Yerma System, Ditú Subsector, Aetelian Sector 796 M41
He cries tears of blood, the red liquid falling down his face and onto the insides of his armor. Jiamo had been crying his own vitae for centuries however, and as such he neither made an effort to clean his face nor did he paid any attention to them. He suspects they are a jest from the God of Change, for he had earned countless acolytes by slaying champions of the Blood God back when he and his brothers still served the Corpse-Emperor.
He is in his chambers now, standing in the middle of the room as he examines the object in his hand. It had been once a power sword, a broad, curved single edged blade in the style of his homeworld, but a jagged break two fingers from the guard had reduced it to just a hilt, the guard shaped into a golden Aquila, with a bright red tassel hanging from the pommel. It had once belonged to Captain Hao Li of the 4th Company of the Wind Watchers, and Jiaomo always had it close whenever he thought about the past. Plenty of peers and subordinates have thought that such a habit of reminiscing made him weak, but he had strenuously proven that while he might dwell on the past, he is more than adept in cutting their futures short.
He runs an armored thumb through the scant edge that remains in the broken weapon, still as sharp as if it was whole, and his mind goes back to millennia past, to when he wasn't Jiaomo of the Bloody Tear, the Chaos Lord of the Eyes of the Mutator, but Champion Jiaomo of the 1st Company of the Wind Watchers.
It had all started with Scathach a Leitre. The Dark Eldar raids had caught his Chapter flat-footed and struggling to respond, chasing at shadows ineffectually. So for a mortal woman and a bunch of barely-armed, barely-trained zealots to triumph against the xenos when they had failed monumentally was a blow to their Chapter's honor and reputation from which they had never recovered, even if it had been centuries before his birth. The sting of failure had hounded the Chapter, and since he was inducted as a mere Scout Marine, the lessons of extensive vigilance and well-planned contingencies had been drilled extensively into Jiaomo's mind. Then, when he had proven himself and earned his place in the First Company, the Chapter endured another humiliation. A brand new Order of Sororitas, founded in the Sector to honor the one who had so greatly shamed them. The Chapter, from the lowest of neophytes to the Chapter Master himself had been driven into a frenzy, eager to reclaim their honor and show that with the Wind Watchers as protectors of the Aetelian Sector, that Order of Sisters of Battle wasn't needed.
It was in that climate of anger and frustration that a group of mortals arrived at their Fortress-Monastery. They were psykers, diviners, and they claimed that they wished to serve the Chapter. Some had been reticent, but Chapter Master Zhuan Zhenya allowed them entry, and soon they proved their worth, helping their chapter to find threats quicker and strike at them at speed. The Chapter gained great renown and accolades, the only black mark in their victories being the death of most of their Chaplains. In hindsight, Jiaomo could see the manipulations, the subtle reinterpretations of their visions that had positioned the members of the Chaplaincy in positions where they either faced the greatest danger or where the first of the marines who had been shown the truth could strike them down without repercussion. The Council of Fate, as the mortal psykers were referred to by the Chapter, took over the functions of the Chaplaincy, and slowly, discreetly, they had shown the Chapter the truth, that the Imperium was a rotting edifice, stagnant and decaying, whose continued existence would doom Mankind. Only the God of Change could propel Humanity to the place that is right in the universe, dominant over the galaxy as the chosen species of Tzeentch. By the time he had ascended to Chapter Champion, having spilled the blood of countless servants of the Blood God, near the totality of the Chapter had cast down their allegiance to the Corpse-Emperor and sworn themselves to the Great Mutator in body and soul, including Jiaomo, and Chapter Master Zhuan Zhenya had plans to turn their homeworld of Gashuudal into a Daemon World, to properly honor their God.
Unfortunately for Zhuan's plan, not all of his brothers had embraced this truth. Hao Li had been Jiaomo's best friend and he had hoped that he would eventually embrace the worship of the Architect of Fate. He had hoped that he would listen to reason when he ignored the wisdom of the Council of Fate, that he would rejoin them when he and his Company isolated themselves from the rest of the Chapter by throwing themselves constantly into battle, that when they returned and saw that the rest of his brothers had broken the oaths to the Tyrant of Terra, Hao Li would finally see the truth and follow suit.
He didn't, choosing instead to remain loyal to the Corpse-God. Jiaomo had been at the head of the assault when the 4th Company made their stand in the Astropathic Chambers of the Fortress-Monastery, and while his deluded brethren had fought bravely, they didn't stand a chance against the rest of the Chapter. His Power Axe had cleaved through Hao Li's Power Sword, punched through his chestplate and torn both of his hearts. The first tears of blood had fallen from his eyes then, for some reason only known to Tzeencht, as one of his brothers reported that the Loyalist had managed to send a warning to Lezo.
Zhuan Zhenya chose to stay and fit the overwhelming forces that the Imperium had sent against them, ignoring the Council of Fate who had advised him to flee. Jiaomo's captain, Cheng Xieren had proven wiser by heeding their council, and so the 1st Company and the 5th had broken ranks and punched through the blockade of the Angels Crusaders, leaving their brothers to their Fate. As they watched Gashuudal shatter under a barrage of Cyclonic Torpedoes, Cheng had renamed them the Eyes of the Mutator, and swore that they would eventually claim the Sector in the name of the Great Mutator.
Two millennia have passed since then, in which Jiaomo has seen and done much. He had been there when they had decided to settle on the Yerma system and watched as the warband made it grow from three barren, useless worlds into a domain worthy of the God of Change. He had plundered thousands of ships, their hulls, cargo and crews spent to fuel the Warband. He was present when they had captured the Canoness of the Thorned Spear and used her as a daemonhost, and laughed in cruel delight at the horrorized expressions of the Sisters as their possessed superior carved them to shreds. He had avenged his dead brothers countless of times, butchering his way through Navy battleships, eradicating Guard Regiments, clashing against the unworthy champions of their hated cousins and relishing their gruesome deaths at his hands. But most of all, he had killed his brothers as they turned on one another again and again. Cheng had been stabbed in the back by Sun Fang, the old Captain of the 5th Company, who had been then turned into a Chaos spawn by Deng Zemin, the old Chief Librarian. The Sorcerer had then been overthrown by a coup led by Cao Da, whose disastrous leadership had only ended when he had abandoned him to his death after a disastrous raid on Noitsab. Jiaomo had then claimed leadership, and the Chapter had slowly but steadily rebuilt, all in preparation for the glories to come.
And then, the 26th Founding had been declared, and the Mist Shrikes had appeared. He hadn't thought much of them at the beginning. After all, what threat could a barely founded chapter present against the servants of the Architect of Fate?
And then they had started to foiled his plans at every turn. The stations from which they coordinated their raids? Destroyed. The coalition of pirates that they had developed for centuries? Decimated. The trap they had sprung against them? Repelled. Their attempt at retrieving the Panoply of Mutation, which had been hidden by the Inquisition on an inconsequential Administratum outpost? Their marines were defeated and the relic lost. The location of their new homeworld, which the lap dogs of the Corpse-Emperor had been unable to locate for millenia?" Found in less than half a century.
It had been incomprehensible, maddening how they had managed to oppose them so successfully, but then Jiaomo had seen it. They were so effective because they are a test from the Great Mutator himself. The warband had stagnated, becoming complacent in their raiding and occasional in-fighting, so the God of Change favored their enemies, to force them to either adapt or die.
Accordingly, when the Council of Fate, mutated after millenia into something that couldn't be called truly human, had told him to vacate Yerma and relocate to a new hiding place, he had put them all to the sword, alongside those that had disagreed. As the Mist Shrikes gathered their forces, readied their weapons and called upon the other servants of the False Emperor, he and the Eyes of the Mutator had done the same. The foolish flight of Zhang Ling and his followers had purged his forces of the strongest opposition in his warband, and their demise proved that he was right. The followers of the Corpse-God would come, and when they destroyed their invasion, he and the Eyes of the Mutator would rise, reforged and renewed amidst their broken corpses.
It is the will of Tzeench, and so it will be.
He sets aside the broken blade, calling upon his greatest Sorcerer via Vox as he exits his quarters.
"Shang Shao, call upon our "allies". The time has come."
Now you have the chance to call for assistance from the various military forces available, to assist you either on the Cleansing of Yerma or in other deployments. Calling in a favor gives you automatically an ally detachment. For the cases where you don´t have a favor, Severus will make a fellowship roll to call for assistance, with a bonus or malus to the number of successes needed depending on the relationship with each member.
-[] Write-in who do you want to call for assistance, if any, and for what purpose.
Q.M note: So it begins. Feel free to point out any mistakes you see, and I hope that you enjoy this peek into the head of the Chaos Lord of the Eyes of the Mutator.
