Corsairs: The Wailing Doom

This will be a somewhat work-in-progress. I will be writing down my current ideas, try to organize them around for myself and hopefully give a decent read to others as well. It will be updated with some more characters and probably pictures of the models as well as the time goes on. Critique and suggestions always welcome, as long as it's constructive.

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The corsair fleet Wailing Doom is a union (in the loosest meaning of the word) of several raider groups and wych cults, brought together, unified and lead by the Dread Archon Talari. As such, the various members of the corsair fleet sport uniforms and vehicles of many colours, the unifying element being the crimson red sigils signifying the corsair fleet itself. The fleet does not shy from recruiting various races of xenos within their ranks - it is the worth of an individual that counts, not its kin. As long as someone can pull his weight and impress the Dread Archon or one of her lieutenants, it matters not if they were a Sslyth, Tau, Demiurge or even a lowly Ratling. The required trials of worth have a quite large casualty rate, however.

The name of the fleet comes from Talari's obsessive belief and desire to prove being a chosen of the war god Khaine himself. She likens her band of corsairs to the destructive weapon of the Avatar of Khaine, like it the corsair fleet leaves nothing but smoking trails of devastation and ash behind it as it makes its shrieking swings. Amongst the regular warriors, taken from various parts of Commoragh, the ruling opinion is that the Dread Archon merely chose the name to gain favour with the Bloody Handed, wych cult devoted entirely to worship of Khaine. Only the oldest members of the fleet remember that the joining of the Bloody Handed was done through a hostile takover, rather than a negotiation table.

While the fleet answers the Dread Archon, she in turn follows the will of the haemonculus Siticus the Ancient, the strategic mind guiding the powerful blade of the Archon. While each of them cares little of eachother's goals, Talari's cunning and guile is invaluable in retrieving various exotic samples for Siticus' research, as well as the very basic benefits of slaves and plundered resources. Likewise, Siticus' knowledge and intellect provides Talari with the exquisite strategic, tactical and technological supremacy over her foe as well as a means of supply and preparation for further raids.


Dread Archon Talari Baliarstill (Twinblade)

Talari is a skilled and agile fighter, her strength and prowess with blades earned from her long years as a member of a wych cult. She is not a strategic mastermind, often plagued with indecision and severe paranoia before important raids. In battle, however, she devotes herself entirely to the fight, planning tactics on the spot, barking out orders from the very thick of the battle and reveling in the murderous drug-induced frenzy and her near-invincibility (in her mind, at least) in close combat. She chooses to outright annihilate the enemy's commanders in duels if possible, rather than drawing out a war of attrition and prolonged tactical maneuvers. This arrogant and audacious nature has granted her many decisive and crushing victories, though not always without grievous wounds.

The constant political struggle between various cults and kabals claims many lives, and it was almost the case with Talari as well. The Succubus of the wych cult Talari was a part of attempted and failed to assassinate the archon of the Broken Vow kabal. The reason for the failure was a simple underestimation of the archon's cowardly nature and unwillingness for a duel for impotence and incompetence. The roar of the dark lances of the archon's Ravagers eradicated the Succubus and caused the wych arena to collapse. Through a combination of luck, resilience, spite and a burning desire to have revenge on the archon, Talari survived the long, tumbling fall through the collapsing tunnels underneath the ancient arena. The unconscious Talari was uncovered by one of the probes of haemonculus Siticus, then taken to his lair. There, the barely conscious wych was given a simple choice - have her life saved at the cost of a part of her soul and allegiance to the haemonculus, or to be left to die. Talari chose to not die.

Her shattered body repaired and improved with the tech of the haemonculus, Talari had become a far more intimidating foe than before. With Siticus' guiding hand, she rounded up a band of mercenaries and infiltrated on board of her nemesis archon's flagship. There, she found her despised foe and killed him, driving her blades through the body of the archon faster than he could react. Her imagined victory granted her no satisfaction, however. The flagship's crew, seeing the fate of their leader, quickly surrendered and swore their allegiance to their new leader. Talari accepted, though from that point onward forbidding to utter the name of their previous leader - as the death of the archon was unmemorable and disappointing, she would not grant him the honor of being remembered. As such, the defeated archon became forgotten in a few centuries.

While Talari did not hide her dislike for Vect's rule, as she was a supporter of the ancient ways of nobility, she had no desire to stay in Commoragh and oppose it openly. Instead, she chose to make a name for herself in the Void. She claims to have seen prophetic visions that prove her as marked by Khaela Mensha Khaine himself, and is hell-bent on facing the trial of defeating an Avatar of Khaine in a duel. By doing so, she would prove herself as the mightiest fighter of all Eldar. Her fiery determination (and skill in battle) has gained the allegiance of the wych cult of the Bloody Handed, a wych cult devoted to the worship of Khaine. They believe Talari's vision and will follow her wherever she leads them. The general opinion amongst her corsairs is that all that matters is that she leads them to victory, regardless of being favoured by Khaine or not.


Siticus the Ancient

When he was but a simple servant of other haemonculi, Siticus desired nothing more than the secret of eternal life. To become eternal, to have unlimited amount of time for seeking knowledge and understanding the universe down to its smallest detail - that was the quest he had set out to fulfill. Eventually, he achieved what he had set out to do - he built and perfected the process for his soul to be put in another body upon the moment of a fatal failure of the previous one. Paranoid as he was, and afraid that someone could still disrupt the processes within the machinery and stop his reincarnation, he fully automated the process and disabled any means he could think of that could stop it, making himself, for all known intents and purposes, infinite. However, the process was not without flaw. With each new incarnation, his soul and mind becomes more and more fractured, leading to ever-increasing forms of dementia as well as a constant increase in his eccentricity, as his savage thirst for suffering only increases with time.

The unknown amount of reincarnations and amount of swapped bodies has also lead Siticus to shun the widely-preferred amongst Haemonculi art of fleshcrafting. Flesh in his eyes is weak, temporary and fragile, prone to being damaged easily. Instead, he focuses on more subtle ways to increase the productivity of his body. Seeing himself as an artist and artisan, above the basic practices of much younger haemonculi, he prefers sophisticated, sleek and beautiful technological devices over simple, crude, though still quite functional flesh-based means. This has lead him to grow more and more fascinated with the technology of Necrons, going by his own words, "The ancient knowledge of Necrontyr makes me feel like an upstart apprentice again... is it not amazing?". This fascination is one of the very rare things that can still invigorate enthusiasm in him, and he has given into his pursuits of finding the perfect balance between flesh and metal. He sometimes has Talari's corsairs scouring tomb worlds for some new additions for his research table.

He sees Talari and her corsair fleet as something of a pleasant passtime, a little side project that always gives him a faint, crooked smile underneath his expressionless mask. He has many times named it his "own beautiful garden of pain", calling Talari herself as his defiant black rose, the centerpiece of his ingenious composition. He is rather patronizing to Talari, much to her own dislike, but Siticus does not question or devalue her in front of her corsairs. To them, Siticus is seen as the odd, ancient haemonculus advisor that sometimes accompanies their captain. The corsairs often mutter that he could swallow their souls in a blink of an eye just as likely as gift them all new and improved blasters. Siticus himself finds such mutterings amusing and does not bother refuting them, just as a gardener would care little of the opinions of his flowers.