World Building: Part 9 - The Path of the Martyr (terrain progress)

It seems I've been reasonably busy on the quiet working away at the terrain for the Path of the Martyr. What has been a bit of a hot summer in "Croydon, yo", particularly in the furnace-like area of the house I'd got set aside for a painting area made for a bit of a nightmare climate. Paint seemed to dry on the brush even while using thinned paint on a wet palette.

In order to solve the problem, or avoid it, more to the point, I bought a pack of cheapo paint brushes from a discount book store by the name of 'The Works' for 3 English quids. I moved my painting shit to the dining table and did some rough and ready paint jobs with some jumbo brushes on the terrain, which seems to have turned out pretty well, even if a little basic.

It also seems I have enough terrain ready (or near enough ready) to pretty much fill a 4x4 table. Which was a surprise discovery earlier this evening when I decided to put it all on the gaming table...

The wood in the foreground is unfinished

An overview. Please ignore the miscellaneous crap in the background

Please ignore the frankly awful duvet cover that is protecting the dining table

28mm dudes eye view

Daemonhosts - the Sacred & the Profane part 2

Following on from the previous blog post, this is the second of two Daemonhosts.  The previous one representing the Sacred, this one representing the Profane.

The Profane is manifesting in a different way to his erstwhile companion, and is restrained and warded differently too.  You will notice there is an obvious size difference between the models (see final picture).  The Sacred has been forced into increasing the size and strength of the host body in order to better manage the burden put upon it.  The Profane can sometimes be hard to keep under control, and has a vicious and violent nature.  The host form has been placed in consecrated stocks which are adorned with litanies of faith.

I like to think of the Profane as an homage to Nosferatu. Only partially accidental!

Daemonhosts – the Sacred & the Profane part 1

I’ve been toying with the idea of putting together an inquisitorial war band for quite some time now, primarily for use in games of a Kill Team kind of size, but with a view to potentially getting involved in the INQ28 scene.  The three people that read this cry for help on a semi-regular basis may recall that I put together a couple of rough 3D sketches of a Vindicare and Eversor assassin a couple of months back.

This week, I’ve unearthed the old bits box and gotten to work on the first of (probably) two Daemonhosts. At this point I should probably explain my vision of Daemonhosts in terms of my war band.  What I am hoping to convey, is the idea of a Daemonhost as a somewhat subjugated creature.  From the Warhammer 40,000 mythos, we know that a Daemonhost is a daemonic entity that has been ritually bound into a corporeal form and kept under tenuous control by an inquisitor (usually) through the application of warding which may be in the form of tattoos, scars (amongst other more esoteric methods), psychic powers, and sheer will.

It stands to reason that demonic possession is not going to be a positive experience for your typical individual. It’s a loss of control. In the case of the creation of a Daemonhost, the possession is almost exclusively against the will of host, and the binding of the daemonic entity will almost exclusively be against the will of the creature (although who are we to know? For the motives of the daemon are beyond mortal ken, and thus are opaque to our primitive understanding).  I theorise that in a normal case of daemonic possession, that for the host, it would be similar to being trapped under ice, but within their own body. In terms of a Daemonhost, the daemonic entity would also experience a sense of being trapped within the host with no immediate means of escape. The Daemonhost is seemingly enslaved on two levels. How much the Daemonhost (both as host and daemonic entity) suffers would be entirely in the hands of its master, who will force the creature to do their bidding, and might mercilessly reward resistance with punishment.

In the case of this particular Daemonhost, I have portrayed it as shackled at the ankles, no doubt by ritually blessed chains. It is also carrying a huge basin of blessed or Holy Water as an additional means of control that the inquisitor has devised. The basin has no flat bottom, and thus the host cannot put it down. The weight it carries is immense, both physically and psychologically. It fears to spill the water for it will be punished for wastefulness. It fears to spill the water, for it will spill onto the Daemonhost and inflict excruciating pain upon the entity imprisoned within. In turn, one would imagine the caged entity would in turn thrash and tear at the host body itself.  In the pictures, the Daemonhost appears as though it might be pausing to rest, and temporarily alleviate some of the weight it is forced to bear.

I would like to express my thanks to Tim (Fulgrim) at The Tears of Istvaan for his advice on constructing shackles, and to Tom at this very blog for providing many of the parts that went into this miniature.

Relics of a fallen Imperium #6

Exhibits from the Nurgle Grotesquerie #7

World Building part 8: Background to the Path of Martyrs

Historically, during the long drawn-out and tragic period known as ‘Old Night’, the populations of the majority of the worlds inhabited by mankind in the Abstruse Sector slipped back to the worship of the Old Gods in varying guises, and were brought to compliance with the Imperial Truth only with great difficulty during the Great Crusade (M31).  Soon enough, when Horus Lupercal and many of his brother Primarchs rose up against their father, many worlds in the Abstruse Sector also rose up in support of Horus, and threw off the yoke of Imperial oppression.

For thousands of years thereafter, the Abstruse Sector became synonymous with words such as strife, unrest, and upheaval. Many were the campaigns which sought to bring this troubled region of the galaxy back to the Emperor’s light.  The ‘Path of the Martyr’ is a string of shrine worlds and moons linking the rim-ward fringes of the Seriphos Sector to the core-ward fringes of the neighbouring Abstruse Sector.  The ‘Path’ is so named as it marks the route of successful campaign of reconquest undertaken by Imperial forces led in part by Saint Felicitè, during M37.

A series of shrine worlds were erected in ensuing centuries, marking out key sites of victories, designed to act as lasting monuments to the sacrifice of millions of Imperial lives. At the end of the ‘Path’, lies the world of Felicity, which marks the site of the eventual doom and ultimate sacrifice of  Saint Felicitè, where she was stricken down as she concluded rites of banishment which ended a Daemonic incursion, and paved the way for a decisive victory against the more corporeal forces of the Archenemy.  Following this victory, the hold of chaos over the Sector waned, and was seemingly expunged. All rejoiced.

Relative peace followed until mid M39, when the entire border region between the Seriphos and Abstruse sectors was embroiled in one of the most severe warp storms in Imperial history (although due to the vagaries of misplaced data and the bureaucratic processes within the Administratum, this cannot be verified). Cut off completely from the divine light of the Astronomicon, unreachable by astropath, warp travel or even travel in real space for centuries, the Abstruse Sector had become a watchword for misfortune, nay, a curse, an augur of misery. It was a region of the galaxy that was largely ignored, although the angry stain of the warp storm dominated the skyline of many worlds at that fringe of the Seriphos Sector. A stain that was said to echo that of the very Eye of Terror itself.

In recent times, as inexplicably as it arose, the warp storm has suddenly receded.  The Path of the Martyr is once again accessible to travel, and exploratory missions of the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition have begun, with the purpose of recovering relics and attempting to ascertain the possible causes of the Warp Storm.  Eventual repopulation of the area is a secondary concern. Surrounding space is heavily interdicted by elements of the Imperial Navy which call the Seriphos Sector home.

Reports from the Holy Ordos indicate that exploratory forces of the Archenemy and the greenskin have been encountered on the Path, though the Throne knows what sinister purposes and motivations have brought them to the region…