Kabal of the Burning Eye

ok so I've had this idea bouncing around my head in the less entertaining parts of the working day for a while now, so I figured I'd put it into words here with a view to getting some feedback and working it up into a fuller background for my DE collection.

The Kabal is formed from an old merchant house, the patriarch of whom saw an opportunity arise when Vect established the new Kabalite order. The merchant house had specialised in the exotic of all kinds, materials, drugs, weapons etc, but especially slaves, with a particular skill at providing for gladiatorial games.

The patriarch decided to expand his sphere of influence, and set about creating a dynasty, and had twins, one male, one female. The female was groomed for combat and the male as a leader of warriors. What the patriarch didn't realise however was that his offspring had taken on the treacherous teachings of vect more completely than he could have ever imagined, and while his daughter progressed to become a syren in the wych cults, his son had been plotting with her to assassinate their father and take control of the Kabal.

Their base of operations is located on the outskirts of Aelindrach and the Bone Middens, and the son (Ylos Dalur) negotiated a price with the Mandrakes that inhabit aelindrach for the assassination of his father, becoming Archon of the Kabal. The price was for eternal protection of one of the most exposed routes into Aelindrach, and the bargain secured the ongoing support of the Mandrakes during raids by the Kabal. The Mandrakes would gain guardians for their domain, and the Kabal of the Burning Eye (to suggest insatiable greed of its Archon as regards the posessions of others) as it became known would gain the assistance of the shadowy assasins.

Meanwhile, Alari Druith'sila the young Archon's sister, abandoned the wych cult she had joined, and with a handful of wyches and the help of her brother, established her own wych cult, specialising in death from an unexpected direction, naming them the Cult of the Shadowed Blade. The Kabal provides the Wych cult with sport for their games, and a base of operations, whilst the Wyches brought in riches through the attendance of the Dark Eldar at their gladiatorial exhibitions.

The Kabal of the Burning Eye still specialises in the provision of exotic materials and slaves, it's Archon yearning for recognition and fear from the larger more established Kabals, but most of all power that comes from the crushing of its enemies via the means of deception and assassination. The Cult of the Shadowed Blade meanwhile has grown in influence due to the unusual and rare nature of the participants within its gladiatorial contests.

Due to the nature of their evolution, the Kabal and Cult are frequently seen taking to the field together, and the wealth amassed by the kabal through their trading activities sees their forces well equipped with men and materiel. The Kabal rarely conducts raids without assistance from their Mandrake allies, and to cross the young Archon often results in death, the ice riming the corpses of his enemies providing the only evidence as to the nature of the assasin.

The Kabal, though small and relatively recently established, is seen to be in the ascendant, and many young Dark Eldar align themselves to its banner to share in the burgeoning influence of its Archon.

Nice bit of fluff you have there and I love how you have incorporated the Mandrakes in to justify taking those awesome models! If only more players fielded their armies based on back story over template armies.

I'm inspired to get writing my own force back story now! I did write a huge response to your project log over on my intro post but it didn't seem to post... the general idea was that I'm loving your work!

Oh you see I love the back story, I've collected loads of marine armies over the years (well, started them at least) and I've always tried to have a little twist to each one of them, even if it's through leaving behind some types of weapons in favour of others (projectile vs energy weapons for example). It does seem that the majority of players go for the cookie cutter army list, but personally I'd far rather have a less effective unit that looks cool than multiples of the most mathematically efficient option available. After all, ours is a creative hobby!

Thanks for the compliments about my plog, there are some brilliant collections on here that have inspired me to up my game, and though I'm not the quickest painter around, I am gradually making progress on a force that I can actually field. That being said, I've played only rarely since 3rd edition but I'm hoping to get a friend or two involved when 6th comes out, even if it means I'm doing all the collecting and painting. Just got my ticket to the design studio 40K open day in July, which seems to be a bit of a launch event if the rumours are true so I'm highly excited about that.

Design studio open day you say? I shall have to have a look at that. Keep an eye out for my fluff post, I'm going to go and get excited over it for a bit, leaving behind the marines feels like a good call now.

14th July. I'll look forward to reading it, the best bit of advice i read about writing fluff was to keep it realistic. no-one is going to believe it if you claim your archon is more powerful than vect for example, or that he's a powerful psychic etc. oh yeah, safer to stay away from writing fluff for a kabal created by gw too, they have an inconvenient habit of coming back to them later.

I wouldn't dream or care to do either of the above, half the fun of fluff writing for me is creating something believable and interesting of mine own design.

Glad to hear it!

I enjoyed the fluff of this post, especially after having just finished Path of the Renegade. I've also had some ideas for names but whenever I come up with something I feel it either sounds too nice or that it doesn't have enough K's or Y's like every Dark Eldar name I've ever seen before haha. My army has a bit of a theme to it, what it lacks in screeching half-nude gladiators it makes up for in flying and floating monstrosities (Scourges, Reavers). I also threw in a Talos Pain Engine just so I can talk about the "MIGHTY TALOS" in-game like all the priests do in Skyrim

7th ed codex - I've decided to add coven elements (beyond the scourges) to my collection, so needed to come up with some background for them.

I've written a background story for my arena champion (first part of which is on the forum) and in it there's a haemonculus torturing an eldar Autarch. I've decided to bring him into the fold as the leader of my coven elements, the Coven of Distorted Perfection. The name has been chosen to represent the fact that the head Haemonculus specialises in dismemberment, alteration and excruciation of craftworld and exodite Eldar.

I haven't yet tied in the story of the Coven to the Kabal and Cult elements, but rest assured I'll post it up as soon as it's done.