The Kin are typically pragmatic in battle, to the point where their heroes seem almost dispassionate. This is because the calculus of risk to reward - and resultant survival - underpins their military strategies just as much as it does every other aspect of Kin society. This is not to say the Kin are not bellicose in war; their soldiery are fond of bellowed oaths, grim gallows humour and booming war songs. Rather, their forces have been known to abandon valuable positions or break off from ferocious engagements without a backward glance, should the price of victory be judged too high.
(Vior Or'es: That seems like sound strategy, even with the questionable bellicosity!)
And they sound fun enough, I suppose.
(Antimony: Oh, very fun, mostly!)
(Sister Vandire: If you're not ready to die for something, what are you living for?)
There are those enemies, however, whose actions test Kin patience beyond its limits. Foes who repeatedly shame and insult the Leagues, perpetrate great horrors upon the Kin or profve thorns in their side time and again, may become the focus of a Grudge. In such cases, the Kin appear to lose perspective. They will not hesitate to spend countless lives and shocking quantities of materiel in the destruction of a begrudged enemy...Kin sometimes form Grudgebands at such times, swearing binding oaths to quest and fight together until either the Grudge is settled or else everyone who swore the oath is slain. To outsiders, this behaviour seems anachronistic in the extreme - a bizarre reversal of the doctrines that pervade Kin society. To the Kin themselves, however, the notion of Grudges is as deep-rooted and natural as breathing. To their minds, the Ancestors will judge harshly any who allow such nemeses to endure.
This strikes me as noble and appropriately dramatic, if arbitrary.
(Antimony: Oh, but how dramatic it is!)
More and greater Holds were raised upon worlds where night never fell due to the sheer stellar density in the skies above. Life was hard, but the rewards were plentiful, and the Kin saw clearly the benefits of thriving in a location where competitor species could not. Thus, as the millennia passed, the Leagues of Votann continued to focus upon settling the immense sprawl of the core, and upon exploiting its boundless riches...This is not to say that the Kin never ventured into the wider galaxy. The boldest among them were driven to prospect beyond the core, or to establish trade with species other than their own. More than this, there is a prevailing belief within Kin culture that, in order to honour the Ancestors, one must live a full life and discover or learn all that one can. This was reason enough to see countless Kin exploratory and prospecting fleets - commonly called Prospects - set out into the wider galaxy. It also compelled bands of Kin to leave their people and to fight as mercenaries...returning only when they had gathered knowledge and experience fit to offer the Votann.
(Antimony: And that's why I've interacted with so many Kin!)
The Kin remain closed-mouthed around outsiders seeing no reason to reveal the extent of their holdings in the galactic core, or risk revealing the existence of the Votann. Many peoples they came into contact with thus mistook a single Kindred or League for the entirety of some comparitively minor alien race. In Imperial records it is impossible to say how many itinerant nomad races, unclassified xenos trade fleets or so-called abhuman enclaves have actually been Kin...The Kin bear all this with a mixture of contempt and amusement. Their own, oldest records do much to confirm a link to between the Ancestors and ancient, pre-Imperial Terra, but to the Kin this only encourages greater care in their dealings with humanity.
(Antimony: Ah, what fascinatingly quaint talespinning?)
(Sister Vandire: Do you mean "nationalist pseudohistory"? It seems like Ork Bane is trying to portray every species but the Kin as fundamentally stupid and unworthy of the Kin.)
(Antimony: Yes, that is how talespinning goes.)
(Sister Vandire: I'm serious, I think the Kin genuinely look down on everyone.)
Are you sure it isn't just Ork Bane's bias?
(Sister Vandire: You know how these xenos can be.)
Felicity,
we're xenos.
(Sister Vandire: Well, krak. I'm sorry, it just slipped out. I didn't mean the Aeldari or the T'au. It's just the bigotry on display here is bugging me, like Yymm Ork Bane thinks we're too stupid to realize the Leagues of Votann even exist.)
(Antimony: Oh my stars, you're right! She is being dismissive. I promise not all Kin are the obviously small-minded toadstools on display here. Perhaps she is so ignorant that she cannot imagine that other Kin could be less insulting.)
The Codex further describes that the Leagues of Votann, according to Ork Bane, seem to genuinely dislike every other major faction in the galaxy and fight all of them. Wishful thinking, hopefully?
(Antimony: No, no, their culture is...bad. Look for the dissidents and freethinkers. Fascism is an oversimplification at best, but it is a...rigid set of ideas that animates their communities.)
So conservative is Kin society that - as a race - there are certain truisms and idioms that have found universal acceptance amonst them. The Kin call these their Truths, and treat them as articles of sincere good sence that are loaded with more nuance and meaning than is immediately apparent. The most common of these is the frequent Kin saying, 'The Ancestors are watching', which doubles as a battle cry. One interpretation of this Truth is that all the generations who have gone before are judging the deeds of the living Kin, who must strive their hardest to live up to those who came before. Yet equally, this truth can remind the Kin that their ancestors live on in every new generation, and that they are never alone while their forebears stand with them.
There are many other Truths, from describing worthless objects or foolish schemes as 'a prize for an Ork' to encompassing the depth of their race's space-faring prowess in the simple statement, 'The void is in our veins'. Like the kin themselves, to outsiders the Truths seem uncomplicated and direct, yet in reality they are far more complex.
Well, it goes without saying that the Truths are both fundamental building-blocks of Kinnish culture and also merely important aphorisms elevated in position by Kinnish nationalists seeking simplified cultural touchstones to build a simplified national identity around, rather than the more complex and multifaceted League identities.
(Antimony: Well, it might just be that Ork Bane is exaggerating the importance of the Truths for her nationalist bias, as this Codex would be meant to be read by Imperials, but the current regime does focus on them.)
(Sister Vandire: ...
fucking Squats.)
(Antimony: Language!)
Verbs! Nouns!
(Sister Vandire: No, I'm serious, the idiots are going to reenact the Men of Iron, and they're just such assholes about it. You know me. I'm open-minded. The Aeldari are cultured, the Drukhari thoughtful and brave, the T'au orderly and dedicated, and all that. I'm not some Imperial bigot, all I'm saying is that the Kin are
just smug, bigoted, apocalypse-tempting assholes.)
That seems kind of, erm, bigoted.
(Sister Vandire: "Oh, look at me, I'm a Squat, I'm so smart because I play with dangerous forces outside my control, everyone else are
fucking idiots compared to me!")
...How did you do a mocking voice in
text?
(Sister Vandire: I'm talented.)
(Antimony: Some of the Kin aren't so bad once one gets to know them.)
(Sister Vandire: They're probably nice to you because you have thrones and crowns.)
(Antimony: As in coins, or literal thrones and crowns? I have both.)
(Sister Vandire: Exactly, they're dicks.)
The familial bond of the Kindred remains with Kin and Ironkin whether they live and work within their Hold, or roam the stars as warriors, merchants, miners, or courageous Hernkyn rangers.
(Sister Vandire: "Courageous Hernkyn rangers". This is clearly meant to appeal to Imperials to get them to do what those condescending, reckless fucking Squats want.)
Other than its people, the heart of every Kindred lies in its Four Pillars. The first is the Hearth - the fire that burns at the heart of the Hold. Echoing the times when all Kin sailed the stars aboard vast generation ships, the Hearth is the blazing reactor that powers the Hold's defences and sustains light and life. Its fires are said to burn within the breast of all its Kin, only extinguished if every last member of a Kindred falls. The second pillar is the Forge, wherein the Kindred craft the weapons, equipment, tools, vehicles, and technologies required to sustain them. In planet-based Holds the Forge my be a conventional - if vast - industrial workshop, but in others it may take the form of a huge factory-vessel, a hollowed out industral asteroid or a grav-anchored factory-station. The third pillar is the Fake, tended to by the Living Ancestors. From the Fane flows the wisdom of the Votann, for it is here that the Grimnyr interface with their Ancestor Cores. The final pillar is the Crucible, whose genomic coloning technologies ensure the Kindred's continuation...
(Sister Vandire: So, in other words, they're over-industrial bigots who worship evil computers and have an obsession with returning to a "golden age" and preserving their race baked into their culture. God, I hate the Squats.)
(Antimony: Well, no, that's how Yymm Ork Bane would like to present it, but the Kin who dissent from the Leagues are often quite progressive. They don't mindlessly worship their ancestors so much as revere and seek to learn from them. Even some in the Leagues are more open. Can I offer you a chocolate truffle?)
(Sister Vandire: We're lightyears away.)
(Antimony: I can have it delivered.)
It is possible that the Ancestor Cores retain records of all Kin history since their earliest days. If such information survives, however, it is likely buried beyond recovery. Accordingly, even the perennially thorough and practical Kin have been forced to accept that - after a certain point - their ancient histories blur into myth.
(Sister Vandire: How convenient for our fascist mythmaker.)
Aren't you a fascist?
(Sister Vandire: No, I follow the Imperial Truth, which doesn't have the ideals of national rebirth or redemptive violence that are necessary in fascism. If anything, I'm a theocrat, which makes sense since I'm a nun.)
(Vior Or'es: What is fascism?)
(Sister Vandire: A set of bad ideas held mostly by the Kin and minor xenos, as well as some smaller Imperial organizations.)
(Antimony: But the Kin aren't fascists?)
(Sister Vandire: All the Kin I've talked to have been fascists.)
(Antimony: How many was that?)
(Sister Vandire: Three Kin, all mercenaries. We got one drunk and he spilled stuff. The Leagues' existence is at most an open secret, probably a well-known fact.)
(Antimony: Three? Not a representative sample, is it?)
The Leagues of Votann are named in honour of Votann itself, who is also known variously as the Primal Ancestor, the Gilded One or the Stonemind, amongst others. In some Kin myths, Votann was not one being but many, and is sometimes depicted as a group of gleaming golden figures or as a wheel of graven stone faces. In other myths, Votann fashioned the first crucibles, then raised the Kin up and sent them sailing into the dark void - before oceans of fire and flesh rose up to swallow them...With typical pragmatism, the Kin accept that their myths are too contradictory, allegorical and suspect to be cited as possessing a definite basis in fact.
(Antimony: Gleaming golden figures, you say?)
This actually reads as angry to me, like Ork Bane is frustrated that not all of her people don't properly get behind their national genesis mythology. This reads like a fascist evangelist frustrated that her people aren't listening.
For all this, there are certain articles of lost history that the Kin deem indisputable fact. They call these the First Truths. It is a first Truth that their earliest Ancestors departed the homeworld - almost certainly pre-Imperial Terra - millennia ago aboard fleets of generation ships. It is a First Truth that the Kin were a cloned people from the beginning, and that the Ironkin have been with them since those earliest days. It is a First Truth, also, that the Ancestors of the Kin set out as miners, prospectors and void-dredgers, charged with exploiting the riches of the heavens.
Having done some research on Kinnish Rejuvenation—the ideology that Ork Bane follows—it seems like this emphasis on a glorious past superior to Mankind is a common fixture of the ideology, almost portraying the Kin as a superior race of explorers in a way that most Kin would find gauche or even uncomfortable.
(Antimony: That is true, now that I think of it. While it's not unknown to talespin about one's species, it's generally considered superior to talespin about one's own accomplishments.)
(Vior Or'es: That seems sort of sad. People should care for everyone's accomplishments equally, no matter how superficially minor.)
Different cultures, I suppose.
(Sister Vandire: Motherfucking fashy big-jawed short-faced Squats!)
What?
(Sister Vandire: I can't believe they've gotten to you guys with their "not-so-bad" act. They're little demons.)
...This is getting a bit uncomfortable.
(Sister Vandire: Well, excuse me for getting mad when someone starts playing God!)
Are you okay?
(Sister Vandire: What?)
You seem distraught. This isn't about the Kin, is it?
Kin myth blends into recorded history around the time their long-march fleets were approaching the galactic core. Why they did not return to the heartlands of Humanity is unclear. From the fact that so many Kin fleets plunged into the galactic core within a period of only a few centuries, it might be inferred that a deliberate choice was made. It is during this period that the last references to the First Ancestors can be found, often blurring with - or transitioning into - mentions of the Ancestor Cores. These are themselves also referred to collectively as 'The Votann', with the Kin employing the two terms interchangeably.
(Vior Or'es: Antimony and I have cross-referenced our sources, as well as done some additional research, so there is something that must be clarified. The Leagues are, not, in fact fascist in a traditional sense. The great Unification Wars-era state of Jermani described their ancient
fasismus as "One nation, one Fuhrer, one Reykh". A "Fuhrer" was a kind of leader of the pre-Unification Wars Germans, a title held by Arminius, Frederick the Younger, and Kaiser Hitler, among others. Kaiser Hitler was known for his brutality in starting both World Wars, in which the Jermanian Reykh fought against the other great powers of Terra for control of the Solar System.
(The Leaguer system cannot be equated easily to the Jermanian Reykh. Instead, it might be better to think of it as being more like the Asatruar Cultists of the Merican Techno-Barbarians, who worshipped their god "Wodensvolk" and promoted decentralization, ethnonationalism, martial valor, and creative enterprise. The Leagues of Votann do not have snappy uniforms or a single all-powerful leader. Their fascism is not of the Pre-Unification Wars variety. Instead, it is a kind of animate, multifaceted conservative militarism and ethnic consciousness. It might be better to describe the Leagues of Votann as
parafascist, fascist-populist, ethno-conservative, or
ethno-populist.)
(Antimony: Very well put!)
(Sister Vandire: All I need to know is how to fight the bastards when they try taking Imperials as chattel slaves.)
(Vior Or'es: That is overstated.)
(Sister Vandire: Yeah, well, one of our people getting captured near the Core is too many.)
The First Ancestors are cited here as agents of change, and held responsible for the majority of the stable mutations - collectively known as cloneskeins - that run through the Kin gene pool...The Votann are thought to have hardened the Kin both physically and spiritually...The Kin evidence no uncontrolled psychic mutation, and only those with the appropriate psycho-active cloneskein can activate the so-called barrier-tech that allows physically active Kin to interact with the empyrean...It has been suggested by some outside observers that this very hardening of spirit led the Kin to become even more obstinate and conservative in character. If this is so, then it is just one side of a metaphysical feedback loop that has benefitted their race greatly across the millennia.
Ah, so Sister Vandire—Beloved Felicity, Darling, Babe, Sweetie, Smoochypooch, Gandalabrous Femme, Miss Alexander Dynasteria, Esoterica McMateria Esper Terra Keff Lavernius, Empress Dynamite, Princess—was completely right about everything. These people are genetically predisposed to be jerks because of their evil computer gods.
(Sister Vandire: Holy fucking shit.)
Those were platonic names for my platonic and entirely heterosexually-alinged best friend, of course!
(Sister Vandire: We're
allowed to be gay. If anything, it's encouraged so we don't have kids to take care of while burning heretics and such.)
The Imperium legislates gayness?
(Sister Vandire: Depends on the world and the organization, but not too often. Also, none of those names were words.)
I'm
quite sure that Gandalabrous Femme is a set of real words in Low Gothic, Felicity!
(Vior Or'es: "Princess" is also a word in Low Gothic! :3 )
Beyond these benefits, there are many cloneskeins that impart useful physical abilities upon Kin who possess them. From enhanced reaction times and vision that registers infra-red or other energistic spectra, to limited resistance to extremes of temperature, gravity or strains of cosmic radiation, the list goes on.
(Vior Or'es: That seems entirely reasonable.)
(Sister Vandire: Yeah, genetic modification is pretty normal.)
(Antimony: I don't know, it seems kind of odd to me. You might even call it...
too much skein in the game.)
Oh my, what a wit you have.
(Sister Vandire: It wasn't that funny.)
(Antimony: Oh? Well, then, what's your sense of humor?)
(Sister Vandire: Mostly dead baby jokes. The Sisters of Battle like dead baby jokes. Why do you wear when you go boxing with a baby?)
(Vior Or'es: How peculiar! What does one wear?)
(Sister Vandire: A power fist.)
(Vior Or'es: Please never hit a human larva with a power fist.)
...That does seem a bit cruel.
(Ashlee Viola: Ha!)
(Vior Or'es: Oh, I think I get this social interaction! You were telling a joke funny only to sociopaths in hopes of making the sociopath feel at home among us after the realization that she is fundamentally emotionally defective! That was very kind of you, Felicity Vandire!)
(Sister Vandire: Emperor, protect me.)
To Humanity...physical abnormalities would surely be cause for prejudice and mistreatment. To the Kin, they are rather badges of valuable ability...
(Antimony: Ah, see? There's something less fascistic about the Leagues than the Imperium! Just like my good butler Septimus Sebastian Da'Pebbs Montgomery Valantius Gizzann Klaw-Rothman Squall Krump VII says, "Da winnin' is da thing, not da preponderance of aesthetic dressin' an' arbitrary iconography indicatin' one's allegiance".)
(Vior Or'es: How erudite!)
(Sister Vandire: Great, so even your butler has a stupid name.)
(Vior Or'es: Do you respond to new concepts with confusion and then feel anxious about the confusion, thus causing you to treat them as reasons to be angry rather than anxious?)
(Sister Vandire: I just like defending the innocent and burning heretics. Like, the bad kind of heretics.)
What if you were a Drukhari?
(Sister Vandire: That's a weird question, but sure. I'd probably be some kind of incredibly attractive, confident S&M pervert-genius-artist with a healthy worldview and more things to do than set murderous fanatics of dangerous gods on fire. Why would I want that?)
What if I could transform you into one through the wonders of modern science?
(Sister Vandire: Oh, by the Emperor, really? You could do that? Sign me the fuck up!)
(Vior Or'es: Can that be done?)
(Sister Vandire: Wait, no, then I'd be...I have a holy...the God-Emperor of Mankind would...)
There really is no reason to fear the xenos, is there?
(Sister Vandire: He'd be disappointed in me. He'd know I didn't live according to his example. I couldn't.)
Well, I'm not sure if there is the capability to plug a human brain into an Aeldari body, nor where we could get that body. I suppose cyborging could be done, but I don't know if it would be very doable, and you would still be an outsider. It was just an idle thought. Still, if you wanted to, you could live among us!
(Sister Vandire: I couldn't, but thanks for the offer.)
The Votann - or Ancestor Cores - are as sacred to the Kin as gods are to more spiritual races. Part oracular fonts of wisdom, part gestalt ancestral presences and part sentient super-cogitators, the Votann are the foci for a secular cult of veneration which is as close as the Kin come to religious belief. No League would risk harm to its Ancestor Core if there was any other path, and no Kin nor Ironkin would hesitate to lay down their lives in defence of the Votann.
Good gravy, this Codex is getting intensely repetitive!
By custom, the Kin do not speak of the Votann to outsiders.
(Sister Vandire: Yeah, sure Yymm Ork Bane, that's why you're telling us all about them. Fucking jackass.)
The Votann do contain Standard Template Construction parts (extremely simple descriptions of how to build complex and nigh-magical technology even without the knowledge to do so), genealogical datas, weapon specifications, and even philosophy. They're smart machines.
(Sister Vandire: Not smart enough to prevent me from
kicking them in the dick.)
What is with you and dicks, lately?
(Vior Or'es: I am not sure what a super-cogitator would want in a phallus.)
...some Votann have fallen to the predation of foes, much to the shame and sorrow of the Kin. The Five Hundred Years' War was triggered when the Orks of Waaagh! Morbok overran the Hold of Oriakh's Irongate Kindred and tore apart the Ancestor Core within. The Grand Orion Compact swore the most widespread Grudge in recorded history for the death of their Votann, hurling all their might against Morbok's Empire of Scrap for more than five centuries, until the last Ork was slain and the insult answered.
Asshole.
(Sister Vandire: This doesn't seem like you.)
No, I'm just tired of all of this battle-glorifying and all these claims that all Kin are eager participants in what increasingly seems to be a messy and bigoted society, one comparable to the Imperium but more uniform. Is this what this entire Codex is going to be? The same three statements about Votann and Kin and Oaths repeated over and over? This isn't real! This is a smokescreen!
(Vior Or'es: The Kin are not profoundly evil or good, merely...deeply sub-optimal.)
More tragic still is the tale of the Emberg-Aegnir Bloc, who found themselves in the path of a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan...hive ships closed in around the Hold world beneath whose surface resided their Votann..the Tyranids ignored the Votann entirely, leaving it behind alone in its pit on a dead world. The accumulated pain and desolation of those who had fought, died, and been returned to the Ancestors - to keep their bodies from the hungry maw of the swarm - flowed into the machine-mind of the Votann and drove it insane.
(Antimony: This is true. Did you know that solitary confinement is considered a form of cruel and unusual punishment in many communities, due to its recorded negative effects on the minds of sophonts?)
Ironically, the cultural practices of the Kin may actually have contributed, however unwittingly, to the Ancestor Cores' decline. All Kin desire to rejoin the Ancestors upon their deaths, with their bodies and minds offered up to the Votann in the belief that their experiences will enrich the machine minds and aid future generations. This places great pressure on individual Kin to live up to the perceived ideals of their Ancestors, driving them...to witness sights no Kin before them has...It is a major motivator in Oathbands setting out to fight as soldiers of fortune...
(Sister Vandire: That's...That's actually really sad. That must be incredibly draining on a sophont, to have to face up against such high expectations from birth.)
It is sad and draining. It feels like you're marked as a failure no matter what you do.
(Sister Vandire: How would you know what they must go through?)
Mother and Father were Eldar of means and taste, Felicity.
To the Kin, the true horror of [permanent exile away from the Ancestors and their old lives] is neither death nor loneliness...Their entire life and all of their experiences are thus rendered meaningless...The thought of exile is one of the very few that inspires true dread amonst them, and its threat does more to stay the hand of lawbreakers than would any amount of corporal punishment or fire and brimstone dogma.
Pardon me, I think I need a break.
(Sister Vandire: Your parents?)
Father had a saying: "Legacy makes us, frivolity makes them." It was punchier in our tongue. I have embraced frivolity, dearest Felicity, and I wish you all could still wonder why. I don't think the Kin are monsters. I just think they've...I think it's an entire civilization of woefully imperfect parents and their children.
The emergence of the Great Rift shook the Leagues of Votann to their foundations. Holds vanished amidst the roiling energies of the warp storm belt. Trade routes were severed...Both within the core and beyond its fringes, the rift's advent has driven the Kin into new conflicts [with Chaos], as well as stirring up old foes and setting them on a collision course with the Leagues.
(Vior Or'es: The problem with Chaos is that it's chaotic. It is genuinely benevolent but, at times, deeply threatening and dangerous as well. It is an alliance of good gods with evil sides, and the evil leaks out. Often, dramatically.)
(Sister Vandire: Much like our reviews.)
(Antimony: Ex-squeeze me?)
(Sister Vandire: I'm not even going to say anything.)
(Vior Or'es: These are funny jokes! You are all very clever and humorous!)
