To the Kin, any region of blank space upon their star charts is a mystery in need of solving. The desire to plumb the depths of the void, to discover its secrets and claim its riches is deeply ingrained in their psyche, as is the need to know what - if any - sources of peril might lurk amidst the shadows.
The Hernkyn are the furthest travelled of their race. Their sturdy boots have left prints in the aeons-old dust of lost moons. Their Pioneers have skimmed across the baking plains and through the carnivorous jungles of worlds never before seen by the Kin.
I'm doing a bit better after about a day to recover, everyone. I am growing to despise this doublespeak. How easy it is to launder colonialism as exploration and conquest as plumbing for riches.
The Leagues of Votann also benefit greatly from the efforts of the Hernkyn. It is often an intrepid band of these brave scouts...
Go fuck yourself.
...that identifies and warns of an impending peril, be it a star preparing to go supernova, a hidden webway spur employed by Commorrite slave-raiders...
(Sister Vandire: Eat shit.)
Well, the mask is slipping from Yymm Ork Bane's face. Agreed
...an onrushing Ork Waaagh! or some other unforeseen threat. The Hernkyn also locate potential trading partners for their Kindreds, mark navigable void-channels, scout viable regions for Kindred settlement and - most important of all - locate valuable resources to be exploited.
Colonialist pigs.
(Antimony: Perhaps we should give the Kin the benefit of the doubt?)
I've done my research. Someone has to. Temperance VI, Klazz, Savagery, Coldtongue, V'lai, they are just some of the worlds conquered, exploited, and left in ruins by the Kin. Felicity was right. I've done my research, and the Kin are worse than the Tyranids.
(Antimony: ...No? No, that isn't true.)
The Tyranids eat out of some misguided notion of survival. The Kin violate planets to make their numbers go up. At least when the Tyranids leave a world barren save for their own kind, it's for a tangible resource and not for
imaginary numbers.
(Antimony: Now, see here! Those numbers are
very real and
very powerful!)
(Ashlee Viola: I like moody Ynathe. She's fun.)
(Vior Or'es: While I am disappointed in the conduct and structures of the Kin, I would caution against adopting base bigotry against an entire species! It is very mean and it is bad.)
Don't you get it? The Kin are a species based on the
murder of
creativity, individuality, and art.
(Antimony: They have all of those things.)
Yes, but
their art,
their creativity,
their individuality! Everything else they loot!
(Sister Vandire: How many drugs are you on?)
That is none of your business.
(Vior Or'es: I would advise against having a sizable amount of drug! Drug is not healthy!)
Drugs?
(Vior Or'es: There's more than one???)
If the Hernkyn are exemplars of their race's survivalist drive, the Cthonian Mining Guilds embody their belligerence and acquisitiveness. Fearless in the cause of locating, securing and harvesting resources for their race, the Cthonians think nothing of braving environments so extreme that even other Kin would baulk at their hazards.
I can't tell if this is some rant about the "acquisitive" and "belligerent" Cthonians, or praise for them.
(Antimony: Allow I, the Right Vainglorious Mx. Antimony Aphrodite-Thor Dangereux, to explain! You see, Yymm Ork Bane is an executive and former agent of a Cthonian guild, and she (along with much of her race) sees acquisitiveness as a virtue!)
Oh, you mean rapacity.
(Sister Vandire: We can't both hate the Kin!)
(Vior Or'es: Bigotry is a fundamentally arbitrary and harmful impulse with no place in a civilized society.)
(Sister Vandire: Well, sure, that's the kind of naive stuff a Tau would say.)
(Vior Or'es: You are being a butthole.)
(Sister Vandire: I am extremely drunk.)
(Ashlee Viola: Great, so now both of the main hosts are fuckin' drunk as a skunk.)
I'm not drunk!
(Ashlee Viola: So, what, yer high?)
Higher morally than the Kin, maybe?
[This shared document has been idle for three hours]
Oh, by Cegorach. What did I do last night?
(Sister Vandire: Maybe you should check.)
Racism water? I was drunk on racism water?
(Ashlee Viola: What's it really called?)
Somphobscilpite. It's also known as Soma in its inhaled form.
(Ashlee Viola: What does it do?)
When inhaled, it produces a trance-like state of bliss during which one can explore her mindscape in beautiful wonder.
(Ashlee Viola: So why'd ya drink it?)
I thought it was my M39 merlot and it made me temporarily racist!
(Vior Or'es: ...It seems more likely that you are just somewhat racist when you are intoxicated.)
...Oh, heavens, it
was my M39 merlot!
(Vior Or'es: I believe it is very important to act in such a way as to be sensitive to other cultures. As such, I—as a T'au and therefore the most well-acquainted with cultural sensitivity—will appoint myself as the Cultural Sensitivity in Literary Analysis Non-Judgmental Judge.)
You can't appoint yourself!
(Antimony: ...With all due respect, this seems like it calls for a
laugh track, and if we're going to be getting into wacky hi-jinks I have better things to do.)
I as well.
(Sister Vandire: So we all agree the Kin are bad and evil?)
(Antimony: I have done no such thing.)
(Vior Or'es: Sister Felicity Vandire has done a racism, and as the Cultural Sensitivity in Literary Analysis Non-Judgmental Judge I decree based on the findings of the one-sophont Cultural Sensitivity in Literary Analysis Non-Judgmental Judging Committee that she must be corrected accordingly.)
(Sister Vandire: What?)
(Vior Or'es: Please join the T'au Empire. Only through the Ethereals and their wisdom can we solve racism.)
(Sister Vandire: Suck my dick, cockbite.)
(Vior Or'es: No thank you, but I appreciate the kind offer!)
As the Kin Truth has it, 'Luck has. Need keeps. Toil earns.' In short, they who want something the most, and fight the haredest for it, deserve to possess it. If that is the Kin, then what they claim by conquest is theirs by right.
As we are all making a commitment not to be bigoted, I will say that this sounds like a regressive cultural norm that should be altered through working with the Kin to create a more democratically organized society.
(Sister Vandire: How about your more democratically organized society eats my dick?)
Oh, I too enjoy consensual cannibalism! It can always be regrown!
With typical understatement, the Leagues of Votann refer to most resource-harvesting operations as mining. It is a humble word for such an incredible range of technologically breathtaking operations, undertaken at a colossal scale.
(Antimony: I have never seen a Kin be so boastful about their people as Yymm Ork Bane. I also enjoy consensual cannibalism, for the golden record. Speaking of which, have any of you seen my golden record? I purchased it at the price of an entire fleet, it's from a very old spacecraft. It also came with pornography and an extremely crude space probe.)
That sounds as though it is probably just worthless space junk.
(Sister Vandire: Yeah, sorry.)
The assembled military forces of a Kindred are known collectively as its Kinhost. Comprising the Kindred's massed soldiery, its Einhyr elites, the artillery and war engines of the Forge, along with auxiliaries from groups such as the Hernkyn and Cthonians, the Kinhost is a potent force indeed...The most prevalent of these ["soldiers of the line"] are the Hearthkyn - stoic and dependable bands of soldiers who form the main battle line in combat....Kinhost military doctrine emphasises the intelligent use of lives and materiel by Hearthkyn and their comrades...
More like easily-routed greed-monsters too cowardly to commit to the
high drama of being slain in battle.
(Antimony: I think Yymm is right on the capabilities of the Kinhost, but she is incorrect in arguing that their doctrine emphasises the intelligent use of lives and material. Given the way Grudges work, that comes into play less than she might like us to believe.)
The Leagues lay claim to star-spanning territories both within the galactic core and beyond.The systems demarcated by each League's ident-beacons teem with strange races, stellar phenomena, wilderness regions and perilous environments to be overcome or exploited as the League's Kindreds see fit...Though there have been dark times when civil war raged between Kindreds or Leagues, such occurrences are rare, for they are viewed with distaste by the Kin as dishonourable and wasteful.
(Antimony: Yymm omits the Hel Vaan-Aesyr War, a great and calamitous civil war betwen an assocation of leagues known as the Aesyr, whose victory would define the modern-day Leagues' collective politics, and the Hel Vaan, a collection of decadent individualists who took pride in both labels and who believed in a horizontal ordered anarchy of human liberation through free trade. This war was calamitous, and my beloved friend Krynn Soldyk has said that he believes its devastation and historical importance are comparable to the Unification Wars or the Mon't'au. While the Hel Vaan-Aesyr war was local in scope, it was a bloody microcosm of the struggle in Kinnish society between order and liberty, one that would be highly influential to subsequent Kinnish thinkers.)
If, on the other hand, military conquest is the only viable strategy by which a region can be added to a League's territories, and if the cost of the fight can be justified, then the Kin will not hesitate to go on the offensive. In many ways, such impersonal invasions can be as horrifying to the defenders as any hate-filled crusade of slaughter; being mercilessly eliminated by foes who view you as no more than an obstacle to be removed is a deeply unsettling and belittling experience.
(Vior Or'es: This is very unsettling.)
(Sister Vandire: It's...ugly, bringing war down to numbers.)
Is war not always about numbers?
Entire Oathbands of Kin depart from their Kindreds to serve as mercenaries, often fighitng alongside Humanity and - at times - even settling on worlds within Imperial space, or integrating for a time into Human society. Meanwhile, planets such as Necromunda and Vordine have boasted populations of so-called 'Squats' for as long as imperial records tell...There are others amonst the Hearthspakes, however, who believe that, just as the Kin hailed from the depths of Far-space so many millenna before, so their ancestral roots and their future lie out there in the greater dark.
Here we see continued attempts to equate the noble and honorable Squats with their fallen descendants.
(Sister Vandire: ...Even I have to admit that
that sounds like fascist mythmaking.)
(Vior Or'es: I can't believe it's not fascist mythmaking!)
(Ashlee Viola: Was that some kinda joke?)
(Vior Or'es: No, I just am genuinely struggling! As the Cultural Sensitivity in Literary Analysis Non-Judgmental Judge, I am going to put a blanket ban on fascist mythmaking!)
Well, none of us
intended to partake in fascist mythmaking.
(Vior Or'es: We in the T'au engineering community have a saying: Waste product enters the machine, waste product is produced by the machine.)
'The Ancestors are watching!'
This time, Yoht bellowed it as a battle cry. His squad echoed him as they let fly, their shots joining the devastating firestorm erupting from the Kin battle line. Bolt shells blew bloody craters in green flesh. Hails of HYLas fire stitched glowing rents into the charging Orks, punching one savage alien after another off their feet. The Hekatons kept up their ruthless barage of covering fire; energy beams and storms of missiles blasted Ork vehicles into expanding clouds of shrapnel, and graviton blasts from the Brokhyr Thunderkyn mashed charging beasts into unrecognizable ruins of pulped flesh and metal.
Well, anyway, there's a remarkably good two-page bit of written literary prose that has little to nothing to do with the Kin beyond just exalting the Kinnish race and its traditions. Yymm Ork Bane is a detestable ethno-conservative, but she is a talented fiction writer.
This is really impressive stuff.
(Ashlee Viola: Y'all want some book recs? I've read most of her fiction catalogue.)
(Vior Or'es: That does not seem to be helpful for the Greater Good.)
(Ashlee Viola: ...Right.)
Not only is the Greater Thurian League one of the original founding Leagues of Votann, it is also one of the largest. Counting scores of Kindreds in its alliance, and attracting more to its ranks with every passing decade, the Greater Thurian League is a military, mercantile, and industrial powerhouse with few equals.
...
Uthar the Destined is among the mightiest Kahls of the Greater Thurian League...Argument raged about [the prophecies surrounding him's] true meaning, but it seemed to imply that one amongst the day's newly cloned was meant for some great task...the mechanisms of the Hold's Forge swung into motion without any Brokhyr's command and produced a magnificent energy blade...Uthar had been proclaimed as the Destined, and the miraculous Blade of the Ancestors was bestowed upon him...If Uthar's actions sometimes seem cruel, his comrades simply attribute this to the pressure of knowing that one day his great duty shall come upon him.
Ah, yes, the "Hero of Prophecy". More like an over-primped sociopath created by media frenzy.
(Sister Vandire: Fate can be...more powerful than you might expect.)
The Trans-Hyperian Alliance are the furthest travelled of the Leagues. Many of the Prospects that penetrate deep into Far-space wear their distinctive orange void armour, and their Hernkyn are renowned for both their tenacity and frontiersman's drive to banish the darkness beyond the edges of maps.
...
The driving force behind the constant striving and seeking of the Trans-Hyperian Alliance is their dedication to the enrichment of the Votann. In this, they come as close as any of their race to genuine religious fervour. A cult of Ancestor worship prevails throughout the Alliance, whose Fanes are always filled with small votive offerings to respected Ancestors.
A standard take from Yymm Ork Bane's former homeland. She paints it as being virtuous and valorous. One might say that she's washing it in whiteness.
[This document has been left idle for a day.]
It is said of the Kronus Hegemony that there is no problem they will not solve with an axe. Existing as a military superstate, their Kindreds muster some of the largest and most aggressive Kinhosts known amonst the Leagues of Votann. Nor are they sparing in their armies' use, for the Kronus Hegemony marches ever onward.
Yymm Ork Bane has created her own image of the Hegemony, but truthfully the Hegemony is not so autocratic. It is a direct democracy in which all who have served in the military or in public service can vote and in which everyone serves. Its belligerent nature is based largely in the defense of freedom rather than of sanctified tradition.
(Sister Vandire: Weirdly positive.)
(Vior Or'es: Yes, very much so.)
...So I did some
more research and apparently the Leagues aren't
entirely terrible.
The expectation of tribute does not end with joining the Hegemony. Each Kindred must prove their commitment by conquering an allotted quota of enemy worlds in each year-cycle...The Kindreds of the Kronus Hegemony have engaged in border skirmishes and stand-offs with other Leagues...[and they are known for] finding any excuse to escalate into full-blown war against alien races.
Well, yes, that's what happens when you have a military democracy. I obviously condemn such brutal aggression, and we Dark Eldar would never do such callous acts of violence.
(Sister Vandire: Ahem, Pain Engine...)
Well, we try not to use those when they aren't necessary! Fish and chips, Felicity!
...since the manifestation of the recent warp storms, the Kronus Hegemony have waited little time in annexing territories belonging to various alien races. They site the simple belief that the Kin require them to survive, and are therefore entitled to take them - preferably by force.
(Ashlee Viola: Well, that ain't practical for survivin'. Ya want large social organisms to ensure survival of the species and control of the biosphere. This just sounds like they made themselves a big army an' now gotta find shit to use it on.)
That's more or less it.
All Kin value good craftsmanship, but none more so than those of the Ymyr Conglomerate. Experts in every form of manufacturing, their Brokhyr see to it that the Conglomerate's Holds and fleets are replete with marvels of technology and that their weapons of war are second to none.
(Vior Or'es: Yes, the Ymyr is very well-known, and we have great admiration for their work from what little of it we've seen!)
The Kin of the Urani-Surtr Regulates have a reputation for survival against the odds. Courage and hardiness are their watchwords and, while they might seem more dour than the rest of their race, there are none more dependable to have at one's back in the face of peril...No Kindred has ever left the URSR once admitted, though whether this is out of loyalty or for some other, more sinister reason, remains unknown...It is expected of every URSR Kindred that they maintain as large a population as they can, accepting an ascetic lifestyle with the bare minimum of food, light, air and heat in exchange for keeping their fighting ranks replenished.
(Ashlee Viola: So, what do we all think the URSR's
really plannin'?)
Ultra-Spartanist nightmare state.
(Sister Vandire: Chaos-worshipper blood sacrifice.)
(Vior Or'es: Perhaps connections to the mystery of Tiamet, with the intent of creating a true Tyranid civilization in alliance with the Kin?)
(Antimony: If I had to guess, I'd say it's just plutocracy. The leaders are probably living in luxury while the rest starve. I doubt there's any truly out-there version for it. They're just
following the Golden Rule.)
(Ashlee Viola: Antimony's probably right, but I like Vior Or'es' idea best.)
(Vior Or'es: There have been reports of unknown probes around Tiamet...)
As the Kin possess no centralised administrative body, no one knows precisely how many Leagues of Votann there are. This troubles the Kin not at all. For them, it is enough to know they are many and strong, and that every League - no matter their differences - strives for the furtherance of their race.
Oh, sure, Yymm, all of your glorious Leagues most certainly strive for your partially-accepted ideological goal. How logical and truthful you're being.
The Ironkin were created by - and to this day are still manufactured by - the Votann. Ironkin are true mechanical intellects...Each Ironkin consists of a Cerebral Unit - or CU - and a unique mechanical body...the purpose of the Ironkin is to aid the Kin in every aspect of their lives. However, they are not enslaved to this role, nor treated as such by the Kin. It is simply in their nature to find whatever niche they best fill, and then to perform that role to the best of their abilities. Thsi said, the Ironkin are artificial beings. As such, they can only imitate the emotions and drives of their biological fellows. It is thus rare that Ironkin possess any degree of ambition, or seek to become leaders amonst their people. While they may express pride, comaraderie, courage, empathy or anger, in truth these are but acts to optimise their societal integration.
Is...Is that how it works?
(Sister Vandire: Yeah, and that's the horror of Abominable Intelligence.)
(Vior Or'es: I do not know if it is "horrifying", per se, but it is true that a computer that does not perfectly mimic a sophont's brain cannot genuinely express emotions in the same way that an organic sophont can. That said, there are spontaneous emotion-generating structures that can simulate the effects of feeling emotions, so to some degree Yymm Ork Bane's insistence is academic rather than practical.)
The Brokhyr are amonst the most highly skilled techno-artificers in the galaxy. Making full use of the incredible bounty of the galactic core, coupled with the precious lore of the Votann, they craft devices of superlative durability, reliability, and power. In this way they contribute greatly to their species' survival.
(Antimony: I purchased a coffee-maker from a Brokhyr once. It fell apart within a month.)
(Ashlee Viola: Well, uh, they don't usually make those?)
(Antimony: I expected a quality coffee-maker. What sort of Standard Template Construct developer can't make a coffee machine?)
(Sister Vandire:
The Kin are making new Standard Template Constructs?)
(Antimony: But apparently they can't get me a cup of those good, hot beans.)
(Sister Vandire:
The Kin are making new Standard Template Constructs?)
(Antimony: Yes, it even says so in this Codex. "This slow but relentless process of improving upon understood technologies has helped the Kin to develop original Standard Template Constructs even further." Even the people making this miniatures wargame know that.)
(Sister Vandire: No. You don't realize how big of a deal that is. I don't think the Codex makers even realized that. House Van Saar has a
single, half-broken STC, and they've used it to take over much of an
entire hive world. They're so valuable because
they're all lost technology, and the Mechanicus has spent millennia trying to find even print-outs about the STCs. If the Kin are just
making new ones...)
(Ashlee Viola: Don't ya care about tech-heresy?)
(Sister Vandire: Tech-heresy is mistreating a machine-spirit or using ill-understood technology in a way that goes against the Ecclesiarchy. What they're doing isn't tech-heresy, it's tech-apotheosis. No wonder their technology outranks ours! No wonder we know so little about them! No wonder they worship their Votanns!
They're leapfrogging themselves into techno-godhood.)
...They're not even sharing their technology, are they? They could use these STCs to put dents in famine, to create safer, happier worlds, to ensure more resources and to ensure peace rather than war. If they did that, they wouldn't make as much. They wouldn't have a monopoly. By Isha...They really do worship money.
(Ashlee Viola: That is the most horrifying thing I've ever read. I get Nids. I get Nids well, but that? Sitting on
that because it conflicts with "minin'"?)
(Sister Vandire: Our people need that! Everyone needs that! This is tech-heresy of the worst kind, tech-apotheosis! It's idolatry! They're worshipping money and themselves rather than the God-Emperor they've been hiding in the shadow of for years! How many sophonts
died because the Kin didn't want to share their
motherfucking toys?)
...My word.
The most commonplace article of clothing worn throughout the Leagues of Votann is the void suit...
(Sister Vandire: This Codex is going to the Ordos Xenos. I'm making a copy now.)
Welcome to the rules section of Codex: Leagues of Votann. On the following pages you will find al the rules content you need to bring every aspect of the Kin to life on your tabletop battlefields.
...So, we learned the Kin are fascists, except they aren't fascists, except they are kind of fascists, but they're also less fascist, except when they're democratic militarists, and that they aren't that bad but that their culture is regressive, but that they're also technologically advanced enough to make new STCs and that they're so selfish they're sitting on them to make money through mining.
(Vior Or'es: I am very confused and also angry.)
(Ashlee Viola: We all are.)
