Hounds of Abholos

[Jape]

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/2/22/Deathmongersmini.jpg/150px-Deathmongersmini.jpg

 

 

Out of the depths of space they come to hunt their prey. Striking against isolated colonies and ships, their rusted armour caked in blood, the Hounds of Abholos show no mercy to the followers of the False Emperor. Like carrion they pick away at the vulnerable frontier worlds of a waning Imperium.

The Hounds are renowned as pirates and saboteurs across Verana Sector and beyond. Only several hundred in number, the Traitor Marines oversee a vast conspiracy of cultists, undermining Imperial power on a dozen planets. All are devotees of Abholos – the "Black Star".

'Entity' is the most specific term the Inquisition is willing to grant Abholos. Abholos is called the Black Star because it exists as a tear in the Materium, a shimmering dark mass at the centre of the system known only as LD-9. Created by the destruction of the system's sun, the Black Star has kept the airless rocky worlds of LD-9 in orbit, acting as the base of operations for the Hounds. Theories vary wildly as to its true nature. Some Imperial agents believe Abholos is a powerful daemon, somehow unable to gain true physical form. Others believe it is merely a warp rift, personified by ignorant believers. Several human cultists interrogated by the Inquisition even claim that Abholos is an independent deity, a lesser Chaos god much like Malice.

 

Whatever Abholos truly is, the Black Star is known to predate the Hounds by several millennia. Beneath the surface of Leng, one of the seemingly lifeless rocks which orbits the warp entity, exists the Uropygids. A cthonic race of powerful psykers, they live within lightless cities of basalt rock. At some point in the 34th millennium, Uropygid sorcerors triggered the death of their sun, unleashing Abholos into the material realm. Perhaps drawn by Imperial activity, a warband known as the Bonetakers entered Verana Sector shortly after the region was conquered during the Third Navarene Crusade. Led by Lord Lyconus, the traitors stumbled across LD-9 and soon realised its importance. Lyconus pledged his loyalty to Abholos and joined forces with the Uropygids within the Temple of the Black Star.

 

For centuries the Hounds have raided and pillaged, all the while hiding their true intent, to gather the resources needed to complete Abholos' entry into reality. The true nature of this quest and the results of its possible success are worringly unknown to the Imperium. Uninterested in conquest, their tactics and numbers left the Hounds a mere distraction to Verana and its guardians, the Marines Scimitar, their piracy no more than pinpricks compared to the numerous Ork Waaaghs! besetting the region.

 

Troppinine Campaign

 

In the last sixty years the Hounds have switched focus, moving from frontier raids to more insidious operations deep within Imperial space. In 941.M41 the Hounds gathered their forces and struck at the feral world of Troppinine. A colonial backwater, the traitors took advantage of native opposition to Ecclesiarchy missionaries, triggering a major rebellion and ejecting the Imperial garrison in a matter of months. The Marines Scimitars' 5th Company led the counter-attack. Low on numbers both sides enlisted the native tribes. A vicious guerilla war saw individual Astartes leading spear-wielding hunting parties into the rain forests of Troppinine. Following the arrival of the 99th Catachan Jungle Fighters the campaign turned against the Hounds. The final major battle in 945.M41 came within the catacombs of Mount Malaking. Using natural caves and tunnels dug by slave labour, the Hounds and their most die hard supporters made a last stand. Forced to fight inch for inch in cramped conditions, the battle raged for weeks, with Scimitar terminators leading the drive deep into the mountain towards the Hound command centre.

 

Much to the Scimitars' anger, they did not find Lord Lyconus but Master Orban. A former Techmarine of the Covenantors chapters, Orban had succumbed to Abholos several decades prior to the Troppinine campaign. Unbeknownst to the Imperial, Orban had outmanoeurved Lyconus to seize control fo the warband. Escaping through a warphole created by a Uropygid sorceror, Orban fled taking an ancient artefact found within the bowels of Malaking. The rest of his warband likewise melted away, leaving the native cultists to their fate.

 

Penitent Sword Bombing

 

The pride of Battlefleet Verana, the Penitent Sword was an ancient Emperor-class battleship that had served the sector ever since Lord Solar Navarre's crusade two thousands years ago. In 992.M41, the ship was docked above Saint Maximon to host a meeting of important figures from the Administratum, Munitorum and Ecclesiarchy. Sensing the opportunity, Orban used his network of cultists to smuggle a bomb aboard the Penitent Sword to decapitate Verana's leadership. The plan proved only a partial success, being triggered early by a curious guard. A master of perverted technology, Orban had not planted ordinary munitions but a warp bomb. The weapon contaminated several decks onboard the Penitent Sword with warp radiation. Everyone hit quickly degenerated into Chaos Spawn, including the Sector Cardinal, Yama Crucius. The bomb effected the ship itself as well, mutating the hull and forcing her captain to scuttle the ship. The blow to the Imperial Cult and the loss of the Verana flagship have highlighted just how dangerous the Hounds of Abholos are to the sector's safety.