- Location
- Lowton
S#%* he found out who he wants to murder hasn't he
Rids buckle up for targeted assaults
-
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The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up
- Thread starter Durin
- Start date
Rids buckle up for targeted assaults
Angels of the Hungering Desert
- Location
- Australia
Information on the Firetide and the creatures within can be found here, here, and here.
Thank you to @random_npc for your help.
@Durin
-----------
++Thought for the Day: There is no choice between the Emperor and the Abyss.++
Introduction
The Firetide was the region of space where the light of the Astronomican collided with the Eye of Terror. The lethal crash of conflicting psychic energies burned all daemons that entered within and armies of insane, fiery angels waged war against everything in their path. Some of the worlds within the Firetide were bathed in the light of the Astronomican but weren't burned by it, and these were called the Radiant Worlds, of which some were inhabited by the living and undead. The most powerful of the beings to traverse this region of space was the being known as Imperious, the Avatar of the Astronomican. He was neither great cosmic phenomenon nor dire avenging angel, but a humble pilgrim vested with echoes of His humanity, the will of the Emperor sent forth to guide the vessels of the Imperium through the night of the Warp.
When the Emperor died, so too did the Astronomican, and all at once, the eternal psychic fire that energised the Firetide ceased utterly. The sudden void transformed the region. Before it was a light-scoured hellscape of psychic destruction, now it was cold, dark, and hungry. The region became no less hospitable to daemonkind, for now the realm would devour rather than scorch, and the angelic representatives of its nature would consume rather than destroy.
The Firetide had become the Hungering Desert.
***
The Pilgrim's Anthem
Upon the Emperor's death, the ultimate fate of the region was, by default, uncertain. The Firetide was formed from the clash of two opposing forces, and so while the Hungering Desert might remain as such for all eternity, the balance of its history could alternatively dip towards evil and be swallowed by the Eye, or go the other way and become a bastion of the Emperor's will. In the end, however, the scales were tipped firmly towards the lattermost destiny before the Desert even came into existence, thanks to the efforts of Imperious.
Before His end, the Master of Mankind bid his servant to prepare the region for his demise that it might one day grow into a civilisation that would aid humanity in its darkest hour. To that end, Imperious began seeding the Firetide with artifacts, art and inscriptions, pathways and milestones, hidden vaults and the keys to unlock them. Imperious' work was as a canal, so that when the dam broke and the river's contents were unleashed, the water would be channelled towards the Emperor's glory. His final act was to cast his voice out into the tempest of the Firetide, so that when He on Earth died and the Avatar of the Astronomican fell silent, the echoes of the remnants of the Song of Salvation would ring out through the desert for its inhabitants to hear forevermore.
The echoes of Imperious' final melody and the seeds of civilisation would be notes of the Pilgrim's Anthem, the greatest canticle of praise to the Emperor's glory in all existence, and more notes still would be added as it shaped and reflected the creatures within the Hungering Desert.
***
Hunger Angels
Hunger Angels appear as winged humanoids with a resemblance to humans thanks to their origin, but with several inhuman features. They have the emaciated frames of famine corpses and their wings and splotchy and tattered. Their teeth are largely the same as a human's but their incisors and canines are noticeably, inhumanly sharp. Their eyes are bottomless black pits set in sunken sockets and their hands are tipped with razor sharp claws.
Despite their emaciated appearance, hunger angels are incredibly fearsome creatures, just as powerful as the fiery angels they used to be in the Age of the Imperium. In battle they fight with unmatched ferocity, driven into a frenzy by their endless hunger. Their very presence claws at the essence of the living and the neverborn alike, inspiring dread in their enemies. The presence of the more powerful angels is so strong that it makes their enemies' skin and blood flake off, dissipating into the air for the incarnation of hunger to inhale into their stomachs.
The more a hunger angel eats, the larger and more psychically potent they become, but shrink in size without a constant influx of food.
Hunger angels are technically finite in number, but effectively infinite thanks to their connection to the Hungering Desert. When a hunger angel is banished, it returns there. If one is permanently destroyed, the void it leaves behind in the realm of endless hunger results in the creation of a new hunger angel to replace it.
In the extremely rare instance of a hunger angel eating something vastly more psychically powerful than itself, its meal will actually succeed in not only filling it, but clogging the void in its soul permanently, ending its hunger forever. As a hunger angel is an avatar of hunger, this results in the angel dissolving into nothingness, and unlike in other cases of permanent destruction, it does not result in the Hungering Desert producing a replacement. For a hunger angel to eat itself to oblivion is the only way to permanently reduce the numbers of the hunger angels and diminish the power of the Hungering Desert.
***
Evolution
The angels of the Hungering Desert were emaciated shadows of their former selves, but no less powerful, for the void of their hunger was as deep as their former fires were hot. They now formed into armies and marched forth no longer to raze, but to consume, and did so effectively even despite their continued insanity. However, they were not effectively the same as they were in all respects, for their new nature allowed for more than their previous existence. In the Firetide they were driven mad by the clashing of the two powers, and now they were driven mad by hunger, but whereas before they could never escape the eternal conflict between light and darkness, now they could gain brief respite in the satiation of their hunger. In the moments of consumption, their oppressive hunger would momentarily lift from their minds, and in these moments, they would hear echoing Imperious' Melody.
Slowly, very slowly, the Avatar's voice would take root in the minds of the hungering angels. It awakened the capacity for thought they inherited as children of the Astronomican and gave their thoughts something to focus on besides their eternal famine. The nature of Imperious' blessing was awakening, not mutation; they were fundamentally the same creatures they were before, and that is why they were not destroyed by their fellows. On the other hand, the power of Chaos was most certainly a mutative force, and so angels who were touched by it instead in their moments of satiation were set upon and devoured by their former comrades.
At first, the angels could only think in the moments when they ate, but over time they slowly trained their ability to think and eventually could do so even in the full depths of their hunger, if with great difficulty. Eventually, their minds grew strong enough that they could name themselves. This allowed them to comprehend the knowledge Imperious' Melody was giving them, and from it, learned how to parse the knowledge he left behind in inedible monuments and inscriptions. From them, they learned new ways of waging war, the virtue and majesty of the Emperor, information on their own existence, and the art of constructing civilisation. With the new knowledge in hand they would build temples, larder-dungeons, and forges; gain generals, philosophers, and choirs; compose new songs to join Imperious' in the Pilgrim's Anthem. One particularly important thing they learned was agriculture. They would gather various non-daemonic plants and animals sourced from the Warp and take them to the Bleached Worlds, the former Radiant Worlds, where they would cultivate them by feeding them daemons. Hunger angels could eat daemons, but they were not a preferable source of food. The clarity earned through other food sources was greater, and their natures only made corruption through consumption near impossible, not totally impossible, at least while they had sapience.
At this point in the Hungering Desert's history, things began to stagnate. No new path to further evolution had been discovered, no insights could be found from the old inscriptions or the Hungering Desert's new melody. At this point they were capable of great, terrible workings that could instil fear even in the hearts of daemons, but nothing that would add further to the Pilgrim's Anthem. In the angels' desperation, they emptied their larders and launched raid after raid so that their greatest thinkers could ponder the issue continuously with a clear mind. This gambit succeeded. The philosophers of the hungering angels realised that just as any one angel is limited in what they can do on their own, there was only so far their civilisation could advance by itself. They knew then what they had to do, and entered the Webway to find the eldar.
Thank you to @random_npc for your help.
@Durin
-----------
Angels of the Hungering Desert
++Thought for the Day: There is no choice between the Emperor and the Abyss.++
Introduction
The Firetide was the region of space where the light of the Astronomican collided with the Eye of Terror. The lethal crash of conflicting psychic energies burned all daemons that entered within and armies of insane, fiery angels waged war against everything in their path. Some of the worlds within the Firetide were bathed in the light of the Astronomican but weren't burned by it, and these were called the Radiant Worlds, of which some were inhabited by the living and undead. The most powerful of the beings to traverse this region of space was the being known as Imperious, the Avatar of the Astronomican. He was neither great cosmic phenomenon nor dire avenging angel, but a humble pilgrim vested with echoes of His humanity, the will of the Emperor sent forth to guide the vessels of the Imperium through the night of the Warp.
When the Emperor died, so too did the Astronomican, and all at once, the eternal psychic fire that energised the Firetide ceased utterly. The sudden void transformed the region. Before it was a light-scoured hellscape of psychic destruction, now it was cold, dark, and hungry. The region became no less hospitable to daemonkind, for now the realm would devour rather than scorch, and the angelic representatives of its nature would consume rather than destroy.
The Firetide had become the Hungering Desert.
***
The Pilgrim's Anthem
Upon the Emperor's death, the ultimate fate of the region was, by default, uncertain. The Firetide was formed from the clash of two opposing forces, and so while the Hungering Desert might remain as such for all eternity, the balance of its history could alternatively dip towards evil and be swallowed by the Eye, or go the other way and become a bastion of the Emperor's will. In the end, however, the scales were tipped firmly towards the lattermost destiny before the Desert even came into existence, thanks to the efforts of Imperious.
Before His end, the Master of Mankind bid his servant to prepare the region for his demise that it might one day grow into a civilisation that would aid humanity in its darkest hour. To that end, Imperious began seeding the Firetide with artifacts, art and inscriptions, pathways and milestones, hidden vaults and the keys to unlock them. Imperious' work was as a canal, so that when the dam broke and the river's contents were unleashed, the water would be channelled towards the Emperor's glory. His final act was to cast his voice out into the tempest of the Firetide, so that when He on Earth died and the Avatar of the Astronomican fell silent, the echoes of the remnants of the Song of Salvation would ring out through the desert for its inhabitants to hear forevermore.
The echoes of Imperious' final melody and the seeds of civilisation would be notes of the Pilgrim's Anthem, the greatest canticle of praise to the Emperor's glory in all existence, and more notes still would be added as it shaped and reflected the creatures within the Hungering Desert.
***
Hunger Angels
Hunger Angels appear as winged humanoids with a resemblance to humans thanks to their origin, but with several inhuman features. They have the emaciated frames of famine corpses and their wings and splotchy and tattered. Their teeth are largely the same as a human's but their incisors and canines are noticeably, inhumanly sharp. Their eyes are bottomless black pits set in sunken sockets and their hands are tipped with razor sharp claws.
Despite their emaciated appearance, hunger angels are incredibly fearsome creatures, just as powerful as the fiery angels they used to be in the Age of the Imperium. In battle they fight with unmatched ferocity, driven into a frenzy by their endless hunger. Their very presence claws at the essence of the living and the neverborn alike, inspiring dread in their enemies. The presence of the more powerful angels is so strong that it makes their enemies' skin and blood flake off, dissipating into the air for the incarnation of hunger to inhale into their stomachs.
The more a hunger angel eats, the larger and more psychically potent they become, but shrink in size without a constant influx of food.
Hunger angels are technically finite in number, but effectively infinite thanks to their connection to the Hungering Desert. When a hunger angel is banished, it returns there. If one is permanently destroyed, the void it leaves behind in the realm of endless hunger results in the creation of a new hunger angel to replace it.
In the extremely rare instance of a hunger angel eating something vastly more psychically powerful than itself, its meal will actually succeed in not only filling it, but clogging the void in its soul permanently, ending its hunger forever. As a hunger angel is an avatar of hunger, this results in the angel dissolving into nothingness, and unlike in other cases of permanent destruction, it does not result in the Hungering Desert producing a replacement. For a hunger angel to eat itself to oblivion is the only way to permanently reduce the numbers of the hunger angels and diminish the power of the Hungering Desert.
***
Evolution
The angels of the Hungering Desert were emaciated shadows of their former selves, but no less powerful, for the void of their hunger was as deep as their former fires were hot. They now formed into armies and marched forth no longer to raze, but to consume, and did so effectively even despite their continued insanity. However, they were not effectively the same as they were in all respects, for their new nature allowed for more than their previous existence. In the Firetide they were driven mad by the clashing of the two powers, and now they were driven mad by hunger, but whereas before they could never escape the eternal conflict between light and darkness, now they could gain brief respite in the satiation of their hunger. In the moments of consumption, their oppressive hunger would momentarily lift from their minds, and in these moments, they would hear echoing Imperious' Melody.
Slowly, very slowly, the Avatar's voice would take root in the minds of the hungering angels. It awakened the capacity for thought they inherited as children of the Astronomican and gave their thoughts something to focus on besides their eternal famine. The nature of Imperious' blessing was awakening, not mutation; they were fundamentally the same creatures they were before, and that is why they were not destroyed by their fellows. On the other hand, the power of Chaos was most certainly a mutative force, and so angels who were touched by it instead in their moments of satiation were set upon and devoured by their former comrades.
At first, the angels could only think in the moments when they ate, but over time they slowly trained their ability to think and eventually could do so even in the full depths of their hunger, if with great difficulty. Eventually, their minds grew strong enough that they could name themselves. This allowed them to comprehend the knowledge Imperious' Melody was giving them, and from it, learned how to parse the knowledge he left behind in inedible monuments and inscriptions. From them, they learned new ways of waging war, the virtue and majesty of the Emperor, information on their own existence, and the art of constructing civilisation. With the new knowledge in hand they would build temples, larder-dungeons, and forges; gain generals, philosophers, and choirs; compose new songs to join Imperious' in the Pilgrim's Anthem. One particularly important thing they learned was agriculture. They would gather various non-daemonic plants and animals sourced from the Warp and take them to the Bleached Worlds, the former Radiant Worlds, where they would cultivate them by feeding them daemons. Hunger angels could eat daemons, but they were not a preferable source of food. The clarity earned through other food sources was greater, and their natures only made corruption through consumption near impossible, not totally impossible, at least while they had sapience.
At this point in the Hungering Desert's history, things began to stagnate. No new path to further evolution had been discovered, no insights could be found from the old inscriptions or the Hungering Desert's new melody. At this point they were capable of great, terrible workings that could instil fear even in the hearts of daemons, but nothing that would add further to the Pilgrim's Anthem. In the angels' desperation, they emptied their larders and launched raid after raid so that their greatest thinkers could ponder the issue continuously with a clear mind. This gambit succeeded. The philosophers of the hungering angels realised that just as any one angel is limited in what they can do on their own, there was only so far their civilisation could advance by itself. They knew then what they had to do, and entered the Webway to find the eldar.
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- Location
- Alice Springs, Australia
1. More I the unstable rift end
2. No, they could hit a moon reliably but not much smaller
3. Yes
4. No it does not
5. Correct
6. You would probably want to build a bigger orbital defence but yes
- Location
- Norway
Could well be.
On the other hand, consider: There had to be some kind of cultist that increased the most in number, Chaos doesn't line up nicely to make sure its cultists are evenly distributed, and we could probably think of worries no matter who it was.
If it had been Abomination cultists who were the most numerous instead of Nurgle we might be guessing that it was an incursion coming for Saint Lin, or if it had been Tzeentch it would also be suspicious that the chaos god of knowledge and secrets was looking at us right after we started transcribing secrets into the just finished Ultra-Secure Vault, and so on.
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Regardless I think we should take measures to move Rids into orbit...just in case.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
I'm not panicking, but that's no reason not to take precautions
I doubt Rids will be inconvenienced and who knows if Nurgle takes to space to try and kill him then the Old One stations can have FUNNNNN
There is rolling high and then going form less than 300 a year to a 1000 a year. I think we will be attacked somewhat soon or demon incursion. We do have about even odds of either.
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- Location
- United States of America, Michigan
I think having Ridcully divine attacks next turn could be a good idea since he might be able to give us a day heads up before an incursion as opposed to the order of Omens 5 hours.
Enerael
We Shall Wake to Sanity
Supersoldiers take time
.I really don't like that we were not warned in time of the moonhives reaching capacity. Like we are with psykers for example, as a matter of course.
More population translates to more of everything. This slow down of growth is very, very bad for us.
Just in case of what? It's on the moon! An enemy fleet suddenly teleporting there?
Very good! Hopefully she will be able to help with counter frequencies too. I think that she will be.
Excellent. A bit confusing that eating the chaos psyker souls was not mentioned as a part of the deal though.
As expected.
This will be fun.
Finally! Sirens willing to buy stuff that we have plenty of!
One thing to keep in mind though, those tamed beasts? Almost certainly aquatic or amphibious. Still valuable to us, but far less then terrestrial species.
Eh, thats fine. Though I was more interested if she could point our people known to us that we do not realize could help out.
I wonder if the Therondy Dragons would be willing to help? They would simply perfect for hunting psykers. Not sure what we could pay them with though.
Mildly concerning. Could just be a random spike though, lets wait a turn and see.
Again a very good turn. Interesting that the only losses were the blanks.
This will be very useful indeed. Looking forward to a chaos force getting their daemon ships shut down hard
.Hopefully we can refit it with a Cloak later.
Well. Three very valuable further Biologis actions to choose from. I would say the first and last options, using the free Mechanicus slot.
Close proximity only? Not as good as I had hoped, but with their focus on melee combat still very useful I think.
Very interesting info. Not sure how useful to us though...
Wait a second.
Could Lin research The Nature of: Webway?
Asking on Discord... Yup. Low change of getting anything out of it, but it's viable. Promising!
Finally! Good to have that knowledge safely recorded.
...did we share it with Eldar? If not, could we sell it to them?
Except for the Primarch stuff of course, that is not ours to give.
Aaah. A beautiful work of diplomacy, and in Warhammer.
Warms my soul.
I want Lin to live and end this conflict sooo much...
And we can trade with both sides! An excellent bonus!
Looking forward to the delicious, delicious bonuses these trades will bring us
.Vital information, this.
Many ways to deal with the injury. Alkahestry healing potion might be enough? If the herbs are needed, send Vlad for them. And be prepared to lose many good people.
Poison... Alkahestry antidote would probably be perfect for this. But also probably requires a sample of the poison. Flicker the stasis field and do a biopsy very fast? Or Dragons.
Curse is the Lin part. If only one aid is possible, Vulcan might not be the best choice. Cursebreaking is not his jam. Not sure. Dragons or Areatha? Or Eldar.
that was ****ing close. A bad action to Nat 1 on.We could have lost Tamia here.
Emps above bless Ridcully, he has saved our hides so, so many times...
We have an alpha! And a good one! Friend to our grandson even!
Very nice!
Shame about those Betas though. Rest in piece.
...now I am wondering. Do psykers that fail their trials fall to chaos? If so, could we have Sirens there to eat their souls if that happens? To save them from eternal damnation and to deny psyker souls to chaos. Asking on Discord, but Durin is offline currently.
Ouch. Hard fought. So anti-boarding and short ranged firepower could use a buff I think. And we will need those gravity sensors before divination stops working.
We need hover tanks. Harversters could keep up with these Tyranids and mow them down. Lacrian tanks for Helguard if we have the time.
Edit: Wait, why did we not have Gravitic Array program for that system ready?
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I'm sure no Sorcerer has gotten a good look at Rids yet so it's probably coincidence..
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
According to Durin if it remains high then it'll be concerning, if it's just a random spike then its just a random spike.
To be fair given how much we've pissed chaos off any spike is a bad sign.
Yes.
They already know it all, or at least enough that it makes no difference.
No, just Avernus.
Enerael
We Shall Wake to Sanity
I doubt this. If we were doing duplicate research all this time, I would be very disappointed.
Surely Lin found out a bunch of stuff that the Eldar were unaware of.
I know that that's all we have right now, my question is why did we not make a new program? @Nurgle said that we had years before combat starts when I asked, is it just a mistake?
We really should leverage the Gravity Array as much as we can, it is a powerful weapon. Or even a mining tool, it can lift continents! Slowly, but still!
Edit: Muspelheim would probably like that continent lifting capability a lot for when we aren't using the GArray in combat.
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I meant we have years before combat starts in the Trust or on Avernus. If we had better sensors or a AI it would go faster but that reminds me of something
@Durin what we have to do to reverse engineer the gravity array?
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
The Sea and Tzeench, but otherwise they've got all the knowledge, just in a form that we'd have a hell of a time understanding and then adapting.
It's easier for Lin to do it.
Because we were doing other things.
It still takes years for Tranth to make each individual programme.
Yeah I think that is a mistake since we went from having a surplus of 17 thousand to a negative in one turn.
- Location
- France
Isn't it because we are sending food to the planet under siege?
Huh yeah did not think about that.
- Location
- United states
So now that we have a lot more data in regards to healing Guilliman seems like we may definitely be able to actually have a good shot at healing him. First off in regards to the herbs we can have Ridcully divine those making it less of an issue to heal the toxins. Second we should probably get in contact with the Sirens to get access to True Healing runes since those would definitely help. Third we should have Lin look into the nature of curses to get a better idea to how to deal with this. Finally once everything is done we try to contact Vulkan to ask for his help for Lin to create an artifact to help heal Guilliman while offering some of our best people to help make up for a Primarchs absence.
Throw all this in and we may have a good shot at actually healing Guilliman.
Throw all this in and we may have a good shot at actually healing Guilliman.
John Masaki
The Guy With the Lightsaber
- Location
- Atlantis
He doesn't have to. He's a player of the Quest, after all.
Obligatory joke aside, Nurglites are going to be particularly annoying to fight. We'd have to scrub the hives down multiple times just be sure we got all the diseases out!
Enerael
We Shall Wake to Sanity
Good ideas! Curses might be viable and of some help, but sorcery will be both I am near certain.
Thinking about other options, Nature of Artifacts might work? Stellar plasma might too, if we confirm that the weirdness is warp based.
Also Paragon and Transcendence.
Healing herbs are not antidote herbs. And the physical wound is a minor issue, relatively. Top of the line Alkahestrial healing potion should work there if mundane tech can't.
True Healing would be great, but too many cooks is a major concern. It is very important that we figure out how to use the maximum amount of stuff together without interference.
Also, Sirens have proven... difficult to trade with.
Vulcan can help, but so can the Eldar or Areatha. As Vulcan is not very much not a cursebreaking guy, he is probably not the best choice. Unless him being Papa Smurfs brother can be used.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
I was thinking more:
the Healing Herb + (If possible)Siren rune to deal with the injury and help a bit with the poison (+? biomancers and conventional medical attention[just to make it seven or eight types of assistance rather than six])
Alkahestry to neutralize with the poison, especially the physical portion + Help from the dragons to override the warp portion of the poison
Lin + assistance(either Eldar or Areatha) to deal with the curse
Now I know this is dangerously close to suggesting using six things to override an Injury induced by a Slanneshi daemon Primarch, but the number occurs a lot in nature, and I specifically suggested adding conventional assistance to amp it up to seven/eight things.
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