Not the whole species, just take advantage of what their society was before, carefully changed to support our needs. We support them, they dedicate themselves to serving in our wars, for glory! Honour and Good fights. See, now its a privilege to fight and die for the trust rather than them being dicks forcing them. See how they respect us and facilitate our ability to get into combat and fight worthy foes, see how they ensure we can rest alongside them in peace. Is it not right that we come forth in our full might to assist them in war. Truly these humans are true friends to our people now as they were when our people first died.
No need to get the whole society doing it any more than the Trust's in general.
+ their technology isn't actually human tech. Its all theirs or adapted to their use with human help. No human Tauish weapons after all
That's why they're on Avernus and why we have the Inquisition.
I agree with godofsmallthings, I'd rather let them rest in piece, the resources spent on resurrecting a species would be better spent on augmenting human troops, the benefit from a small number of xenos auxiliaries with limited equipment doesn't, for me, justify the time and cost that would go into resurrecting them.
Not the whole species, just take advantage of what their society was before, carefully changed to support our needs. We support them, they dedicate themselves to serving in our wars, for glory! Honour and Good fights. See, now its a privilege to fight and die for the trust rather than them being dicks forcing them. See how they respect us and facilitate our ability to get into combat and fight worthy foes, see how they ensure we can rest alongside them in peace. Is it not right that we come forth in our full might to assist them in war. Truly these humans are true friends to our people now as they were when our people first died.
No need to get the whole society doing it any more than the Trust's in general.
+ their technology isn't actually human tech. Its all theirs or adapted to their use with human help. No human Tauish weapons after all
That's why they're on Avernus and why we have the Inquisition.
I think you might be humanizing them a bit too much. They are Xeno and we can't reliably predict their Xeno mentality.
Their code that you are betting so much on would have been evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in response to unique social pressures that we can't recreate.
We can't know for sure if this species would behave the same way.
If we really want the toughness they have, we could just study their biology and develop implants for human soldiers based on that.
I simply see no reason to resurrect an entire species when we have so many other important projects that need funding.
I'm of the opinion that we SHOULD resurrect them. The niche they'll fill is already filled by humans, but they can fill the niche better and more efficiently. They'd also be an additional source of xenotech that we can trade to various xenos polities, including Avernite civilisations.
I think you might be humanizing them a bit too much. They are Xeno and we can't reliably predict their Xeno mentality.
Their code that you are betting so much on would have been evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in response to unique social pressures that we can't recreate.
We can't know for sure if this species would behave the same way.
If we really want the toughness they have we could just study their biology and develop implants for human soldiers based on that.
I simply see no reason to resurrect an entire species when we have so many other important projects that need funding.
No, but we do have as much of their culture that they could shove in there and some very good xenopsycologists who deal with people with much weirder perspectives, who can be flat out illogical on several issues.
And besides we don't want them to behave the same way, we would want to ensure additional loyalty to humanity.
Also no way in hell are we ever going to be developing augments for humans based on xenos biology even if it makes more sense.
And yeah, the Inquisition agrees with you. Its not going to come up for a while I just did this because
Because some people want to resurrect them* (Surt, Ulrik, and Garp + Julius and Varnak to an extent), others want to blow them up (Bertil and to an extent Zaren) and others don't care (Alafric.)
The biologis also has some interest, mostly in a can we do it kinda way, have we come far enough that we can do this and create something useful to the Trust and not screw it up on this scale. (they've got laundry lists of screwed up experiments from the age of the Imperium.)
These kind of things mean that its very likely it would bubble to the surface regardless of what else happened.
*These are based on my assessment of their personalities, not sure if this is how Durin would see it.
Adhoc vote count started by Nurgle on May 3, 2018 at 2:21 PM, finished with 157 posts and 40 votes.
[X] Plan No Favor
-[X] Ask for Extraordinary (10 pts worth) of Fleet Support in dealing with the WAAAGH
-[X] Do not ask for Guard support dealing with the Waaagh
-[X] Do not ask for Astartes support dealing with the Waaagh
[X] Plan Owe a Favor
-[X] Ask for massive Fleet support dealing with the Waaagh - Have forty Astartes capital ships and a hundred and fifty cruisers and associated escorts deployed. This will provide your fleet with a decent number of powerful ships, many equipped with bombardment cannons which are highly effective against Hulks . 8
-[X] Ask for major Guard support dealing with the Waaagh - Have four billion Guard deployed to Svartalfheim, this will provide you with a massive number of skilled soldiers, though not as well equipped as your own armies. 4
-[X] Ask for major Astartes support dealing with the Waaagh - This will provide you with a chapter equivalent force of Blood Dragon's, greatly increasing the number of heroes and elites you have on hand. 8
[X] Plan Minimal Assistance
-[X] Ask for massive Fleet support dealing with the Waaagh - Have forty Astartes capital ships and a hundred and fifty cruisers and associated escorts deployed. This will provide your fleet with a decent number of powerful ships, many equipped with bombardment cannons which are highly effective against Hulks . 8
-[X] Ask for some Guard support dealing with the Waaagh - Have two billion Guard deployed to Svartalfheim, this will provide you with a significant number of skilled soldiers, though not as well equipped as your own armies. 2
-[X] Do not ask for Astartes support dealing with the Waaagh - Rely instead in your own elites
[X] Plan overwhelming fleet support
-[x] Ask for overwhelming Fleet support dealing with the Waaagh - Have eighty Astartes capital ships and three hundred cruisers and associated escorts deployed. This will provide your fleet with a large number of powerful ships, many equipped with bombardment cannons which are highly effective against Hulks. 16 -[x] Do not ask for Guard support dealing with the Waaagh - Rely instead in your own armies -[x] Ask for some Astartes support dealing with the Waaagh - This will provide you with half a chapter of Space Marines, and elite force that you be highly useful in dealing with the Ork Elites. 3
@Durin
Made a thing. Started as just a bit of thinking about how much of a goddamn pain it would be as an opfor fighting Avernus, and the idea eventually morphed into this.
A Nightmare
Thousands of reasons exist to invade Avernus, each more tempting than the last. To some, such as the deceptively simple Orks or those most lost to the Blood God's Madness, the promise of a good fight alone would suffice, but justifications aplenty exist for foes of mankind of any stripe. It being the refuge of Last Saint of the Anathema is cause enough for all the followers of Chaos, especially the Abomination, but that is far from all it offers them. The Weaver of Fate seeks its demise to avert a possible catastrophe and the Prince would love to avenge its recent humiliation, to say nothing of the potential windfall of powerful psykers they could forcibly recruit. The Dark Mechanicus would do far worse than kill and destroy for the secrets of the ancients held by its defenders if they knew all that they had. The Necrons, well, they would care little for the mere humans upon the planet's surface, but the chance to destroy one of the last remnants of their ancient foe would tempt many. It is no surprise that despite the formidable defenses and reputation Avernus holds that there are many enemies willing to risk them regardless.
Many a leader of the enemies of man have been confident that they would be the ones to crack the famed defenses of this planet. They have, to an individual, been wrong. Whatever strength they had, whatever tricks, whatever plans, it has not been enough.
Imagine you are leading an invasion. Warping into the system, you are cautious but confident. Scouting out the area was nearly impossible due to an impressive sensor net, but with enough ships, time, and resources directed towards it it was possible to get the bare bones so you weren't going in blind. Careful observation and analysis of their recent externals campaigns has also allowed you to figure out more than a bit about their military strength, with a rough estimation of their numbers, equipment, and skill level, which while significant you believe you can match. You may have detailed plans, you may have a powerful patron to call upon, you may have raw might, you may have numbers far beyond what they can hope to match. You may even have all of the above. You are sure you can avoid making the mistakes of your predecessors.
You are wrong. You warp into a system that is expecting you, their might mustered and people prepared. Due to their Diviners they most likely knew when you were coming before you did. Your carefully made plans? Compromised, if they even think they're worth looking for, and analyzed for weaknesses. Maybe you warp into a newly constructed minefield, if they think giving away the fact they saw this coming is worthwhile. Of course, your woes are just beginning.
You have two choices here. Either you can fight your way to the planet itself, or you can target the shipyards and hives of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Regardless of your choice, they have seen this coming and planned accordingly.
Say your aim is the shipyards. Despite the formidable void defenses, it is by far the easier target. You will merely need to fight through a sizeable fleet constructed to fight very well both in slugging matches and in ambush, led by an Admiral whose talents along that line likely dwarf your own, through a minefield and a host of battleship-equivalent defense stations before you even reach the shipyards. There are no good options here—bull-rushing through the minefield and into the defenses will see your escorts all but eliminated by the mines and your remaining forces stuck in a slugging match with fresh brawlers and defense stations, while cautiously clearing your way through the minefield will see massive attrition to the stealth/ambush assets. Naturally, all of their void assets are made with Dark Age technology, just in case this seemed too easy, and the Admiral has access to a Diviner unparalleled among mortal seers. Once you reach the shipyards, assuming you make it that far, you only need to contend with whatever remaining void defenses are there while taking the time to throughly wreck them, all the while taking fire from entire Hives whose shots are not attenuated by the atmosphere. Assuming success, you have managed to destroy on the order of 10% of the Trust's voidship construction/repair facilities, which will take a few decades for the Avernites to replace, at a cost in ships that would take a comparable shipyard centuries to replace.
Of course, most aim for the true prizes on Avernus. Your fight on the way there is substantially easier, but still costly. Be warned though, when their voidships finally retreat, covered by the defensive fire of the cities and remaining orbital defenses, their part in the war is not done. A quick stop at the shipyards to repair and rearm, and their Admiral will use them for his true specialty—harassment and destroying the transports you will need to run unmolested to fight the brutal war of attrition on Avernus itself.
Landing your forces will be another trial. Too close to their cities and their murderous anti-air fire combined with the massive and skilled air force will see many of your transports lost with your men in them, while landing them too far away will create supply issues for the inevitable siege as well as greatly increasing attrition by the wildlife. And make no mistake, there will be attrition by the wildlife. Avernus has participated in multiple campaigns where despite their frontline role and the forces devoted to them, their per-year losses at home to wildlife was higher. If you are affiliated with Chaos, the attrition will be murderous, if you aren't it's possible that it will merely be bad. No matter what it will be worse than you expect.
Then there are the armies and cities of Avernus itself. You did your homework, you scouted, you know what to expect. You're also wrong. Even if your observations of their foreign campaigns yielded a correct estimate of their force number and strength at the time (unlikely, as most underestimated them), in the years since they have changed. No decade goes by without force compositions added or adjusted, always for the better, and if you're supremely unlucky they had a large-scale military expansion in the works so you're facing a force three times the size you expected.
The sheer deadliness on a per person basis of the Avernites is hard to overstate. Their militia, which is composed of about 70% of their massive for a deathworld population, is significantly more skilled and better equipped than most frontline units—as well as almost entirely unknown to you, as they are not deployed off-world and information from Avernus itself is spotty at best. Their regulars can mow through their equivalent as if they were an ill-trained militia from the days of the Imperium, and their normal frontline units are usually mistaken for elites.
This is to say nothing about their elite units, of which there are many. The warp-touched nature of the planet leads it to produce a prodigious number of psykers, many of whom turn their arts to war, leading to situations where even when vastly outnumbered by foes like the forces of Chaos who traditionally emphasize psychic units the raw psychic might on the field tips strongly towards the Avernite side—to say nothing of the fact that the Avernite psyker stands almost as far above the non-Avernite psyker as the Avernite soldier stands above the non-Avernite. Not that all of their elites are psykers either—the numerous campaigns and harsh world they live on have created many an exceptional unit, all of whom will be arrayed against you.
While difficult enough to face in open battle, facing them in their cities is many times worse. Obscene levels of fortification are the norm, which all their forces know how to use to their best advantage, turning what would be an even fight into an absolute rout. A near-endless stream of defenders, in the form of their militia, makes a purely attritional siege into a fool's errand, and their heavy artillery reaps a deadly toll of any forces that approach too closely.
Finally there is their leadership and champions. Each of their regional commanders is themselves a skilled general, likely more so than you, with over a century of experience leading men and women in constant life or death struggles, with abilities both martial and combative to match. Your main opponent will not be them, though. Instead you will be facing off against a man as far beyond them as they are above a fresh lieutenant, advised by the greatest mortal Seer alive. He has seen your plans and devised counters to every one, counters you could not reply to in the cold contemplation of a strategy session that you must respond to in the heat of combat. He is aware of all of your assets—their position, their strengths, their vulnerabilities—more so than you are, and each decision he makes is fully informed by this knowledge. And at his beck and call are his champions, each capable of turning the tide of a battle themselves, each carefully placed where they can do the most damage and cut the heart out of any trump cards you might believe you have.
This is what you face whenever you might be foolish enough to fight a land battle on Avernus. Every inch seized is paid for in copious quantities of blood, and every inch is harder to seize than the last. Nothing goes right, and most end up going worse than the worst-case scenario. At some point you will be tempted to pull back your armies and just bombard the cities to rubble, despite the mountain range leveling power needed to do so and the murderous counterfire to be endured, or using a coveted Exterminatus-tier weapon, just to end the nightmare.
If you are foolish enough to decide to go through with it, you will very briefly discover why the Avernites do not fear such escalation at home. For while they are a nightmare to fight, if awakened the planet is a nightmare come to life at those who dare threaten it.
@Reynal, that was amazing. However, I feel that you may have glossed over Rotbart's personal combat abilities. Perhaps, something like this.
"And should you think to seek his head, you will find him perhaps the hardest target on the planet. Guarded by a thousand men, each the match of an Astartes veteran in skill, and lavishly equipped with the finest equipment the planet can produce. Should you get past these formidable guardians, you face a man that has left fallen chapter masters and greater daemons dead at his feet by his own hand."
Our General once said that he will pity the foolish mortal enemy that try to attack Avernus.
But reading the last omakes I get the feeling that Avernus speciality is not Elites but Extreme (Chaff) normal troops. As much as you can call the Helltrooper or Hellguard normal.
Our General once said that he will pity the foolish mortal enemy that try to attack Avernus.
But reading the last omakes I get the feeling that Avernus speciality is not Elites but Extreme (Chaff) normal troops. As much as you can call the Helltrooper or Hellguard normal.
Our General once said that he will pity the foolish mortal enemy that try to attack Avernus.
But reading the last omakes I get the feeling that Avernus speciality is not Elites but Extreme (Chaff) normal troops. As much as you can call the Helltrooper or Hellguard normal.
If you look at the examples list, you find that Avernus can field the top three tiers of Chaff, the topmost of which is stated to be elite in quality but with the numbers of chaff, every tier of Elite, and the bottom three tiers of Hero. By the number of examples, we seem to specialize in elites.
Not lower, as the write-up states extreme chaff individually are equivalent or even superior to low level elites, and only reason they are considered "chaff" (on side note I'm not fan of the term since it's synonymous with trash, "massed", "mainline", "spammable" or "horde" would be better fit IMO) is their numbers.
Not lower, as the write-up states extreme chaff individually are equivalent or even superior to low level elites, and only reason they are considered "chaff" (on side note I'm not fan of the term since it's synonymous with trash, "massed", "mainline", "spammable" or "horde" would be better fit IMO) is their numbers.
That's the point, in less seasoned Waaagh! nobz are elites, but ones with more elites (like Waaagh!Gutcrumpa) are capable of fielding veteran nobz in mass numbers and count them as chaff and it subsequently raises the bar on what would be considered low elite in such Waaagh!s.
It says that if you have Extreme-grade chaff, the next step up in cost and quality is Bottom-tier Elite. However, Extreme-grade chaff is at the quality level that they could fill another army's Elite slot. The difference is, we have enough Hellguard to fill out an entire order of battle on their own. We don't have an entire army's worth of Black Irons or Phase Tigers. The difference between Chaff and Elite is more an issue of rarity within an army, not an absolute measure of quality. Space Marines are rare enough, they can be made up of entirely Elites and Heroes. However, they don't have the numbers to hold a significant amount of ground. They need the Guard to provide the masses of Chaff that can keep what they take.
That's the point, in less seasoned Waaagh! nobz are elites, but ones with more elites (like Waaagh!Gutcrumpa) are capable of fielding veteran nobz in mass numbers and count them as chaff and it subsequently raises the bar on what would be considered low elite in such Waaagh!s.
It says that if you have Extreme-grade chaff, the next step up in cost and quality is Bottom-tier Elite. However, Extreme-grade chaff is at the quality level that they could fill another army's Elite slot. The difference is, we have enough Hellguard to fill out an entire order of battle on their own. We don't have an entire army's worth of Black Irons or Phase Tigers.
So essentially if you make enough of an elite unit, they magically become less good, because they become "near Elite" instead of actually Elite even though they have the same training and equipment as before.
This is really the problem. This is how Extreme Chaff vs Elites works out, but it's not how the rest of the chart is laid out. If the rest of the chart was laid out as rarity within an army then the Avernites wouldn't be so clustered at the top bracket of chaff but instead spread out across the Chaff like everyone else.
I'm not even sure that Extreme Chaff should even exist instead of just having those in the Bottom Elite tier.
In short the massed veteran Nods are Extreme chaff the same way our Helguard are. The lower teir Waaagh's that can't mass them use them as Elites while the one that can use Nobs that should be Warbosses in other hoards as Elites. By the same measure our Helguard as power armored troops would be Bottom to Mid tier Elites in Dragons Nest but we field so many that the Black Irons are our Bottom tier Elite by having access to the rune enhanced weapons. By the same token the Life-guard would be a Super-Elite unit lead by Standard Captains and a Renowned Major/Colonel but our Elites are so high grade and we have the Last Hunters that they're merely Elite.
An Ember in the Night
Segmentum: Pacificus
Daemon World -10
Dangerous region - there are Orks (-2), pirates (-1), Chaos (-3), Necrons (-3) in the sector
Isolated 0
Fortified +2
Relic of Power +3
2x Military Tradition +4
Military Specialisation (Raiders +2, 3x Favoured Enemy: Daemons +6, Favoured Enemy: Chaos +2)
Pious- Reduction in chaos cults
The planet now known as Aruqhai was once a fairly prosperous Civilised World within the borders of the Imperium, known for unusually calm warp currents that facilitated travel through its sub-sector. 40 years before the death of the Emperor, however, it was turned into a daemon world, the local Inquisitor and his allies failing to stop the forces of Chaos in time.
The planet's defilement was a disaster for the Imperium, but the warband responsible had nothing to celebrate either. Most of the warband's assets belonged to a Chaos Lord of great power, borrowed after promising him a daemon world with easy access to the rest of the sub-sector. Unfortunately for them, the ritual greatly destabilised the local Immaterium, making navigation difficult and rendering the planet all but worthless. After taking back what remained of his assets and suitably punishing the warband for their failure, he left the now useless planet to whatever low daemons cared to fight over its war-torn surface.
Not all of Aruqhai's populace died in the war or the damnation of the world. Of the 5 billion who once lived on the world, a handful of millions managed to survive in the ruins of cities, refugee encampments, and isolated settlements. These would be the unlucky ones, their fate largely to be hunted down and enslaved by the daemons that now inhabited the world, but it was not a fate that befell all. Multiple Cadian regiments and the 6th Company of the Dusk Vipers Space Marine chapter remained, as did the two surviving members of the Inquisitor's retinue - the sanctioned daemonologist Tortus Clan and Sister Ishai of the Sisters of Battle. The latter began receiving visions from the Emperor, leading her to gather what pockets of resistance remained and take them into the vast mountain ranges of Aruqhai where her visions said they would find safety. Daemons hounded them every step of the way, killing or driving mad military personnel and civilians alike, to the point that only half survived the the journey to the mountains, but those that did still numbered in the thousands.
It was at the mountain range where Tortus Clan performed his most legendary feat. To reach the safe haven the Emperor promised, the congregation would have to travel over the mountains and into tunnels, both of which had been drenched in daemonic energies and would harry the Emperor's flock as they walked. As they made their march, Tortus continuously exercised his powers to drive back the horrors, creating a safe path for the procession to walk upon. Behind his field of influence, the terrain would revert to shifting malevolence made manifest, twisting and clawing at the daemons giving chase, such is the nature of Chaos. For two weeks Tortus maintained his bubble of sanctuary, the sheer exertion and lack of sleep battering his mind and soul throughout, the power he was wielding threatening to break his grasp at the merest slip, but ultimately, miraculously, he prevailed, finally collapsing and falling comatose after his duty was done.
The place Ishai led everyone to was an obsidian-lined bunker, grand in size and dating to the time of the Horus Heresy. Inside were no examples of rare and miraculous technologies, but there were facilities to house an army, built to last for centuries of use without maintenance in case attack by the Traitor Legions rendered the surface of the world uninhabitable. The people wept in happiness and relief after entering the bunking and closing shut the adamantium gate behind them, finally having reached the place where they would be safe under the Emperor's aegis and awaited the speech the Sister undoubtedly held in store. But she gave no speech, and instead silently walked further into the depths of the bunker. A day later she returned holding a lit candle in her hands, its flame golden and steady, its light radiating far beyond what a candle of its size should've been capable of. She revealed that she did not light the candle herself, nor did she bring it with her, but found it already lit within the bowels of the bunker, a miracle of the Emperor given form. For as long as the flame was maintained by mortal means, she said, humanity can always find salvation in His light.
***
Aruqhai is a daemon world within Segmentum Pacificus, a damned world where daemons roam free and wage endless war. Of its human population there are two major groups: the damned and the Firebrands.
The damned are those humans who live under the thumb of daemonic masters, and they number in the millions. They most often live in cities ruled over by the capricious whims of various daemon princes, away from the daemonic power struggles as part of wandering tribes, or slaving away in farms or mines to supply the needs of the mortals under the daemons' rule.
The Firebrands are the descendents of those who followed Saint Ishai into the Malese Mountains following Aruqhai's transformation into a daemon world. They get their name from the brands they're given at birth. The irons they use to brand their children are heated up in the Emperor-blessed relic of power known as Ishai's Fire, and serves to ward away the minor physical quirks you get from being born on a daemon world. The Firebrands number in the low hundreds of thousands and are much more technologically advanced than the rest of the human population on Aruqhai, having access to such things as motor vehicles and guns. This is thanks to having an extant clergy of tech priests to pass on their technological knowledge down the generations. They often raid the damned for infants, intent on adding them to their own collective and using them to study original taint. They've also seeded cults devoted to the Lord of the Fire - a god of protection and vengeance - in several damned communities.
Of its heretical population, the planet is split between multiple varied groups, worshipping either a single Chaos God or Chaos Undivided. As is typically the case with Chaos, everyone generally hates everyone else, and with very few exceptions any kind of alliance is temporary at best and made only to deal with immediate and overwhelming threats.
***
At the heart of the Firebrands' home is Ishai's Fire. Much larger than the candleflame it once was, its caretakers have long ago grown it to the size of a Baneblade, fed every day by the promethium gathered and produced by the Firebrands. Through doing so, its area of effect is greatly extended. (Though to a hard limit.)
The first of the Fire's effects is ensuring that daemons cannot enter into the Materium wherever its light touches unless they're anchored in some way, such as when cultists of other worlds summon daemons. This prevents daemons from simply appearing within the bunker and laying waste to the people within. (Daemons do occasionally get into the bunker, however, but only as a result of people falling to Chaos and acting as vehicles for possession.)
The second of the Fire's effects is suppressing the taint of all who live under its light. On a daemon world, it's impossible to avoid carrying some level of taint from living on the world, and even under the Fire's light this is true. The Fire does, however, significantly lower the taint that'll inevitably seep into a person's soul.
Mirrors are used to catch and reflect the light of the Fire, ensuring that the entire bunker falls under its protection.
The third and most dramatic of the Fire's effects is to burn away the taint in a person's soul and even minor mutations. This is an exceedingly dangerous affair, as it involves the afflicted person stepping into the fire unprotected and allowing it to burn at their naked flesh. Very few survive this process and those who do emerge heavily scarred, but if they do survive, they will feel the reclamation of a small part of their immortal soul from the darkness, and if they're particularly lucky, freedom from a malignancy that had been inflicted upon them.
One very important property of Ishai's Fire is its immunity to being affected by means of the Warp. It can be doused by physical action as easily as any other fire, but doing so through just the Warp is an impossibility. This has allowed it to survive the birth of the Abomination and the Green Awakening, which otherwise might've blown it out. This property did come with a downside, however, and this downside nearly caused its destruction. During the civil war following the Abomination's birth, traitor Sisters of Battle very nearly succeeded in completely dousing it. A few embers remained and a loyal pyromancer was on hand, but the embers were completely unresponsive to his attempts to coax it back to life. Attempts to coax the embers into lighting once more via mundane means succeeded, but they came very nearly close to failing and succeeded only by the thinnest margin.
Aside from it inherent properties, the Firebrands learned how to harness it in other, less direct ways, such as how those in the Imperium made psyk-out weapons from byproducts of the Astronomican's operation.
The first of these ways is heating up a branding iron with the fire and branding a newborn with it. This prevents the newborn from developing a minor mutative quirk in their life. This doesn't prevent spiritual corruption and thus does nothing to protect against any mutations of true import from developing. It's also not guaranteed to work and the child may develop one anyway, but it does guarantee that a child will get no more than one.
Another way they use it is to purify silver. Silver, in its natural state, is a metal of pure nature anathema to the witch and the daemon, encouraging its use in many weapons crafted to combat those enemies. The silver in the crust of Aruqhai is tarnished and debased by the inundation of daemonic energies, and normally, only the efforts of pyromancer artisans can fully purify the metal of this energy. Ishai's Fire, when applied for long enough for silver to reach its melting point, purifies it much faster, more easily, safely, and in larger quantities. This silver is then used either in alloys or in its pure form to create weapons better suited to combat the hated daemon.
Other metals - stolen from the damned in raids on mines and ore convoys - are also purified in this manner.
The third way it's used is to effect travel into and out of the Malese Mountains. One of the biggest reasons for how the Firebrands have survived so long is the inherently self-defeating nature of Chaos. The mountains brook no passage through them, even by daemonkind, and this prevents the forces of the Archenemy from simply passing through or over the mountains to find and destroy the Firebrands. It does, however, make it rather impossible for the Firebrands to simply pass through themselves. To get past this, a torch bearing Tortus' sigil is lit using Ishai's fire and used as a focus by a psyker to carry a raiding party through. Such torches burn with golden fire, reminding the Malese Mountains of Tortus' March and so force its malefic energies to flinch back in ancient fear. The psychological scars inflicted by Tortus on the mountains is the only reason this works; aside from the colour of the fire, breaking off a piece of Ishai's fire in such a way has no supernatural effects.
***
A significant problem that daemon worlders have to face is genetic corruption. It's not enough that the nightmares and omnipresent daemonic energies slowly strip away the purity of your soul and warp your body to monstrous proportions, it also alters your physical essence to taint you from even before the moment of your birth. To counteract this, at least somewhat, the Firebrands have spent the last thousand years studying the human genome and the effects of the planet's corruption on it, gleaming insights into how it works and how to combat it. Such insights are, however, very few in number. The distinctively difficult task of combating Chaos corruption in general means that what the Firebrands have managed to achieve is ultimately little.
The actual work of genetic purification is undertaken by psykers, who are the only ones capable of making the purifying flames necessary to permanently burn away inherent taint. Psychoconductive silver-alloy tools are made for this specific purpose and are reasonably effective at it, but even so the psyker in question needs to have a high level of control over their powers to both succeed in their work and avoid harming the untainted sections of the genome.
The light of Ishai's Fire suppresses the level of inherent taint in all born under its light and in some ways that makes it easier to artificially burn away such taint, but in other ways it makes it more difficult. It certainly softens it up and makes it easier to destroy, but it also encourages it to hide away and blend into the background. Gene purifiers can still attack it based on where it should be, but finding out where specifically it's meant to be is difficult. The way Aruqhai corrupts the essence of the humans who live on it changes constantly, to the point that every generation there's no similarity to how it did so before.
To discover in what specific ways the planet is corrupting its children in any given time, the Firebrands raid the damned peoples of the worlds to take their infants and bring them back to the bunker. Through studying them they can can see how the planet's corruption spreads when it doesn't make efforts to hide itself, allowing them to map out where they should "cut" to remove hidden taint.
After study, those infants that survive are gelded, have their genes purified as much as possible, and are integrated into society. Unlike those who were born under the light of Ishai's Fire, these infants are especially attuned to the Warp and the corruptive eddies of daemonic energies, giving them the ability to sense daemonic entities and psychic phenomena as a sort of sixth sense. This ability makes them very useful to the Firebrands.
***
For a multitude of reasons, including to facilitate the taking of children from their parents, the Firebrands have started cults dedicated to the Emperor among the various slaves and barbarian tribes that live on Aruqhai. Given the fact that Aruqhai is a daemon world, the Emperor is dead, and everyone is tainted to varying degrees by the Ruinous Powers, explanation is required to understand how such a thing is possible.
To begin with, worship of the Ruinous Powers is not universal among slaves. Overseers may fear the gifts they may be given and thus ban their worship, making it up to their patron by other means, such as torturing the slaves or sacrificing them. Slaves may also choose not to worship of their own volition, afraid of drawing the attention of malicious beings whose favour they haven't earned, and rightfully so.
The slaves know of the Emperor by the title given to him by Firebrand missionaries - the "Lord of Fire". The message the missionaries spread is that he is a god who protects those who pay homage to him and who punishes those who hurt his worshippers. That alone makes him attractive as a god to worship, and he only looks more appealing as a figure of worship to slaves because of how he doesn't want to slaughter them, torture them, enslave them, mutate them, or infect them with a disease. In short, he's a god with an attractive portfolio that's safe to worship.
Of course, having actual proof of a god's power is a large part of convincing people to worship him. In the case of the Lord of Fire, concrete miracles cast through faith in the Emperor are no longer possible, of course, but the effects of his blessings are still very visible to the damned of Aruqhai.
For starters, due to their brands and living under the light of Ishai's Fire, the Firebrands are all much less visibly mutated compared to other humans. This supports the argument that the Lord of Fire is a benevolent deity and also proves that he's strong enough to challenge the Dark Gods - the source of mutations. That an entire people who refuse to worship the traditional gods haven't been destroyed and have existed for as long as anyone can remember is also a mark of the divine strength of the Lord of Fire and the blessings he gives to his people.
The Firebrands' technology and weapons are also easy signs of their power. Whilst the rest of the humans of Aruqhai have regressed technologically to the point of barbarism and iron age warfare, the Firebrands have managed to retain much of their knowledge from the Age of the Imperium. As such, they are much more effective in warfare against both man and daemon than they'd otherwise be. Their purified silver also gives them an edge against the daemonic that Aruqhai humans otherwise lack. This sign of power impresses not only the damned slaves, but also the wandering barbarian tribes of Aruqhai. This leads to some worshipping the Lord of Fire in addition to the other gods and aiding the Firebrands in exchange for gaining some of their weaponry, assistance in the domination of other tribes, or aid in killing city-dwellers. Other tribes, naturally, hold the opinion that those tribes are heretics or weaklings, but because of their inferior weaponry, those opinions are typically rendered moot.
There's also the fact that Imperial technology was often considered magic even to the people of the Imperium themselves. This idea is magnified among the primitive peoples of Aruqhai, making the Firebrands seem blessed with a kind of arcane power that Chaos can only match and not replicate.
***
Ishai's Fire is the most sacred and powerful relic that the Firebrands possess by far, but not the only one. They have a number of other, lesser relics that belonged to some of their greatest heroes.
Sister Ishai, canonised ten years after her death, is the first and most revered of Aruqhai's saints. It was she who led the Firebrands' ancestors to safety, she who found what would later be known as Ishai's Fire, and she who would receive the Emperor's final words. Though she was never a Living Saint, Ishai was undoubtedly blessed by His touch and was a paragon of virtue. Ishai's Embrace: The armour that Saint Ishai wore as a Sister of Battle. The armour's Machine Spirit is imbued with her purity and those who wear it will find it protects their souls as well as it protects their bodies. Only those who have pure souls can wear it. The requirement has meant that in all of the Firebrands' history, only two women besides Saint Ishai herself have ever proven worthy of wearing it, and then only after stepping into Ishai's Fire. Scorn of the Betrayed: When the bunker descended into civil war following the Abomination's birth, Ishai was forced to watch as a majority of the Sisters she herself raised and trained fell to Chaos, killing the loyal and almost dousing the Fire. Those who fight traitors with this chainsword will be buoyed by the same resolve that let her cut down her former proteges without hesitation, but will also feel the pain she felt as she did so. The only ones allowed to wield the sword are those who've proven pure enough to wear Ishai's Embrace.
340 years after his death, Tortus Clan would also be canonised. His status as a psyker is what led to his canonisation being argued over and delayed for so long, but his deeds and the nature of his daemonology did eventually gain him the title of Saint Tortus. The Sanctus Instrument: Tortus' force staff. Psykers who wield it find it much easier to sustain psychic powers.
Saint Mycandra is the first of the only two women in the history of the Firebrands to become sufficiently pure of soul after stepping into Ishai's Fire to wear the saint's armour, though she herself only ever wore it twice. An expert sniper, she once stalked and wiped out an entire barbarian tribe one bullet at a time to recover a piece of archeotech they found. Mutant Feller: Mycandra once wiped out an entire barbarian tribe with this sniper rifle. Said tribe had sworn themselves to Nurgle and many among their most favoured were supernaturally tough, but they died all the same, falling one by one to single shots of this gun.
Saint Novianna was the second woman to have gained complete purity after stepping into Ishai's Fire, though unlike her predecessor, she wore Ishai's Embrace until she was too old and frail to fight any longer. Spine Crusher: A two-handed warhammer fitted with an inertial multiplier. It has banished multiple daemonettes back to the Warp and seen to the deaths of many of their mortal slaves.
The Dusk Vipers were extremely helpful in the Firebrands' early history, but of the survivors who travelled with Sister Ishai and her group, none were apothecaries. They eventually died out, their legacy a safe (by daemon world standards) bastion where humanity can live free in the light of the Emperor. Though they cannot use it themselves, the Firebrands keep and maintain the Dusk Vipers' equipment as sacred relics, ever thankful for the service His Angels had done for them.
*** Home World: Aruqhai
Players can adopt Aruqhai as their home world when creating a new Acolyte, especially as a replacement character while adventuring in that location. Characters from Aruqhai follow the Daemon world rules, but with the following new Home World Bonus instead of the usual one: Ember in the Night: A character from Aruqhai beings with 1d10 Corruption points. In addition to the normal uses of Fate points, once per encounter a character from Aruqhai may spend a Fate point to negate the gain of 1 Corruption point.
Physical Quirks
When rolling 1d100 to determine Physical Quirks, only gain one after rolling 97-100. A character from Aruqhai cannot gain the Aquila Branding physical quirk.
Ishai's Fire
For a character to purify themselves with Ishai's Fire, they have to take off all equipment and step into it completely naked. (Augmetics are allowed.) When in the fire, the character can burn Fate points to reduce their Corruption points at a rate of 1d2 Corruption points per Fate point burnt in this way. Additionally, burning 3 Fate points at once while in Ishai's Fire will remove a Malignancy of the player's choosing. For every round that a character is in Ishai's Fire to receive purification, the character takes 1d10+4 Energy damage with a Penetration of 2 and is set on fire.
***
Midway through making this omake I found out about Torvendis and novel Daemon World, which helped shape it.
For a canonical story of good-hearted Chaos mutants who live on daemon world and worship the Emperor as a father figure who loves and protects them, see the Unfleshed.
Cost for the Emperor-blessed relic of power comes from here.
The sixth sense that damned characters get is just a single rank in the Psyniscience skill, which is the standard home world bonus for daemon worlds.
It doesn't actually say that though. It essentially says that Nobs are better than massed veteran Nobs in the same army.
It doesn't really make sense with how they're actually described though. It states that:So essentially if you make enough of an elite unit, they magically become less good, because they become "near Elite" instead of actually Elite even though they have the same training and equipment as before.
This is really the problem. This is how Extreme Chaff vs Elites works out, but it's not how the rest of the chart is laid out. If the rest of the chart was laid out as rarity within an army then the Avernites wouldn't be so clustered at the top bracket of chaff but instead spread out across the Chaff like everyone else.
I'm not even sure that Extreme Chaff should even exist instead of just having those in the Bottom Elite tier.
I think I'm not explaining this very well. OK. Lets put it this way. First and foremost in what Grade each troop is, Chaff, Elite, or Hero. Chaff are the basic building blocks of your army. They are the many faceless goons whom exist to fight and die in mass. Elites are the super special units of troops that you call on when the regular masses of the army aren't enough to do the job. Heroes are the individual persons that you rely on for their own abilitys. So chaff are the masses, elites are special members of X, and heroes are special because they are X. Once you have what Grade of troop they are then you filter for how they stack inside that grade. Extreme Chaff is less a measure of how good they are and more how you should treat them. For us they are chaff to be spent it place of our real Elite forces. On a Imperium Remant that can barely field enough Las rifles for the Elite Noble House Regiments a single one would be the greatest Hero in living memory. That noble house troop my be the Elites for that world but even our mid tier chaff would annihilate them one on one much less any of our good units. By the same token we have the Black Irons as a Elite unit, and they deserve the position, but let's not pretend that they can out fight Space Marines one on one. When they take on fellow Elites it's either Bottom tier that they run roughshod over or Mid to Elite tier where they bring their greater numbers to bare and except 10 to 1 losses to take down.
@Durin
1. A curiosity question: You said that Helheim's specialities in technology were genetics (for obvious reasons) Vortex (again obvious reasons) and gravetics...the first two make plenty of sense, but gravetics seems like the odd one out?
2. Does Valinor contain any stellar phemonina? Black Holes, Pulsars, Neutron Stars ect?
