The Clockwork Kabal

The Clockwork Kabal

The Clockwork Kabal was started millinia ago by the Archon Tiravima Industria, whom believed the best way to sow terror and death is through the cold logic and creation of industry. The lower reaches of the Clockwork Kabal are alight with forges that never slow, and slaves that are seldom permitted sleep, and given only what little nourishment they need to go on another day. Drugged and worked till their bodies break, then thrown into the very furnaces they died working. Tiravima does not permit her Kabal to ever stop. The continued groans of thousands are music to her ears, and her growing fleet of realspace raid craft her pride and joy. It has garnered the Archon much wealth through the years, trading her masterly crafted craft for the continued cooperation of the Haemonculi covens, the Wych Cults, and the Incubi Shrines.

The forges of the Clockwork Kabal need constant workers, constant material. Unlike other Kabals who go out seeking slaves for the purpose of torture alone, the Clockwork goes seeking materials, and sees everything it gains as such. The forges themselves gaining the Eldar the agony they need to survive. The suffering of the slaves is long and hard. None who work the forges scream. They grunt, they moan, they ache, but they never have the energy to scream. Drugged upon arrival with a potent cocktail that drives their body to it's limits till they fall silently to the ground in a dead heap.

The various factions of Commorragh have a constant demand for the Kabals work, and it’s not simply because their work is good. Thousands of souls are devoured in the mighty furnaces of the Kabal each and every day, the skin, bones, and tortured souls of countless races being fed straight to the roaring fires to be shaped into the hulls of venoms, of ravagers, of the multitudinous vehicles the wretched Dark Eldar use. It is because of this their work is sought out, for what better way to truly agonize a soul than to boil it down into the very sort of craft that doomed it.

The Archon herself is a lonesome creature, always pushing for the newest in technologies, the newest advancements, for both her ships, and herself. Augmented muscles, bionic eyes, advanced hearing, she is as much an example of Eldarith Ynneas nobility as she is an example of their ingenuity. Her most recent addition being likely the most immediately striking: she's had her legs replaced with the slithering snake tail of a Sslyth. She stalks the battlefield aboard her own personal venom transport, flanked by whichever bodyguards strikes her fancy for the day, looking for the most enticing of foe. She is not only a great maker of craft, but takes much joy from the hunt; the sheer ecstasy of stalking and ultimately ending her foe seeming to melt the age from her ancient face even as she takes aim for that one well calculated shot.

Her fleet she would consider her children, if such an ancient and despicable creature such as an Archon could still understand what it means to love children. She rigorously inspects her work after each raid, the slightest imperfection upon the ships hull meaning the death of the unlucky Kabalite who was chosen to pilot the screaming metal creation. Always creating new ships, always pushing for newer advancements that might put her fleet above and beyond those of the other Kabals.

The Kabal paints it's armors and craft a dull gold to reflect both it's wealth to the humans who prize the metals and tend to be the most common of captors for the never stopping Kabal. Their screaming skimmer ships appearing to the poor humans who might see them, as a good omen, before the Dark Eldar rip and tear into their lines. Their favored foes are Space Marines. Not because they are a great foe who can work their furnaces for long period of time as might be expected. The Kabal doesn't even take the Marines as slaves, seeing them as to much of a reliability. Rather, the Space Marines and their penchant for wearing and using high quality goods and using high amounts arms and armor, are seen more as a slab of meat than a living, breathing, and suffering foe. Their bodies taken and thrown straight to the furnaces for immediate use.
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Well Known Kabalites

Archon Tiravima Industria: The Archon known as Tiravima grew weary of her peoples, as she would call them, boring means of extracting essence from the various lowly creatures of the galaxy far before she climbed the ranks of her Kabal to usurp the former Archon whose name has been long forgotten. She quickly turned the Kabal from it's focus of long gruelling torture, to putting those slaves they captured to real work. Within a hundred years the Kabal was a force to be reckoned with, with a fleet large enough to rival even the greater known Kabals of the Dark City.

That isn't to say she is wholly focused on the advancement of her Kabal. She takes great joy in the lament of her enemies. A master of all the various weapons in the Eldar arsenal, she is both their leader and greatest weapon. She often goes so far as to incorporate trophies from her greater kills to her self and her ships. One of her eyes is the bionic eye of a Iron Hands Space Marine Chapter Captain. Her personal Ravager gunboat has the skull of the largest Hive Tyrant she's even taken down, her entire lower body is the snake body of a Sslyth warlord that tried to rebel against the Kabals.

(Archon, will be converted with the lower half of a Sslyth and upper of a Lhamaean)

Nisukler: The Haemonculi Nisukler may not be a member of the Clockwork Kabal, but he certainly finds his way to it's halls more often than not. A sickly creature, who's taken to modification through technology as well as the skin and soul of his fellow Haemonculi. Many slaves go missing before they can find their ultimate fate of being bathed in the fire, to be taken for a much more gruesome fate. The horrible creature takes his prey to his workshop where he may one day do something simple like graft a mechanical limb straight to the slaves flesh, and the next tinker with how long it might take for them to die while having nerves replaced with his own mechanical creations. His favorite prey are former Techpriests, who he takes great delight in taking apart piece by piece.

Tiravima lets him do as he wishes, for very often he'll return the slave, ready to work again, with new agonies and greater ability to work the forges. The creature himself is a sickly abomination of flesh and steel, made out to look like the Techpriests he so adores in a form of mockery to their machine god.

(Haemonculi, considering green stuffing up a techpriest model for his own.)

Rasza: The skimmer captain known as Rasza, a former member of the Wych cult, she discovered a new love in the roaring engines and need for speed that is real space raids and Raider commanding. That isn't to say she lost her touch in face to face combat. The only thing she loves more than riding the metal constructs of the Kabal, is hearing the screams of her enemies as she tears her foes in two with her twin poison tipped blades. She's gone so far as to add wings to her back to symbolize her love for the wind as it wipes across her face, as well as to emulate the demons that mankind so fears. Her mastery of the ships is such that she can almost land right atop the enemy before they even see the raid coming.

Her love for extreme speeds has long since past obsessive. She'll ride at the prow of the great skimmer ships as dust and wind scars her face, holding her blades into the air daring anyone to take a shot at her rapidly approaching body. When battle is joined she doesn't wait for a stop, using the ships momentum to carry her straight into the thick of battle. When her feet touch the ground, they never stop moving. She becomes a whirlwind of blood and death, a great smile plastered upon her face as she hacks and slashes. If one of her weapons were to break, she'd merely take to her hands, continuing her rein of terror. Almost as quickly as she hits the ground and, she leaps back upon her ship to seek more opponents, not taking part in the capture of slaves but rather in the pacification of them. More beast than Eldar, the only thing keeping her fragile thrill seeking psyche in check is her continued employment under the Clockwork Kabal.

(A counts as Duke Slicus using a succubus model from reaper minis)


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Any and all criticism is appreciated. This is my first army in WH40K. The color will be a dull gold with a silver highlight. Anyone have a blank DE warrior template? I couldn't find one anywhere. Also, will take suggestions for the Archon's name, since I know it's kinda cheesy.

I thought that you might have named it after A Clockwork Orange. In that case, perhaps you should name her A'lex Delagge.

I like it so far. It's pretty well-written. Though, I find the idea that her slaves never sleep to be rather... ridiculous. She could get more suffering out of them for a longer time if she allowed them to sleep. Also, she seems extremely unreasonably strict about the condition of her craft. Executing a combat pilot for a scratch on the paint job? I dunno, these just kinda struck me as not fitting properly.

But otherwise, it's pretty cool. I enjoyed reading it.

Honestly, I thought the same. Writing it out right now.

(Sadly, I won't be able to start on this for a few weeks. I ran into car problems, so finances are tight. Can still write though!)

Well Known Kabalites

Archon Tiravima Industria: The Archon known as Tiravima grew weary of her peoples, as she would call them, boring means of extracting essence from the various lowly creatures of the galaxy far before she climbed the ranks of her Kabal to usurp the former Archon whose name has been long forgotten. She quickly turned the Kabal from it's focus of long gruelling torture, to putting those slaves they captured to real work. Within a hundred years the Kabal was a force to be reckoned with, with a fleet large enough to rival even the greater known Kabals of the Dark City.

That isn't to say she is wholly focused on the advancement of her Kabal. She takes great joy in the lament of her enemies. A master of all the various weapons in the Eldar arsenal, she is both their leader and greatest weapon. She often goes so far as to incorporate trophies from her greater kills to her self and her ships. One of her eyes is the bionic eye of a Iron Hands Space Marine Chapter Captain. Her personal Ravager gunboat has the skull of the largest Hive Tyrant she's even taken down, her entire lower body is the snake body of a Sslyth warlord that tried to rebel against the Kabals.

(Archon, will be converted with the lower half of a Sslyth and upper of a Lhamaean)

Nisukler: The Haemonculi Nisukler may not be a member of the Clockwork Kabal, but he certainly finds his way to it's halls more often than not. A sickly creature, who's taken to modification through technology as well as the skin and soul of his fellow Haemonculi. Many slaves go missing before they can find their ultimate fate of being bathed in the fire, to be taken for a much more gruesome fate. The horrible creature takes his prey to his workshop where he may one day do something simple like graft a mechanical limb straight to the slaves flesh, and the next tinker with how long it might take for them to die while having nerves replaced with his own mechanical creations. His favorite prey are former Techpriests, who he takes great delight in taking apart piece by piece.

Tiravima lets him do as he wishes, for very often he'll return the slave, ready to work again, with new agonies and greater ability to work the forges. The creature himself is a sickly abomination of flesh and steel, made out to look like the Techpriests he so adores in a form of mockery to their machine god.

(Haemonculi, considering green stuffing up a techpriest model for his own.)

Rasza: The skimmer captain known as Rasza, a former member of the Wych cult, she discovered a new love in the roaring engines and need for speed that is real space raids and Raider commanding. That isn't to say she lost her touch in face to face combat. The only thing she loves more than riding the metal constructs of the Kabal, is hearing the screams of her enemies as she tears her foes in two with her twin poison tipped blades. She's gone so far as to add wings to her back to symbolize her love for the wind as it wipes across her face, as well as to emulate the demons that mankind so fears. Her mastery of the ships is such that she can almost land right atop the enemy before they even see the raid coming.

(A counts as Duke Slicus using a succubus model from reaper minis)

I really like the idea behind your Kabal. I really like your Haemonculus - tech priest mutilation is a neat niche.

I must confess, I find "The Demon" to be more cliched than the rest; It just seems very generic. Everything else is a really good though, very original. I like the idea of forcing slaves to become a very integral part of the machine. I'd be tempted to go further, and incorporate bones from dead slaves into the wargear and so forth.

Also, I am sad to see an Industrial reference, but no goggles

Ecophagy wrote:

I really like the idea behind your Kabal. I really like your Haemonculus - tech priest mutilation is a neat niche.

I must confess, I find "The Demon" to be more cliched than the rest; It just seems very generic. Everything else is a really good though, very original. I like the idea of forcing slaves to become a very integral part of the machine. I'd be tempted to go further, and incorporate bones from dead slaves into the wargear and so forth.

Also, I am sad to see an Industrial reference, but no goggles

I'm going to change the name. I'm just -horrible- with names. That's a filler for now.

She will wear goggles, she is a pilot after all.

I actually meant that I find the whole character was less fleshed out and less original than your others.

Now I wonder, why would she replace her lower body with one singular organ with ubbermusculature that can handle tools with both power and skil, able to crush foes with the twitch of a muscle and could have her move at great speed with little effort... Ok, I'm starting to see why

What I really don't get is why she would hammer a space marine eye into her face. It has already been emphasized that DE technology is far superior than any Imperial technology. Other than that, I love the fluff, it's all very clever, and your writing makes it powerful. I imagine then your army is fast-attack, with many raiders, ravagers and reavers. If this is the case you could benefit from a character that replaces Baron Sathonix so you can field many Hellions and still get reavers and scourges.

I see what you mean on the "counts as" character. I mainly wanted an excuse to use a certain model, as well as to have a counts as. I'll revise it soon.

I'm also iffy on the eye. I wanted something monocle like for the character... suppose I could just green stuff a monocle!

revised:

Rasza: The skimmer captain known as Rasza, a former member of the Wych cult, she discovered a new love in the roaring engines and need for speed that is real space raids and Raider commanding. That isn't to say she lost her touch in face to face combat. The only thing she loves more than riding the metal constructs of the Kabal, is hearing the screams of her enemies as she tears her foes in two with her twin poison tipped blades. She's gone so far as to add wings to her back to symbolize her love for the wind as it wipes across her face, as well as to emulate the demons that mankind so fears. Her mastery of the ships is such that she can almost land right atop the enemy before they even see the raid coming.

Her love for extreme speeds has long since past obsessive. She'll ride at the prow of the great skimmer ships as dust and wind scars her face, holding her blades into the air daring anyone to take a shot at her rapidly approaching body. When battle is joined she doesn't wait for a stop, using the ships momentum to carry her straight into the thick of battle. When her feet touch the ground, they never stop moving. She becomes a whirlwind of blood and death, a great smile plastered upon her face as she hacks and slashes. If one of her weapons were to break, she'd merely take to her hands, continuing her rein of terror. Almost as quickly as she hits the ground and, she leaps back upon her ship to seek more opponents, not taking part in the capture of slaves but rather in the pacification of them. More beast than Eldar, the only thing keeping her fragile thrill seeking psyche in check is her continued employment under the Clockwork Kabal.

(A counts as Duke Slicus using a succubus model from reaper minis)

Powerful. Keep up the good work.

Need some help.

I need to make Wracks look appropriate for this Haemmy, any ideas?

What did you have in mind? Making them seem more technological?

If that is the case, one of the things you could do is make the holes in their masks shine with warm lights. It will give an effect of burning, which relates to your fluff.
If you feel daring, you could add small chimneis and valves to their spines with green stuff, but not even I would bother with such a task.

Those are two ideas that spring to mind.

Enjoying this immensely. You obviously have put a lot of thought and effort into your background and individual characters.

What about some nod towards Flayed Ones for your Wracks? Eldar and Necrontyr are ancient enemies, so it would be befitting to enslave them somehow and inflict all manner of depravity upon them, and you would have elements of flesh and technology evident.

Well, that would not quite stick, because the idea is industry, not slavery. Besides, flayed ones have different rules to Wracks

The whole idea is industry based on slavery. And the Flayed Ones would count as Wracks, not FO's.

Yet, if enslaved FO they are, as enslaved FO they should behave. I don't see why they would loose the repair protocols and gain feel no pain just because they are under DE control. And the slaves are just what fuels the industry.