Kabals of Commorragh: The Obsidian Rose

Kabal of the Obsidian Rose

Archon Aestra Khromys has much in common with Asdrubael Vect, not only because of her belief in the supremacy of the skilled, but also because she can trace her beginnings to the slave-chambers of the depths of lower Commorragh. Banished from the spires of the Black Myriad for her refusal to bow down and kiss the hand of the Kabal's founder, Archon Vhloriac, Khromys was flung into the endless monotony of the Dark City's munitions factories. There she was forced to toil endlessly in the construction of basic splinter weaponry, assembling the same parts over and over again until her life became a meaningless gruel of repetition and her days blended together into a recurring nightmare. No keener punishment has ever been devised for the true hedonist, but unlike those prisoners going slowly mad in the claustrophobic weapon cells ranged all around her, Khromys could see a way out. She bent every scrap of her focus and concentration into constructing the most perfectly assembled and painstakingly accurate weaponry her prodigious craftsmanship would allow. It took a dozen weeks before the superior quality of her work was noticed, and the best part of a year to secure her transference to a graded workshop within High Commorragh. There she continued to fashion masterpieces of destruction. Such was the quality and superior craftsmanship of her team's weapons that soon enough the weapons were asked for by name. Before the decade was out, a thriving trade in Khromys weaponry circulated throughout the upper echelons of the Obsidian Rose; each gun and gauntlet a unique symbol of status and an incomparable instrument of destruction into the bargain.

Khromys' plan came to fruition when she and her team of master artisans were purchased wholesale by the Archon of the Obsidian Rose. Given her own well-appointed workshop complexes in order to 'work her magic,' Khromys continued to supply her masters with the exceptional weapons they wore so proudly at their sides. She also built several weaponised artefacts of her own; each more lethal yet more harmless-looking than the last. When Khromys and her clique of master artisans were finally escorted to the audience chamber of Archon Vhloriac, it appeared to their escort of silent Incubi that they were unarmed, whereas in fact their rudimentary-looking armour and tithe-gifts bristled with concealed weaponry.

This came as a shocking but lethally brief surprise to Vloriac and his court, for when Khromys staged her bloody coup the exquisite weaponry the Archon's court brought to bear upon Khromys mysteriously ceased to work at the crucial moment. Since that day the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose has served under Khromys and her exceptionally well-armed followers. One day, the Queen of Splinters may find herself on the wrong end of a simple knife or impaled upon a Mandrake's claw, but for now at least, the Kabal thrives by the power of its weaponry and the wits of its ever-inventive mistress.