Faction Showcase: The Sons of Malady

 

The Maelstrom-bound planet of Krypteia IV is ruled by two factions of Chaos Space Marines - the more numerous Shadow Reavers, and the smaller, yet more specialized Sons of Malady, worshippers of Nurgle the Plaguefather.

The Sons are an offshoot of the Iron Warriors, who escaped Medrengard upon developing The Gauntlet of the Sacred Affliction, a novel method of binding a host suffering from the obliterator technovirus to a vehicle - akin to the process of binding a daemon of the Empyrean to a machine. Covetous of their secret ways and paranoid of their brethren in the IV Legion, they made their way to the Maelstrom, where they found the hidden system of Krypteia - a system of four planets, the fourth of which housed hidden subterranean forges of the Dark Mechanicum, and whose surface was ruled by petty tetrarchs. Finding common ground with the warband known as the Shadow Reavers, the two groups worked together to oust the tetrarchs and declare themselves masters of the planet. To what end the paranoid and secretive Maladists aided the Reavers in the conquest, only two people know, and neither is willing to share the secret. However, building the sort of rapport that stems from battle, the Maladists and Reavers meshed their styles of combat so well that they decided to maintain the partnership in perpetuity, though the never-trusting Maladists have plenty of contingencies for the, in their minds, inevitable moment the two come to blows. Whatever their future machinations, the Maladists bide their time, pursuing their own goals away from the prying eyes of enemies and allies alike, whether in Medrengard or in the Maelstrom.

The Maladists escape Medrengard with their hard-developed secrets.

An Obliterator cult that numbers only scant groups of seven, they specialize in siege warfare and heavy weapons support for the more numerous Reavers and their respective slaves to darkness, the Porphyr Elixis and the Plaguebatteries numbering in droves. Seldom do the Maladists enter the fray in any number, as covetous of their lives as of their secrets, but when they do, they relish in destruction, bringing overwhelming firepower and swift death to all who oppose them. They have an almost religious hatred of enemy fortifications, and dismantle them with murderous, daemonic glee, for it is the Plaguefather Nurgle that demands the inevitable end and rebirth of all things.

ORGANIZATION

War Smith Baash-Chellik the Deathless

Baash-Chellik is the sole leader of the warband, a hulking monstrosity of a creature that can no longer be called human. Struck by the obliterator virus aeons ago, the mutated War Smith has been destroyed countless times, only to rise up again, regenerating from leftover scraps of slag - thus, called the Deathless. Or at least, so do Maladist legends claim. Almost none alive has seen this alleged process of regeneration. He is revered as living god of the Maladists, both among the warband's marines and their mewling mortal supplicants. His plans span centuries, and none know them, save the Deathless.

Sergeant Lobanya, bottom left, is the newest struck by the technovirus, yet oldest among the Maladists and more ambitious than all of them combined. Some rumour him to have seen the beginning of the Long War itself. Solely he, among all, knows the Deathless's true machinations and nature.

The Plaguefather's Chosen

The elite of the warband, the Chosen are those living who have been afflicted with the technovirus that mutates a Space Marine into an Obliterator, an avatar of diseased, heavy-gunned destruction. Numbering exactly six, along with the Deathless they make the sacred number of Nurgle, their patron - 7. Pustulent monsters that drink promethium and spew flesh-slick weapons from their innards, they are revered as demigods by the Maladists' subjects. Whenever an otherwise hale Maladist begins to show the signs of the technovirus, he makes his way towards the Chosen's inner fortress and demands recognition among their number. One among them must answer his call and fight the upstart to the death, for the sacred number of seven must be maintained to keep the favour of the Grandfather of all Plagues. If the upstart manages to win and kill the Chosen, then, and only then, may he take his place among the brotherhood.

Those stricken with the technovirus who fail to reach the Chosen's echelon are chained to abominable weapons of destruction, becoming known as brother-machines by the rest of the Maladists.

The Predator Endless Spite.

The Land Raider Iron Cage, named for that ancient battle with great gladness.

Brother-Machines of the Maladists

The scant few among the Chosen who will be given Nurgle's honour to bear the mutating technovirus but will fail to win their death duel against the seating Chosen or are otherwise lost to battle before they can issue their challenge, will undergo the Gauntlet of the Sacred Affliction. Should they survive the deadly warp-infused, tech-heretical ritual, the secret and revered process of Maladist binding will turn the hopeful into an unholy and powerful amalgam, becoming daemon, man, vehicle and virus all in one. Put through a grueling seventy-seven-day process, the chosen supplicant's soul will be painfully torn from their body and merged with that of a daemon and then a vehicle, anointed in pus-filled unguents and given new existence as a living, sentient warmachine of the Maladists.

Like the obliterator who bore the technovirus in life, this new amalgam can likewise produce different panoplies and armaments from its techno-organic innards, a process which takes days to complete and requires an inordinate amount of power, during which the machine must be fed promethium, scrap metal, ammunition and human flesh. This flexibility in loadouts allows the Maladists to sport a smaller pool of vehicles which can be outfitted towards any necessity.

Kugarin Ulerov, Warpsmith

Ulerov is the latest recruit of the warband, and the sole survivor of seventy other chosen to undergo the process of becoming a Space Marine. Outside of the demigod Chosen, each Maladist is a heretek by nature, and they do not serve in direct combat roles, instead maintaining the vehicles and equipment of the Sons and their mortal servants, the Plaguebatteries. As a former bombardier general of the Plaguebatterists, Ulerov, knowing their ways and well-respected for his tactical acumen, is often put in charge of the countless rabble.

Every brand of war machine is, in effect, a living Maladist given new power.

The Plaguebatteries form Heavy Weapons Squads or Fire Teams to do the grunt work of their masters.

The Plaguebatteries

Machines of war, human hereteks, renegades and their ilk, the Plaguebatteries comprise the main bulk of the Maladists' forces. Venerating the Chaos Space Marines and their machines as living deities, each among their number hopes to one day join the ranks of the Astartes, yet almost none succeed. Experts at siege warfare, they are as spiteful and cruel as any Iron Warrior, and will freely stab each other over even the slightest promise of a promotion up the ranks. Despite their ragged and brutal nature, they are well organised and extremely hierarchical, for the Maladists require unerring discipline and grit. They are used as pawns and bargaining chips in the game of war by their callous and uncaring masters, expending their lives in numberless hordes in the scant hope of climbing up the ladder - eventually, to godhood.

When working with their mortal kin, the Reavers' own subjects the Porphyr Elixis, they are doggedly obtuse and stubborn, and will more often than not refuse orders from Elixis commanders until a Maladist (this dubious honour most often falling to Warpsmith Ulerov) interjects and forces them to work together. Thus many campaigns have met ignominious failure solely due to refusal to coordinate - the Batteries firing where they will, even upon supposed allies, for such is their cruel and uncaring nature.

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That concludes our first Faction focus and my first post on this blog! Thanks for reading! I hope to get new pictures at a certain date, and I have some more Plaguebatterist things in the works eventually.