The story of the Cult of Golden Tears is rife with lies and honors, truths and disgrace. To many they are hated enemies and friends to so few. No matter which side one finds themselves on the Cult of Golden Tears remain a threat as none can resist the desires that drive their lusts. Their history is vast yet near forgotten or lost but all stories must have a beginning.
Some do not even know of the Emperor as he conquered Old Earth. How his Thunder Warriors served not only well in battle but as a bookmark of success in the lost art of gene-manipulation. From their glory and ashes came his finest warriors, the Space Marine Legions. Among them none were as perfect as the III Legion.
They once stood proud and resplendent upon the battlements of the Imperial Palace. From him they took their name, the Emperor’s Children, and his personal heraldry as their own. It was an honor none could match. They would be cast into the stars to conquer them for their Emperor in his Great Crusade.
They would suffer both tragedy and glory as they waged war. Some could argue that ink would run dry before any scribe or remembrancer could truly detail the honor and valor of the Emperor’s Children that would do render unto them the magnificence they deserved. However, all things change.
Upon the stage of Istvaan the Emperor’s Children revealed their true colors. The betrayal of their oaths and the massacre of their legion brothers forever marred their honor. Corruption took hold and the warriors who once stood proud and valiant had now fallen the furthest. They had cast their lot in support of the Horus Heresy.
They would bring ruin to the Imperium they had built as they raced to tear down the Imperial Palace. Fate however did not favor them as they and their traitorous kin were repelled from Terra and hounded into the Eye of Terror.
It is here, in their realm of nightmare vision and hell that the Legion had been shattered. Upon the anvil of Skalathrax they were broken and scattered. It is here the Cult of Golden Tears took its first breath.
Running from the wrath of brothers a fleet of III Legion vessels sailed and endured the waves of the aether. Raiding and plundering from their kin to survive and slake their desires they were as crows upon the battlefield during the beginning of the Legion Wars.
Their numbers were dwindling as well as their supplies. Their fleets of ships were broken things barely able to sail. It is in this time salvation was delivered. Within a region known as the Veil of Howls they had come upon the Broken Sun.
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The Veil of Howls was once system of planets known as the Gaul System. It should not have been within the realm of the Eye of Terror. Once an industrious hive and resource rich system it had been consumed by the raging warp storms that bleed into reality during the Horus Heresy. When the mighty storms retreated it dragged Gaul back with them.
Three worlds, although inhospitable, support life even within the nightmare realm. Gaul Primus, once home to billions, has been ravaged by undergrowth. Enclosed within mighty fortress walls and vast hab-domes forests and vast jungles cover the surface of a world which had been a hub of massive hive cities. Their tallest spires can barely rival the strange, gigantic fauna that has grown from seeds of the warp. Life still dwells here but those of human origin find themselves prey to unnatural predators that hunt with great hunger.
Vall had been the breadbasket for both the system and several crusading forces. Their agricultural might could feed untold billions with their rich soil and an army of farm-laborers. Now it is a dustbowl of arid, dry fields. With tragic irony millions who dwelt upon Vall died of starvation and thirst but it has not stopped them. Now their husk-corpses crack and crease as they rise to stumble through the vast nothingness in search of flesh to feast upon.
The last had once been hollowed-out shell turned into a forge of the Mechanicum of Mars. Its previous name is lost to history and the Martian Adepts designation is a long winded sequence of zeroes and ones. Thus it is known as such to the Cult of Golden Tears and the few that are allowed within their perceived domain. Zeroes and Ones had been a marvel of technological wonders capable of producing machinery of industry and war. From hand tools to warships nearly nothing was out of their grasps. However, by means known only to the madness of the warp the world is now covered in ice. Though nothing but harsh winds stir upon its surface it is believed something still dwells within. However, what it could be remains unknown.
Casting its shadow upon the surface of Zeroes and Ones orbits a ancient relic, a starfort from mythic times, the Broken Sun.
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The Broken Sun aimed the full might of its guns toward the ill fleet of the Cult of Golden Tears. The astartes mimicked with all the firepower their ships could muster. Every encounter in the warp and among traitors had ceased being the joyous celebrations of the past turning into standoffs with a show of arms. Hails and challenges echoed from the III Legion and they were met with the binaric code dialect of the Oscillating Eye. A coven of twisted Martian adepts and masters who laid claim to the region and the buried riches it contained.
Each force could guarantee the destruction of their foe but at great loses. In this standstill, over the contemplation of a pyrrhic victory, the dialogued changed into negotiating. There would be no victor when each force could assure mutual destruction. Words, threats, and boasts finally formed a bond of symbiotic relation. The Oscillating Eye would provide arms, supplies, and a base to the legion warriors. In exchange the Cult of Golden Tears would add their fleet and warriors to the defense of the Broken Sun while also providing a force to raid and acquire much needed raw materials.
Although coming to terms it is an uneasy alliance. However, it has held as the benefits have outweighed betrayal. With their ships repaired and their forces repaired the Cult of Golden Tears strike out from the Veil of Howls to reap sorrow and misery against anything that can bring them satisfaction.