the bars above her and pulled herself upright. Supporting herself on her good leg, her broken one hung limp.

Confessor Sylax viewed her. She seemed to snarl in pain or aggression, he couldn’t tell. Her leg was smashed. While she was well toned her body was on the verge of collapse due to lack of water and food. He could see that she needed some other type of sustenance but he couldn’t tell what. What remained of her armor hung off her revealing pale blood crusted flesh. Drug injection tubes that had once stimulated her were limp and cracked. Where they entered her flesh blisters and red sores had formed. Her skin and clothing was smeared with dried blood and dirt. Stands of matted hair hung at her shoulders and over her face. She was breathing hard, shaking from with withdrawal, and as she exhaled she blew her hair aside. The matted mess returned over her forehead and in front of her eyes. Relying completely on her arms gripped to the bars above she finally pulled herself to almost her full height. Solid eyes behind raged hair. She tried to speak but failed.

“Don’t speak my pilgrim” he was now speaking in the Dark Eldar language. Sylax raised his hand as if to bless her. “I shall purge you of your sins to the Emperor and while I will not be your ‘play thing’ I know you shall enjoy the plans I have for you.”

Quick and Deadly

A Screaming Dragon Wych Cultist attacks.

Revised Rules for Existing Units ~ Part One

Mandrakes
Mandrakes should be a unique and versatile unit. However but are rarely played simply because they carry little punch at the end of their nifty deployment tricks. Rather than giving them new skills or a leader their specialty should be enhanced to emphasize their character and improve them. I would make the following modifications to the Hidden Deployment rule: Rather than placing 3 models on the table to represent the location of the unit the DE player should be able to place all the models in the squad across the table as infiltrators. This will represent the possible lurking locations of the Mandrakes and create terror and confusion much as they should. Mandrakes may remain 'lurking' through to the last turn of the game. While Lurking they may move as described in the Codex. Mandrakes should never be scoring units.

Grotesques
Grotesques should be a more versatile choice. An army should be able to rely heavily on these units. They should be considered heavy choices. A variety of changes should be available. Regular Grotesques should be able to be taken in 20 unit squads provided they are lead by an Homunculi. Uber Grotesques: up to 10 unit size (as detailed in current codex). Sabotage Grotesques: up to 10 unit size. Hidden in a single 10 man DE Warrior squad. They act as a warrior squad until revealed in the movement phase and they become regular grotesques.

Members of the Screaming Dragon Wych Cult close with the enemy.

Tales of the Rancid Blade: Part Four: Sabotage Grotesque

Viewed from above one could see piles of bodies were scattered across the ground. From the prospect of a jetbike flying high it could be seen that once this area had been a manicured lawn of a stately house. However, many years of war between the Tau and Humans had brought it low. It was now an overgrown rubble strewn field. An old impact crater could be seen beside what looked like some sort of empty fountain. Nearby was the brown and black husk of the long bombed out mansion. As with the ruined field the ruined forms of dozens of Tau warriors lay about. Recently slain by Eldar Pirates. Some of the forms still moved, slowly though. It was the quiet movement of the mortally wounded. The light colored earthen yellow and blues of their uniforms were contrasted with their highly oxygenated blood. The dark, almost black, of their blood was strewn all around. Dark Eldar warriors walked about seeking those Tau still in pain. Seeking to prolong it.

When the wyches descended on the Tau their fate had been sealed. Many of these young warriors had been expecting to fight humans. They were felled before they even saw the sudden arrival of the wyches. From warp gates activated in secret dozens of yards away in the ruin of a guest house three raider skiffs had appeared. The transport platforms were moving at full speed when they came out of the gates and it only took a matter of seconds for them to reach the Tau firing line. The few shots that the Fire Warriors did get off missed and were made more in panic than resolve. Thirty wyches leapt from the raiders in a mad frenzy of hatred and blades. Attacking over twice their number didn’t phase them because in a moment the Tau were reduced to only a hand full of warriors and mech battle suits gathered around their revered Ethereal.

Nets had been used to pull down the Mechs. Their robotic arms twisted oddly against the monophiliment wire that cut into the metal. The had Ethereal whirled about striking back at the wyches with a double bladed weapon. He inspired his few remaining kin to hold fast but he eventually succumbed. A Noose Foil swung by Gladiator Usanti looped around the Etherial’s head and one of his arms and pulled him off his feet. The Tau leader’s white robes had torn when he hit the ruddy grass. The strangulated leader had rolled about pathetically, captive and gasping. At the same moment Succubus Fynash’s Agonizer had cut across the last Crisis Suit’s hard exterior. The electrified poison had fried its internal workings and the massive wreck crashed to the ground smoke pouring from the joints.

Now the battle was over and Hosphel’s Jetbike slowly lowered to the ground stopping about three or four feet from the grassy earth. The bike had been augmented for two. A rider sat in the forward position and a second saddle had been added for the Drachite. Hosphel stood to step off the bike and indicated to her pilot to remain. Dark Eldar warriors moved quickly away as she strode confidently across the field. She walked toward a group of her fellow wyches that stood around one of the fallen battle suits. They parted as she approached revealing the object of their examination.

The bulk of the ruined Crisis Suit served as a platform. Its massive torso was shattered but the wide surface of its chest served as a table. The Ethereal lay on the platform. He had been placed there by his eldar captors. Still alive he struggled against the restraints he had been placed under. His deep dark blood seethed from beneath his bindings. He was tied face up with his arms and legs spread wide and secured by cables to the hulk on which he laid. His head twisted back and forth as he pulled fruitlessly at the cables. His robes had been pulled aside revealing the curve of his wide grey alien chest which was adorned with the circular tattoos of his rank. Hospheld stood over him looking down at him. The Ethereal’s dark eyes fixated on his tall pale enemy. The Ethereal’s mouth moved and odd sounds arrived. The Drachite ignored them.

She reached into a pouch that she had inside the breastplate in her amour. From it she pulled several small bean like objects. Not taking her eyes from the Tau’s dark orbs she crushed the beans between her fingers. Sickly black ichors appeared from the shell. She placed her long fingers against the Tau’s chest and rubbed the ichor into the creature’s pores.

“This is a gift from the Grand Archon Actev Nu” she said in the Tau’s odd language. As she forcefully rubbed the liquid into the grey skin of her captive the ichor seemed to run into the crevices of his body of its own accord. The Tau began writhing in pain as the liquid entered his body through his flesh. Spasms overtook him as he cried out. The eldar nearby seemed excited by the occurrence, some licking their lips as they watched his suffering. Hospheld continued to rub the toxin into his chest even as he bucked. She forced him down with the palm of her hand.

The Tau eventually relaxed and went quiet. Hosphel grinned. She took her hand, still with the seemingly alive ichor on it and rubbed it to her own chest. She could feel the small particles that made up the ichor moving on her skin, entering her pores, small robotic particles. She winced in pain as the microbe sized machines entered her. They would enter her body and then her brain as they had done with this Tau. Tonight, when in her chamber, she would enter the trance needed to activate her probes and would see through the eyes of this Tau. Through her microbes she could see through his eyes. She could control his actions. She could manipulate him without him even knowing it. This Tau would return to his home to his leadership role and Hosphel would go with him. He was her Sabotage Grotesque.