-
Going forward, links to content from Twitter (now X) will no longer be embedded. Pre-existing links should not be affected.
The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up
- Thread starter Durin
- Start date
- Location
- Leeds
It's already threadmarked.
- Location
- Alice Springs, Australia
No, and when you explore the right continent you may find them
- Location
- Leeds
Not even close.
- Location
- Australia
Yeah, but it's indexed under Non-Canon Omakes so I thought I had to change something.
Oni
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Oni
Dwelling in one of Avernus' more mountainous regions, the monstrous Oni are an odd study in savagery, civilisation, and excess constrained by necessity and enabled by monstrous strength. Their numbers may be small compared to many Avernite species, but their individual might more than makes up for it.
Accordingly, they are apparently one of the dominant forces within their region and according to Areatha one of the few peoples that venture far from their original location, some venturing through different zones and even onto the sea before either dying or returning back to the mountains with prizes from their travels to present to their lieges.
Biologically speaking Oni can be divided sharply into two distinct groups by their gender.
The more common Oni are the males who seem to be born more frequently compared to the females of the species. Although given their rather slow reproductive rates and long life spans this may just be the result of coincidence. Male oni tend to be humanoid blue and red skinned giants although some of their physical traits tend to be subject to change. For example, some Oni exhibit almost animalistic characteristics with tails and ears from great cats, scales, and wings, and others can appear almost human, if not for their height and skin tone, with almost infinite variety in-between.
The traits universal to all of them are a pair of horns that poke from their scalps and grow as they age. At a young age they are but mere nubs, but by the time they are in their hundreds they will be massive stately things that are lethal weapons in their own right. Apparently, these horns are an important status symbol in Oni society and many will have their horns decorated with descriptions of their glories and abilities.
Male Oni are not active psykers, instead their abilities are channelled inwards to give them access to a suite of unconscious abilities. The most obvious is their immense strength even in proportion to their size that lets them utilise their preferred clubs with devastating force to crush most opponents into dust. Second is based upon their stomach which contains an impossibly potent acid capable of breaking down any material the Oni can manage to fit down their gullet. Third the ability to incorporate the physical characteristics of materials the Oni has devoured. It must be noted that this is primarily the physical properties and not psychic ones and that the Oni seem to be unable to assimilate the psychic characteristics of living creatures. For example, should an Oni devour iron then its skin will take on the properties of that iron, while retaining the flexibility of its previous skin. By that same merit an oni can devour the carapace of a Titan Scorpion after killing it and gain its defensive capabilities and weight, but only that which is granted through physical means. They will also not change physically, for example they would not gain webbed feet via eating a swamp creature. The exact limits and mechanics of this ability are unclear even to the Oni themselves, while they have no problems devouring metals, poisons* and even more bizarre substances what part of the Oni is changed by their ability and there are strange exceptions to their habits such as specific crystals and dirt seemingly having no trigger upon their abilities. What elevates this ability beyond a simple if useful quirk is that as an Oni devours more and more creatures and substances it will begin to amalgamate these characteristics, improving their abilities over time as they consume. At their absolute strongest their heroes' skin will become harder than angel steel, yet as flexible as silk, their blood toxic enough to kill almost any foe while their strength grows enough to shatter mountains. More to the point these characteristics remain after death, so that Oni skin armour, Oni blood poisons, and Oni bone weapons are well regarded both by the Oni themselves and those they interact with.
Female Oni are almost the opposite of the males in terms of base traits. Although tall by human standards female Oni are considerably shorter and possess more human skin tones compared to the males and are what humans would call extremely attractive, similar to the Sirens. In fact this attraction seems to affect people regardless of species or gender. They are also possessed of the tapered ears compared to males rounded ones, the tapered style seeming to be relatively common among Avernite species. They too are possessed of a horn, in this case a single one, the length of which also indicates the age of the Oni in question although in their case it serves a somewhat more functional purpose.
Unlike their male counter parts, females are active psykers of great power. They have access to the ability to consume and assimilate materials which boosts their long term potential considerably, and the materials left over from their bodies can be turned into incredibly powerful force implements, but they also utilise two of their own disciplines.
The first seems to be more instinctive meteorological manipulation on a massive scale, but with great fine control compared to the Trust's methods. A single Oni witch is able to create meteorological effects miles in diameter with ease and bring down precise lightning bolts upon those that displease them as basic abilities. The reason for this disproportionate power seems to be in part due to their horn, which act as natural amplifiers for their abilities.
The second technique is known as Hellfire Smithing and is a comparatively recent development, and a power created by the Oni themselves. The legends of this technique say that a Queen was attempting to woo the affections of a beautiful Sakarian Prince and in the end he set her several tasks to complete. If she completed them successfully then he would be hers, and she completed all save for one. This final task was to create a ring that was as light as snow yet as warm as a comforting fire.** The story goes that no matter what she attempted there was no combination of materials that would function and she could never combine the two characteristics together without them destroying the other until wracked with despair she traveled and eventually came across something known as the Wine of Enlightenment, said to grant perfect clarity to any question or problem plaguing the drinker and the Queen guzzled it all in order to obtain her desire.*** So armed with the knowledge she returned, smithing together literal snow and fire to create her ring and the prince, overcome with its loveliness, submitted and acknowledged her as his Queen.
Whatever this story's basis in reality**** the Oni do have at least a semi instinctive understanding of metallurgy which when combined with Avernus' abundance of psychically active materials makes an impressive combination as Oni metalworks are prized outside of their regular areas due to their superb quality as weapons and force implements. The Hellfire Smithing itself appears to have been an attempt to combine their natural amalgamative abilities with outside sources to increase its utility. The witches and their few pupils***** claim they are creating a fire so hot it allows for the creation of objects that display properties that are usually impossible and even contradictory. For example, armor combining the strength of steel with the weight of aluminium. Its most infamous usage are "bounded" weapons where the Oni smiths together an item and the item's owner to improve the power of both.
Onis are typically organised into clans ranging in populations between the 100-1000 range as an average ruled by the female Oni with a Queen at the top of all of them. Larger clans do exist with the ruler of that clan being referred to as a High Queen. However, while there are only a small number of Oni, the number of other peoples collected by the traveling bands over the years is usually much higher. These people will deal with issues that the Oni either lack the skills in or are too uninterested in learning, instead lending their muscle and power to protecting these valuable workers and following their directives to construct buildings and terrace farms, grow crops, and all other necessities of civilisation.
As previously mentioned, Oni will range far and wide from their homeland in order to satisfy their needs. Specifically, Oni are gluttons. This is not usually out of need, but out of desire. While the males are usually satisfied with quantity, ingesting and indulging in vast amounts of liquor, food, and physical pleasures regardless of origin, the females desire quality as well as quantity. Most of their wandering is as a result of this, with specific needs of the clan often being happily intertwined. Usually a female will depart from the clan with their entourage of around 20 males and journey around the World, sampling exotic food and drink, hunting dangerous beasts, and meeting with the various Peoples that share the world with them, hiring out their services to the highest bidder in exchange for more of the above. Perhaps unsurprisingly the Idra'Sakar Empire (one of the largest unified concentrations of Peoples) is a frequent beneficiary of these bands. When the band finally grows bored of wondering or finds what it is looking for (and assuming it hasn't been killed) then it will return with its loot to the mountains and the clan. (Assuming that it too has not been killed in the meantime).
Perhaps most oddly, female Oni are known for being unique in that they will take lovers from Avernite peoples not of their own species to the point of building entire harems of skilled (and usually attractive) individuals. It must be noted that they do select for species with a familiar body plan and appearance to themselves or in other words similar to Eldar and Humans. This does mean that many avernite species are automatically excluded, but others like the Sakarians, Sirens, and probably other unknowns are most certainly are included. Likely humans as well.
With a limited pool of people to potentially interest the Queens comes with it traditions and even laws within the interseted groups and from the ONi themselves, laws which bare a high price for breaking. The Sakarians due to their close proximity with the Oni have probably the most detailed laws concerning Oni suitors, that basically boil down to a few major points. There must be no use of force upon the desired one, the desired one must be at leave to join with the Oni, and if either of the above laws are broken there will be consequences.
The Sakarians having one of the most advanced civilisations of people on Avernus and one with a great variety of people like the now rare Oslin and highly desirable Sakarians****** . With the various laws the Sakarians have created relations tend to be somewhat positive as individual bands tend to be net boons for areas, and those that choose to join the bands are allowed to retain contact with their places of origin, opening up contact and trade. However, very occasionally the Oni will do something that provokes reprisal, frequently by breaking the first two laws. The most extreme example of this happened nearly one thousand years ago and was the most recent major reprisal attack which was brought on by a Queen stealing a Sakarian Princess on her wedding night. An army was assembled and sent to retrieve her and punish the species as a warning to rein themselves in. While successful on the first count, the responsible tribe having been abandoned to their fate by their allies, the latter was almost a complete disaster. The responsible tribe had hidden in the mountains and by the time they had been tracked down the Oni in the area had prepared counter measures in case the army turned on them after rescuing the princess, a prediction that turned out to be accurate. After the Princess had been escorted from the mountains, the army attempted to attack one of the high queens, but instead was forced into retreat as a dozen Oni Queens combined their might and created a region-covering storm of such power that it was said "Lightning bolts fell like rain" all focused upon the Sakarian army. Faced with this level of prepared might and the threat of the Oni being able to unleash this over and over again the General decided to pull back and continue their service to the empire. At the end of the day the Oni are too powerful and secure in their mountain home for a simple reprisal action to do much to them. It is widely acknowledged by both sides that if the Sakarians ever decided to bring them down they likely would be able to, but only by calling on troops needed to defend farmland and cities, while also preventing attacks from more actively malevolent peoples such as the Termite empire, the Landuins and of course the wildlife that all Avernites face.
While the practise of wooing does produce issues for the Oni it does have a more practical side to it than simply being on the whims and personal pleasures of the Oni queens. Any being impressive enough for an Oni to consider wooing tends to be as a result of the person displaying some kind of skill that the Oni finds desireable. While the Queens are skilled, they cannot do everything, nor do they desire to. More than that their male counterparts often leave much to be desired intellectually. As such non Oni people, harem or no, tend to have positions of great importance within Clans because of this, applying their skills and talents in a variety of areas from agriculture to architecture, artistry to administration.
While these wanderings have also given the Oni a justified reputation as drunkards (when they down enough to get drunk), violent brigands, kidnappers, and deviants. Darker rumours also dog them, tales of cannibalism and even worship of one of the Gods of Chaos, although none will say the latter to an Oni's face and risk their wrath. But, it has also given them more positive reputations as passionate adventurers, steadfast friends to their allies, skilled craftsmen, and tellers of impressive tales.
In the end when push comes to shove the Oni prove that they are worth the trouble their presence brings, being able to turn hopeless battles between their witch queens' mystical might and the physical muscle of the males and their clubs. Most recently in the last Daemonic incursion it was only the intervention of an Oni Band known as the Sons of Rain that defended the gates of the city of Unquor from the Blood God's hordes, even from the personal attention of a Bloodthirster.
At current time the Oni seem content to continue their rather debauched ways, although there has been a drastic reorganisation as to how this happens as a new level of Government emerges, the Empress. This seemingly has come about by accident in recent years, due to a pair of incursions being relatively close together. Several Queens performed extremely well in these incursions and rose greatly in their power and mastery of their skills putting them on a level above their competition, while many of their rivals were killed by the daemons. With their new found power these Empresses stepped into the power vacuum of dead leaders to dominate and assimilate hundreds of tribes each and organised for their own desires. Possessed of appetites to match their glory each one of these Empresses have set their followers towards the construction of mighty palaces and kingdoms for them to rule and to go out into the world to bring them the finest luxuries as signs of tribute. And powerful they are with each Empress possessing riches nearly undreamed of from across Avernus - Euryale eyes, legendary Warp Root, millions of non-Oni servants supported by improved trade networks, vast harems, and even in one case a pacified and tamed Threnody Dragon.
These changes have been escalated by the growing advancement of the Sakarian Empire, with formalised trade starting to occur between the Empresses and the Sakarians, as opposed to the previously adhoc system of selling to small villages with contacts. This is especially valuable for both as the mountains the Oni reside in are filled with abundant natural resources, which the Oni turn into their prized equipment for export to various peoples, who provide them with additional food stuffs and other commodities that are harder for the Oni to obtain.
However, the growing power of the Empresses has clamped down upon the opportunities and power of smaller independent clans, to the point that a mass migration of non affiliated clans is becoming increasingly likely as time goes on. This itself is not unprecedented among Avernite species, even peoples have moved entire regions in the past like the Tzazars, but where they will go and if there will be any successful Oni colonies remains to be seen.
Speculation: It seems likely that similar to the Sirens the Oni are connected to the Eldar in some manner. When we mentioned the Oni to the Sirens, they referred to them as Mountain Kin (similar to how the Eldar were designated Star Kin). What the exact connection is unclear at this time. Perhaps they were originally created to model the unrestrained Eldar mental state?
*Death's Head venom remains a death sentence for Oni to consume, overwhelming their bodies' defences instantly.
**This is the most common variation, others claim she was asked to make a ring of light and dark, others a collar that was locked and unlocked. Universally it's two mutually incompatible extremes.
***The exact nature of this wine is also hotly debated. An alchemical or mystical creation is certainly possible on Avernus, but given the Oni's nature the chances of her just getting outrageously drunk and having an epiphany under the influence is not completely outside of the realm of possibility. Study of the Ircha'nota, the legendary forge hidden within the bowls of Valshartha, the Sakarian royal palace, has also been offered as explanation.
****Areatha said that she did know the Queen the tale was about and that she did leave to go on her own when unable to complete that task...but whether she did actually find some mystical booze or just found enough to overcome her inherent resistance she also did not know. She says she was distracted at the time by some kind of termite migration crisis.
*****Hellfire Smithing is a skill the Oni are capable of teaching to others, but rarely do they offer to impart the knowledge without great payment, but in a strange way most seem to overthink how difficult being offered to learn is. Often enough making pilgrimage to a Queen alone and asking has been enough for them to teach it. The fundamental point is that one must impress the Oni. Of course the technique is by no means simple to learn.
******Sakarians ares especially valued likely due to their frequently trained social alluring powers and valuable skills (often administrative and diplomatic.)
Damn this came far from my original sleepy inspiration.
Massive thanks to @MonkeyTypewriter, @random_npc and @Andres110 for betaing this piece and of course @Durin for looking it over once it had been done.
And finally tagging @Durin
Dwelling in one of Avernus' more mountainous regions, the monstrous Oni are an odd study in savagery, civilisation, and excess constrained by necessity and enabled by monstrous strength. Their numbers may be small compared to many Avernite species, but their individual might more than makes up for it.
Accordingly, they are apparently one of the dominant forces within their region and according to Areatha one of the few peoples that venture far from their original location, some venturing through different zones and even onto the sea before either dying or returning back to the mountains with prizes from their travels to present to their lieges.
Biologically speaking Oni can be divided sharply into two distinct groups by their gender.
The more common Oni are the males who seem to be born more frequently compared to the females of the species. Although given their rather slow reproductive rates and long life spans this may just be the result of coincidence. Male oni tend to be humanoid blue and red skinned giants although some of their physical traits tend to be subject to change. For example, some Oni exhibit almost animalistic characteristics with tails and ears from great cats, scales, and wings, and others can appear almost human, if not for their height and skin tone, with almost infinite variety in-between.
The traits universal to all of them are a pair of horns that poke from their scalps and grow as they age. At a young age they are but mere nubs, but by the time they are in their hundreds they will be massive stately things that are lethal weapons in their own right. Apparently, these horns are an important status symbol in Oni society and many will have their horns decorated with descriptions of their glories and abilities.
Male Oni are not active psykers, instead their abilities are channelled inwards to give them access to a suite of unconscious abilities. The most obvious is their immense strength even in proportion to their size that lets them utilise their preferred clubs with devastating force to crush most opponents into dust. Second is based upon their stomach which contains an impossibly potent acid capable of breaking down any material the Oni can manage to fit down their gullet. Third the ability to incorporate the physical characteristics of materials the Oni has devoured. It must be noted that this is primarily the physical properties and not psychic ones and that the Oni seem to be unable to assimilate the psychic characteristics of living creatures. For example, should an Oni devour iron then its skin will take on the properties of that iron, while retaining the flexibility of its previous skin. By that same merit an oni can devour the carapace of a Titan Scorpion after killing it and gain its defensive capabilities and weight, but only that which is granted through physical means. They will also not change physically, for example they would not gain webbed feet via eating a swamp creature. The exact limits and mechanics of this ability are unclear even to the Oni themselves, while they have no problems devouring metals, poisons* and even more bizarre substances what part of the Oni is changed by their ability and there are strange exceptions to their habits such as specific crystals and dirt seemingly having no trigger upon their abilities. What elevates this ability beyond a simple if useful quirk is that as an Oni devours more and more creatures and substances it will begin to amalgamate these characteristics, improving their abilities over time as they consume. At their absolute strongest their heroes' skin will become harder than angel steel, yet as flexible as silk, their blood toxic enough to kill almost any foe while their strength grows enough to shatter mountains. More to the point these characteristics remain after death, so that Oni skin armour, Oni blood poisons, and Oni bone weapons are well regarded both by the Oni themselves and those they interact with.
Female Oni are almost the opposite of the males in terms of base traits. Although tall by human standards female Oni are considerably shorter and possess more human skin tones compared to the males and are what humans would call extremely attractive, similar to the Sirens. In fact this attraction seems to affect people regardless of species or gender. They are also possessed of the tapered ears compared to males rounded ones, the tapered style seeming to be relatively common among Avernite species. They too are possessed of a horn, in this case a single one, the length of which also indicates the age of the Oni in question although in their case it serves a somewhat more functional purpose.
Unlike their male counter parts, females are active psykers of great power. They have access to the ability to consume and assimilate materials which boosts their long term potential considerably, and the materials left over from their bodies can be turned into incredibly powerful force implements, but they also utilise two of their own disciplines.
The first seems to be more instinctive meteorological manipulation on a massive scale, but with great fine control compared to the Trust's methods. A single Oni witch is able to create meteorological effects miles in diameter with ease and bring down precise lightning bolts upon those that displease them as basic abilities. The reason for this disproportionate power seems to be in part due to their horn, which act as natural amplifiers for their abilities.
The second technique is known as Hellfire Smithing and is a comparatively recent development, and a power created by the Oni themselves. The legends of this technique say that a Queen was attempting to woo the affections of a beautiful Sakarian Prince and in the end he set her several tasks to complete. If she completed them successfully then he would be hers, and she completed all save for one. This final task was to create a ring that was as light as snow yet as warm as a comforting fire.** The story goes that no matter what she attempted there was no combination of materials that would function and she could never combine the two characteristics together without them destroying the other until wracked with despair she traveled and eventually came across something known as the Wine of Enlightenment, said to grant perfect clarity to any question or problem plaguing the drinker and the Queen guzzled it all in order to obtain her desire.*** So armed with the knowledge she returned, smithing together literal snow and fire to create her ring and the prince, overcome with its loveliness, submitted and acknowledged her as his Queen.
Whatever this story's basis in reality**** the Oni do have at least a semi instinctive understanding of metallurgy which when combined with Avernus' abundance of psychically active materials makes an impressive combination as Oni metalworks are prized outside of their regular areas due to their superb quality as weapons and force implements. The Hellfire Smithing itself appears to have been an attempt to combine their natural amalgamative abilities with outside sources to increase its utility. The witches and their few pupils***** claim they are creating a fire so hot it allows for the creation of objects that display properties that are usually impossible and even contradictory. For example, armor combining the strength of steel with the weight of aluminium. Its most infamous usage are "bounded" weapons where the Oni smiths together an item and the item's owner to improve the power of both.
Onis are typically organised into clans ranging in populations between the 100-1000 range as an average ruled by the female Oni with a Queen at the top of all of them. Larger clans do exist with the ruler of that clan being referred to as a High Queen. However, while there are only a small number of Oni, the number of other peoples collected by the traveling bands over the years is usually much higher. These people will deal with issues that the Oni either lack the skills in or are too uninterested in learning, instead lending their muscle and power to protecting these valuable workers and following their directives to construct buildings and terrace farms, grow crops, and all other necessities of civilisation.
As previously mentioned, Oni will range far and wide from their homeland in order to satisfy their needs. Specifically, Oni are gluttons. This is not usually out of need, but out of desire. While the males are usually satisfied with quantity, ingesting and indulging in vast amounts of liquor, food, and physical pleasures regardless of origin, the females desire quality as well as quantity. Most of their wandering is as a result of this, with specific needs of the clan often being happily intertwined. Usually a female will depart from the clan with their entourage of around 20 males and journey around the World, sampling exotic food and drink, hunting dangerous beasts, and meeting with the various Peoples that share the world with them, hiring out their services to the highest bidder in exchange for more of the above. Perhaps unsurprisingly the Idra'Sakar Empire (one of the largest unified concentrations of Peoples) is a frequent beneficiary of these bands. When the band finally grows bored of wondering or finds what it is looking for (and assuming it hasn't been killed) then it will return with its loot to the mountains and the clan. (Assuming that it too has not been killed in the meantime).
Perhaps most oddly, female Oni are known for being unique in that they will take lovers from Avernite peoples not of their own species to the point of building entire harems of skilled (and usually attractive) individuals. It must be noted that they do select for species with a familiar body plan and appearance to themselves or in other words similar to Eldar and Humans. This does mean that many avernite species are automatically excluded, but others like the Sakarians, Sirens, and probably other unknowns are most certainly are included. Likely humans as well.
With a limited pool of people to potentially interest the Queens comes with it traditions and even laws within the interseted groups and from the ONi themselves, laws which bare a high price for breaking. The Sakarians due to their close proximity with the Oni have probably the most detailed laws concerning Oni suitors, that basically boil down to a few major points. There must be no use of force upon the desired one, the desired one must be at leave to join with the Oni, and if either of the above laws are broken there will be consequences.
The Sakarians having one of the most advanced civilisations of people on Avernus and one with a great variety of people like the now rare Oslin and highly desirable Sakarians****** . With the various laws the Sakarians have created relations tend to be somewhat positive as individual bands tend to be net boons for areas, and those that choose to join the bands are allowed to retain contact with their places of origin, opening up contact and trade. However, very occasionally the Oni will do something that provokes reprisal, frequently by breaking the first two laws. The most extreme example of this happened nearly one thousand years ago and was the most recent major reprisal attack which was brought on by a Queen stealing a Sakarian Princess on her wedding night. An army was assembled and sent to retrieve her and punish the species as a warning to rein themselves in. While successful on the first count, the responsible tribe having been abandoned to their fate by their allies, the latter was almost a complete disaster. The responsible tribe had hidden in the mountains and by the time they had been tracked down the Oni in the area had prepared counter measures in case the army turned on them after rescuing the princess, a prediction that turned out to be accurate. After the Princess had been escorted from the mountains, the army attempted to attack one of the high queens, but instead was forced into retreat as a dozen Oni Queens combined their might and created a region-covering storm of such power that it was said "Lightning bolts fell like rain" all focused upon the Sakarian army. Faced with this level of prepared might and the threat of the Oni being able to unleash this over and over again the General decided to pull back and continue their service to the empire. At the end of the day the Oni are too powerful and secure in their mountain home for a simple reprisal action to do much to them. It is widely acknowledged by both sides that if the Sakarians ever decided to bring them down they likely would be able to, but only by calling on troops needed to defend farmland and cities, while also preventing attacks from more actively malevolent peoples such as the Termite empire, the Landuins and of course the wildlife that all Avernites face.
While the practise of wooing does produce issues for the Oni it does have a more practical side to it than simply being on the whims and personal pleasures of the Oni queens. Any being impressive enough for an Oni to consider wooing tends to be as a result of the person displaying some kind of skill that the Oni finds desireable. While the Queens are skilled, they cannot do everything, nor do they desire to. More than that their male counterparts often leave much to be desired intellectually. As such non Oni people, harem or no, tend to have positions of great importance within Clans because of this, applying their skills and talents in a variety of areas from agriculture to architecture, artistry to administration.
While these wanderings have also given the Oni a justified reputation as drunkards (when they down enough to get drunk), violent brigands, kidnappers, and deviants. Darker rumours also dog them, tales of cannibalism and even worship of one of the Gods of Chaos, although none will say the latter to an Oni's face and risk their wrath. But, it has also given them more positive reputations as passionate adventurers, steadfast friends to their allies, skilled craftsmen, and tellers of impressive tales.
In the end when push comes to shove the Oni prove that they are worth the trouble their presence brings, being able to turn hopeless battles between their witch queens' mystical might and the physical muscle of the males and their clubs. Most recently in the last Daemonic incursion it was only the intervention of an Oni Band known as the Sons of Rain that defended the gates of the city of Unquor from the Blood God's hordes, even from the personal attention of a Bloodthirster.
At current time the Oni seem content to continue their rather debauched ways, although there has been a drastic reorganisation as to how this happens as a new level of Government emerges, the Empress. This seemingly has come about by accident in recent years, due to a pair of incursions being relatively close together. Several Queens performed extremely well in these incursions and rose greatly in their power and mastery of their skills putting them on a level above their competition, while many of their rivals were killed by the daemons. With their new found power these Empresses stepped into the power vacuum of dead leaders to dominate and assimilate hundreds of tribes each and organised for their own desires. Possessed of appetites to match their glory each one of these Empresses have set their followers towards the construction of mighty palaces and kingdoms for them to rule and to go out into the world to bring them the finest luxuries as signs of tribute. And powerful they are with each Empress possessing riches nearly undreamed of from across Avernus - Euryale eyes, legendary Warp Root, millions of non-Oni servants supported by improved trade networks, vast harems, and even in one case a pacified and tamed Threnody Dragon.
These changes have been escalated by the growing advancement of the Sakarian Empire, with formalised trade starting to occur between the Empresses and the Sakarians, as opposed to the previously adhoc system of selling to small villages with contacts. This is especially valuable for both as the mountains the Oni reside in are filled with abundant natural resources, which the Oni turn into their prized equipment for export to various peoples, who provide them with additional food stuffs and other commodities that are harder for the Oni to obtain.
However, the growing power of the Empresses has clamped down upon the opportunities and power of smaller independent clans, to the point that a mass migration of non affiliated clans is becoming increasingly likely as time goes on. This itself is not unprecedented among Avernite species, even peoples have moved entire regions in the past like the Tzazars, but where they will go and if there will be any successful Oni colonies remains to be seen.
Speculation: It seems likely that similar to the Sirens the Oni are connected to the Eldar in some manner. When we mentioned the Oni to the Sirens, they referred to them as Mountain Kin (similar to how the Eldar were designated Star Kin). What the exact connection is unclear at this time. Perhaps they were originally created to model the unrestrained Eldar mental state?
*Death's Head venom remains a death sentence for Oni to consume, overwhelming their bodies' defences instantly.
**This is the most common variation, others claim she was asked to make a ring of light and dark, others a collar that was locked and unlocked. Universally it's two mutually incompatible extremes.
***The exact nature of this wine is also hotly debated. An alchemical or mystical creation is certainly possible on Avernus, but given the Oni's nature the chances of her just getting outrageously drunk and having an epiphany under the influence is not completely outside of the realm of possibility. Study of the Ircha'nota, the legendary forge hidden within the bowls of Valshartha, the Sakarian royal palace, has also been offered as explanation.
****Areatha said that she did know the Queen the tale was about and that she did leave to go on her own when unable to complete that task...but whether she did actually find some mystical booze or just found enough to overcome her inherent resistance she also did not know. She says she was distracted at the time by some kind of termite migration crisis.
*****Hellfire Smithing is a skill the Oni are capable of teaching to others, but rarely do they offer to impart the knowledge without great payment, but in a strange way most seem to overthink how difficult being offered to learn is. Often enough making pilgrimage to a Queen alone and asking has been enough for them to teach it. The fundamental point is that one must impress the Oni. Of course the technique is by no means simple to learn.
******Sakarians ares especially valued likely due to their frequently trained social alluring powers and valuable skills (often administrative and diplomatic.)
Damn this came far from my original sleepy inspiration.
Massive thanks to @MonkeyTypewriter, @random_npc and @Andres110 for betaing this piece and of course @Durin for looking it over once it had been done.
And finally tagging @Durin
Last edited:
Enerael
We Shall Wake to Sanity
We can probably spend a favor to get some Eldar seers to do Rids work for hm while he's busy.
I am more concerned about the galaxy losing so many of Rids valuable divinations.
50 years is 20 Greater Divinations, which could do a LOT of good.
If Vulcan is willing to spend so much time away from his own duties of leading a major human polity, I say that matching him is the least that we could do.
Surdadrades, The Great Sky Whale
Creature Omake: Surdadrades, The Great Sky Whale
Report provided as of year 338 after Founding of Avernus.
Having recently appeared drifting in the sky to the south and east of the Azure Bay, Surdadrades*is a gargantuan beast of the sky.
Her teardop shaped body measures an estimated seven kilometers long, three kilometers wide and is line by four great flippers evenly spaced on each side (eight in total). Each flipper ends in a great, unblinking, eye. Each eye is in turn flanked by eight smaller eyes that line the sides of the flipper, and each of which has a ring of eight yet smaller eyes, four on the top of the flipper and four on the bottom. Her belly is lined with eight great maws: at regular intervals great water spouts will rise from the sea, carrying vast shoals of sealife into these maws. From what can be observed, her back is covered in a great, rocky shell.
Surdadrades is incredibly territorial, particularly with regards to protecting and concealing her back. She possesses a dome shaped shield that offers an unknown degree of protection while also distorting any view of her from above: this shield extends roughly twenty kilometers from her body. Anything within that radius that tries to rise above her provokes an immediate violent response.
Surdadrades's eyes are capable of projecting terrible beams of psychic force: the smallest eyes can burn most flying wildlife from the sky, while the mid-sized eyes can project blasts that rival those of a capital ship's lances. There are no reports of the largest eyes firing.
Areatha has expressed an extreme interest in the beast. She claims to have seen it once before over the northern seas, some four to six thousand years ago. Her own attempts to get closer and explore it then were thwarted: when she tried to approach it cast her into the sea, nearly leading to her demise. Her attempts to learn more about it from the peoples and guardians of Avernus have proved less then fruitful: among those that know of her she is shrouded in mystery. The only recurrent rumor that she was able to find spoke of a city, possibly populated, possibly empty and waiting, carved into her shell. Areatha has been somewhat cagey about her intentions towards Surdadrades, hinting both that she might make a second attempt to explore it and that she might forebear.
With her current speed and heading, Surdadrades should pass south of the human colonized regions of Avernus, with a closest pass taking her to within 50 km of Storms End in 342, shortly after which she will pass out of the envelope of human territory.
* Name provided by Areatha, taken from a now extinct civilization.
@Durin
Report provided as of year 338 after Founding of Avernus.
Having recently appeared drifting in the sky to the south and east of the Azure Bay, Surdadrades*is a gargantuan beast of the sky.
Her teardop shaped body measures an estimated seven kilometers long, three kilometers wide and is line by four great flippers evenly spaced on each side (eight in total). Each flipper ends in a great, unblinking, eye. Each eye is in turn flanked by eight smaller eyes that line the sides of the flipper, and each of which has a ring of eight yet smaller eyes, four on the top of the flipper and four on the bottom. Her belly is lined with eight great maws: at regular intervals great water spouts will rise from the sea, carrying vast shoals of sealife into these maws. From what can be observed, her back is covered in a great, rocky shell.
Surdadrades is incredibly territorial, particularly with regards to protecting and concealing her back. She possesses a dome shaped shield that offers an unknown degree of protection while also distorting any view of her from above: this shield extends roughly twenty kilometers from her body. Anything within that radius that tries to rise above her provokes an immediate violent response.
Surdadrades's eyes are capable of projecting terrible beams of psychic force: the smallest eyes can burn most flying wildlife from the sky, while the mid-sized eyes can project blasts that rival those of a capital ship's lances. There are no reports of the largest eyes firing.
Areatha has expressed an extreme interest in the beast. She claims to have seen it once before over the northern seas, some four to six thousand years ago. Her own attempts to get closer and explore it then were thwarted: when she tried to approach it cast her into the sea, nearly leading to her demise. Her attempts to learn more about it from the peoples and guardians of Avernus have proved less then fruitful: among those that know of her she is shrouded in mystery. The only recurrent rumor that she was able to find spoke of a city, possibly populated, possibly empty and waiting, carved into her shell. Areatha has been somewhat cagey about her intentions towards Surdadrades, hinting both that she might make a second attempt to explore it and that she might forebear.
With her current speed and heading, Surdadrades should pass south of the human colonized regions of Avernus, with a closest pass taking her to within 50 km of Storms End in 342, shortly after which she will pass out of the envelope of human territory.
* Name provided by Areatha, taken from a now extinct civilization.
@Durin
Last edited:
- Location
- Lowton
If this was not Avernus I would be calling chaos Deamon so hard.
The Eight Warnings as seen by Callamus.
- Location
- madison
The Eight Warnings as seen by Callamus.
As the forge empire of Callamus deals with an increasingly hostile universe, the warnings of the adeptus have started to waver. While none have been dissolved, many have been reinterpreted in less stringent ways. In some cases they have been totally defanged. This is of course only the broadest possible outline of the most common ways to interpret the warnings. Many sects will have their own interpretations. An interesting result of this theological shift has been something of a demonization of many of the interpretations in the old empire, usually with such corruptions of faith seen as being a spiritual sickness that leads to the fall of mars. In modern times the fall of mars is seen as a tragedy brought about, or at least enabled by hubris and spiritual decay.
The alien mechanism is a perversion of the True Path.
In times past this was taken as a blanket ban on studying or employing xeno tech in any capacity. In the present day, this is no longer the case. In modern times while it is agreed that to use xeno tech is a sin, as it is profiting from a perversion, the sin is not so great as to warrant censure for limited use. The greatest departure, however, is that the reverse engineering of xeno tech is no longer considered sinful. It is in fact considered holy to seek out the twisting that went into a piece of xenotech and undo it, restoring the path that the alien perverted. While the exact degree of reinventing needed to be sure a piece of technology is restored is up for debate, in many cases the necessary reworking of design to optimize it for human use and production is considered sufficient.
The soul is the conscience of sentience.
The second warning mostly stands firm. The dominant interpretation being that a soul is needed for moral judgment. Originally this warning was taken to mean only those blessed by the omnissiah where truly capable of being moral, however, the lack of meaningful external diplomacy has left that part of the warning somewhat follow. with few outside of religious scholars feel the need to discuss it. How this applies to Abominable Intelligence has however seen a great deal of debate and refinement. Spurred on by both the increasing use of combat automata and the ever bloody war with the Necrons. It has in effect become a guidepost for how far one can trust an automated process, specifically can trust a machine with any choice that is not a moral one. Exactly what is or is not a moral choice is a frequent topic of argument, one that has in recent years been worsened by the emergence of an advanced automated mining system. As some argue that the decisions made by the system cannot be of moral nature as they affect only other machines, while others cite prior decisions that insist high-level administration requires a degree of moral judgment.
A soul can be bestowed only by the Omnissiah.
A far more theological warning than the others, before the fall of Mars it was taken as a blanket ban on the studying of souls by many. At the urging and argument of the technopath orders, it has been agreed that since the bestowing of souls is a holy act of the Omnissiah, studying the manner in which they are bestowed must itself be holy, for the Omnissiah wishes its children to understand. At present there is some debate at the fringes if the Omnissiah grants souls as perfect spiritual machines, or as malleable ones for its children to improve. However such arguments are mostly purely theological as even in Callamus there are very few technologies that directly affect the soul.
The Soulless sentience is the enemy of all life.
The active war with the necrons has if anything strengthened this warning. A soulless mind is incapable of morality, and will thus seek ultimately to eradicate all other minds, so as to bend the galaxy to its directives unopposed. This is often cited as an argument against attempting diplomacy with the Maynarkh Dynasty. Though a counter-argument that closing a front would better enable Callamus to gather strength to eradicate the abominable intelligence down the line is a fairly popular respone. However so far no diplomatic outreach has occurred, so which argument would prevail in the event of a possible ceasefire remains conjecture.
The knowledge of the ancients stands beyond question.
In the days of old this was taken as a blanket ban on innovation, for if the ancients had not made it then there was no need for it, and to create something new was to question them. This understanding of this warning has been well preserved as an example of the perversion of faith and overwhelming arrogance that lead to the fall of Mars. While there is still much debate about this warning, all agree that Callamus does not possess the full knowledge of the Ancients, and in the galaxy's present state cannot safely seek it out. Thus, they have no choice but to extrapolate, to study what few fragments of the Ancients' knowledge they have and seek to fill in the rest. Even if the ancients had invented everything worth inventing, those inventions have been lost and cannot be searched out. To innovate and invent is not to question the Ancients, it is an attempt to recreate their knowledge. To say that to invent something new is to question the Ancients implies that one believes that the designs they know of encompassing the entirety of what the Ancients knew, and such is arrogance. While there are other arguments that further shift what is or is not questioning the Ancients, the above is generally considered the baseline from which other opinions tend to deviate.
The Machine Spirit guards the knowledge of the Ancients.
A warning that has changed little in theology, but a great deal in practice. The presence or absence of machine spirits is still used to determine if a technology is of humanity. However, the greater integration and availability of technopaths has made the detection of machine spirits far less a political process, and far more a spiritual one. Furthermore a greater understanding of the whims of machine spirits has lessened the shame of failing to attract them considerably. Most often the penance for creating a design that does not house machine spirits is to rework it until it does, with execution being meted out only upon repeated or particularly egregious failures.
Flesh is fallible, but ritual honours the Machine Spirit.
The first and second parts are treated almost as separate warnings. In the old empire, the first part of this warning was often used to justify truly horrific treatment of menials, including in some particularly infamous incidents mass forced servitor conversions. As such the old iterpertation has seen unusually heavy demonization. With many using the actions of the old empire as as strong negative example to act as a theological bulwark for policies mandating the fair treatment of menials. In modern times the first is part is taken merely to mean that flesh can fail, not that it is inherently sinful. Flesh is weak, but weakness is tolerable in some cases. A common argument is to liken menials to the humble lasgun, a weak weapon that served the impurm of old well for millennia on its simple availability and ease of production, demonstrating that sometimes a cheap tool is better than a good one. Thus flesh is seen by many as merely a lesser material, something to be used when cost is of greater concern than performance. In modern times, there is some debate on the exact meaning of the word flesh, some take it to mean any biological matter, while others insist it refers only to the base form, insisting that biological augments and engineered organisms are machines built from proteins and cells.
The second part of the warning has been left largely unchanged, however, Callamus has dramatically changed the manner in which they approach rituals. Becoming far more willing to experiment with alternative rituals, as well as being somewhat more forgiving of shorting, or even forgoing some rituals in times of immediate crisis.
To break with ritual is to break with faith.
One of the largest changes between the old ways and callmus is the place and understanding of ritual. To the old empire, all rituals were sacred and perfect, and to change or abandon any was heresy of the highest order no matter the situation. To Callamus ritual is crucial, but to assume they have a flawless understanding of all rituals is a mark of arrogance. Only the Ancients, who had achieved full knowledge of the machine, could truly know the perfect form of every ritual. In this age it is accepted that many rituals are flawed recreations of the perfect rituals of the Dark Age of Technology. Only through careful study and experimentation can the rituals be perfected and refined. The exact methodology for doing so has been a massive and fierce morasses of debate for centuries, though over time rituals that produce better results tend to see wider adoption. The deliberate use of rituals that produce lesser results, but are easier and quicker to perform has proven particularly fraught theological debate.
@Durin my callamus thing.
As the forge empire of Callamus deals with an increasingly hostile universe, the warnings of the adeptus have started to waver. While none have been dissolved, many have been reinterpreted in less stringent ways. In some cases they have been totally defanged. This is of course only the broadest possible outline of the most common ways to interpret the warnings. Many sects will have their own interpretations. An interesting result of this theological shift has been something of a demonization of many of the interpretations in the old empire, usually with such corruptions of faith seen as being a spiritual sickness that leads to the fall of mars. In modern times the fall of mars is seen as a tragedy brought about, or at least enabled by hubris and spiritual decay.
The alien mechanism is a perversion of the True Path.
In times past this was taken as a blanket ban on studying or employing xeno tech in any capacity. In the present day, this is no longer the case. In modern times while it is agreed that to use xeno tech is a sin, as it is profiting from a perversion, the sin is not so great as to warrant censure for limited use. The greatest departure, however, is that the reverse engineering of xeno tech is no longer considered sinful. It is in fact considered holy to seek out the twisting that went into a piece of xenotech and undo it, restoring the path that the alien perverted. While the exact degree of reinventing needed to be sure a piece of technology is restored is up for debate, in many cases the necessary reworking of design to optimize it for human use and production is considered sufficient.
The soul is the conscience of sentience.
The second warning mostly stands firm. The dominant interpretation being that a soul is needed for moral judgment. Originally this warning was taken to mean only those blessed by the omnissiah where truly capable of being moral, however, the lack of meaningful external diplomacy has left that part of the warning somewhat follow. with few outside of religious scholars feel the need to discuss it. How this applies to Abominable Intelligence has however seen a great deal of debate and refinement. Spurred on by both the increasing use of combat automata and the ever bloody war with the Necrons. It has in effect become a guidepost for how far one can trust an automated process, specifically can trust a machine with any choice that is not a moral one. Exactly what is or is not a moral choice is a frequent topic of argument, one that has in recent years been worsened by the emergence of an advanced automated mining system. As some argue that the decisions made by the system cannot be of moral nature as they affect only other machines, while others cite prior decisions that insist high-level administration requires a degree of moral judgment.
A soul can be bestowed only by the Omnissiah.
A far more theological warning than the others, before the fall of Mars it was taken as a blanket ban on the studying of souls by many. At the urging and argument of the technopath orders, it has been agreed that since the bestowing of souls is a holy act of the Omnissiah, studying the manner in which they are bestowed must itself be holy, for the Omnissiah wishes its children to understand. At present there is some debate at the fringes if the Omnissiah grants souls as perfect spiritual machines, or as malleable ones for its children to improve. However such arguments are mostly purely theological as even in Callamus there are very few technologies that directly affect the soul.
The Soulless sentience is the enemy of all life.
The active war with the necrons has if anything strengthened this warning. A soulless mind is incapable of morality, and will thus seek ultimately to eradicate all other minds, so as to bend the galaxy to its directives unopposed. This is often cited as an argument against attempting diplomacy with the Maynarkh Dynasty. Though a counter-argument that closing a front would better enable Callamus to gather strength to eradicate the abominable intelligence down the line is a fairly popular respone. However so far no diplomatic outreach has occurred, so which argument would prevail in the event of a possible ceasefire remains conjecture.
The knowledge of the ancients stands beyond question.
In the days of old this was taken as a blanket ban on innovation, for if the ancients had not made it then there was no need for it, and to create something new was to question them. This understanding of this warning has been well preserved as an example of the perversion of faith and overwhelming arrogance that lead to the fall of Mars. While there is still much debate about this warning, all agree that Callamus does not possess the full knowledge of the Ancients, and in the galaxy's present state cannot safely seek it out. Thus, they have no choice but to extrapolate, to study what few fragments of the Ancients' knowledge they have and seek to fill in the rest. Even if the ancients had invented everything worth inventing, those inventions have been lost and cannot be searched out. To innovate and invent is not to question the Ancients, it is an attempt to recreate their knowledge. To say that to invent something new is to question the Ancients implies that one believes that the designs they know of encompassing the entirety of what the Ancients knew, and such is arrogance. While there are other arguments that further shift what is or is not questioning the Ancients, the above is generally considered the baseline from which other opinions tend to deviate.
The Machine Spirit guards the knowledge of the Ancients.
A warning that has changed little in theology, but a great deal in practice. The presence or absence of machine spirits is still used to determine if a technology is of humanity. However, the greater integration and availability of technopaths has made the detection of machine spirits far less a political process, and far more a spiritual one. Furthermore a greater understanding of the whims of machine spirits has lessened the shame of failing to attract them considerably. Most often the penance for creating a design that does not house machine spirits is to rework it until it does, with execution being meted out only upon repeated or particularly egregious failures.
Flesh is fallible, but ritual honours the Machine Spirit.
The first and second parts are treated almost as separate warnings. In the old empire, the first part of this warning was often used to justify truly horrific treatment of menials, including in some particularly infamous incidents mass forced servitor conversions. As such the old iterpertation has seen unusually heavy demonization. With many using the actions of the old empire as as strong negative example to act as a theological bulwark for policies mandating the fair treatment of menials. In modern times the first is part is taken merely to mean that flesh can fail, not that it is inherently sinful. Flesh is weak, but weakness is tolerable in some cases. A common argument is to liken menials to the humble lasgun, a weak weapon that served the impurm of old well for millennia on its simple availability and ease of production, demonstrating that sometimes a cheap tool is better than a good one. Thus flesh is seen by many as merely a lesser material, something to be used when cost is of greater concern than performance. In modern times, there is some debate on the exact meaning of the word flesh, some take it to mean any biological matter, while others insist it refers only to the base form, insisting that biological augments and engineered organisms are machines built from proteins and cells.
The second part of the warning has been left largely unchanged, however, Callamus has dramatically changed the manner in which they approach rituals. Becoming far more willing to experiment with alternative rituals, as well as being somewhat more forgiving of shorting, or even forgoing some rituals in times of immediate crisis.
To break with ritual is to break with faith.
One of the largest changes between the old ways and callmus is the place and understanding of ritual. To the old empire, all rituals were sacred and perfect, and to change or abandon any was heresy of the highest order no matter the situation. To Callamus ritual is crucial, but to assume they have a flawless understanding of all rituals is a mark of arrogance. Only the Ancients, who had achieved full knowledge of the machine, could truly know the perfect form of every ritual. In this age it is accepted that many rituals are flawed recreations of the perfect rituals of the Dark Age of Technology. Only through careful study and experimentation can the rituals be perfected and refined. The exact methodology for doing so has been a massive and fierce morasses of debate for centuries, though over time rituals that produce better results tend to see wider adoption. The deliberate use of rituals that produce lesser results, but are easier and quicker to perform has proven particularly fraught theological debate.
@Durin my callamus thing.
Last edited:
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
Sorry for intruding, ( and if it's old news for you, but for all it's worth I can't find anything in the thread, which is not much, considering the number of pages ) but in the 40k canon there now exists Avernus subsystem ( with it's primary also called Avernus )- a collection of iceworlds ( large planetoids ) orbiting a gas giant protostar with an average temperature on their surfaces something like the warmer parts of Antarctica.
Courtesy of a new Ciaphas Cain novel, "Choose your enemies".
Coincidence?
...
Maybe Alex Stuart is an avid reader of this thread.
Heh, probably not, but I just remembered you guys the moment I opened the book and read this.
Courtesy of a new Ciaphas Cain novel, "Choose your enemies".
Coincidence?
...
Maybe Alex Stuart is an avid reader of this thread.
Heh, probably not, but I just remembered you guys the moment I opened the book and read this.
Last edited:
- Location
- Alice Springs, Australia
I'd be flattered to find out that that is correct but more likely he just used the same Roman myth for inspiration as SkewfiendSorry for intruding, ( and if it's old news for you, but for all it's worth I can't find anything in the thread, which is not much, considering the number of pages ) but in the 40k canon there now exists Avernus subsystem ( with it's primary also called Avernus )- a collection of iceworlds ( large planetoids ) orbiting a gas giant protostar with an average temperature on their surfaces something like the warmer parts of Antarctica.
Courtesy of a new Ciaphas Cain novel, "Choose your enemies".
Coincidence?
...
Maybe Alex Stuart is an avid reader of this thread.
Heh, probably not, but I just remembered you guys the moment I opened the book and read this.
- Location
- Australia
"The soul is the conscience of sentience.". In the context of that previous warning, I don't think that "soul" in this case is talking about literal souls, the kind that daemons eat. Rather, it's instead talking about the conscience that sentient creatures have. In other words, the true path to being a good person is the path that the Omnissiah has laid out.
Last edited:
- Location
- madison
i'm leery of the admech having a stance that only the admech can ever be good peopel, they spent a long time working closely with the rest of humanity, there take on religion would likely bend over time to accommodate that.
- Location
- Australia
You have to remember that the Emperor is the Omnissiah. Imperial Cultists, by worshipping the Omnissiah (if in his aspect as the God-Emperor), would therefore be considered to be capable of being good by the Mechanicus. Callamus would have a problem with those who don't follow the Emperor, but that's literally none of the human polities at the Conclave, so there wouldn't be any contradiction with Embers canon if they held to the stance that following their god is the only true path to salvation.
- Location
- madison
ergh your right. ok I rewrote it.
TLDR: your right, but in the absence of notable outside powers to interact with, and a lot of issues about AI cropping up they mostly talk about it in the second context. Xenos being soulless is just a thing they know, it's not like it comes up that much. But automation is a frequent issue.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
Considering that Imperial Cult basically denominated every its follower by two qualifiers: 1) speaks recognizably Gothic 2) their chief Deity is called God-Emperor, or is recognized as an Aspect of God-Emperor, this is pretty much canon for the Imperium at large.
Pine Needle Torpedo
Pine Needle Torpedo
The search for an uninterceptable torpedo has been ongoing since time immemorial. The Pine Needle Torpedo, or needler, is not that ever distant holy grail but it is a step in the right direction.
Adding stealth capability to torpedoes has always been an exercise in frustration. It is certainly possible to hide a torpedo, but only by vastly reducing both speed and payload while drastically increasing cost. Obscuring such a weapon is easier however as strike craft and point defence turrets rely as much or more on visual targeting as on advances sensors this never proved effective.
The breakthrough came, oddly enough, from a magos biologis who proposed that if Avernus's Illusory Pines could make an image of a building then why not a vehicle? In most cases this proved unworkable, ground craft were too small, warships could not sacrifice the armour and turrets to mount forests, but in the case of torpedoes a niche was found.
A needler has no warhead, although it remains a potent kinetic impactor, instead mounting a variety of repurposed stealth systems and several groves of Illusory Pine. This combination creates several decoy torpedoes. While these decoys will not stand up to close scrutiny they are all but indistinguishable under battlefield conditions.
Needlers have many uses both tactical and strategic. Having one in a dozen torpedoes be a needler drastically deduces the effectiveness of defensive fire while only slightly decreasing potential damage. Having a single stealthed ship fire a full salvo of needlers can convince an enemy that they are being engaged by a full battle group and force them to respond, or panic, accordingly. The ability to simulate the massive salvo characteristic of external launchers proved particularly advantageous.
Production and storage of Illusory Pines is somewhat slower and more complicated than conventional munitions but is surprisingly efficient in terms of resources. Or perhaps unsurprisingly, the essential components do grow on trees after all.
@Durin
Missile Massacre intensifies.
The search for an uninterceptable torpedo has been ongoing since time immemorial. The Pine Needle Torpedo, or needler, is not that ever distant holy grail but it is a step in the right direction.
Adding stealth capability to torpedoes has always been an exercise in frustration. It is certainly possible to hide a torpedo, but only by vastly reducing both speed and payload while drastically increasing cost. Obscuring such a weapon is easier however as strike craft and point defence turrets rely as much or more on visual targeting as on advances sensors this never proved effective.
The breakthrough came, oddly enough, from a magos biologis who proposed that if Avernus's Illusory Pines could make an image of a building then why not a vehicle? In most cases this proved unworkable, ground craft were too small, warships could not sacrifice the armour and turrets to mount forests, but in the case of torpedoes a niche was found.
A needler has no warhead, although it remains a potent kinetic impactor, instead mounting a variety of repurposed stealth systems and several groves of Illusory Pine. This combination creates several decoy torpedoes. While these decoys will not stand up to close scrutiny they are all but indistinguishable under battlefield conditions.
Needlers have many uses both tactical and strategic. Having one in a dozen torpedoes be a needler drastically deduces the effectiveness of defensive fire while only slightly decreasing potential damage. Having a single stealthed ship fire a full salvo of needlers can convince an enemy that they are being engaged by a full battle group and force them to respond, or panic, accordingly. The ability to simulate the massive salvo characteristic of external launchers proved particularly advantageous.
Production and storage of Illusory Pines is somewhat slower and more complicated than conventional munitions but is surprisingly efficient in terms of resources. Or perhaps unsurprisingly, the essential components do grow on trees after all.
@Durin
Missile Massacre intensifies.
Enerael
We Shall Wake to Sanity
I like the idea, but arent Illusory Pine well, illusory? Psychic illusion. I quite doubt that they can fool star ship grade sensors.
- Location
- western US
they are avernus grade psychic illusions...im sure they will figure it out.
- Location
- madison
That is really clever. Though it would depend on how well the illusion works in space.