Cythor Fiends

The Cythor Fiends (Homindae crystallis) are a mysterious species of hostile humanoid xenos that previously inhabited the Ghoul Stars but have now been sighted elsewhere in the galaxy. They possess an unusual crystal-based technology and are capable of altering their forms to become some type of mobile, crystalline organism.

Among the worlds of the Ghoul Stars, the Cythor Fiends' territory was centred on a gas giant dubbed 9836-18 Grave Core by the Imperium.

History[]

The Cythor Fiends were believed to be vicious xenos by the Imperium, and every exploratory probe or scout team sent into their territory in the Ghoul Stars to conduct reconnaissance never returned. The Cythor Fiends often clashed with the Death Spectres Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes which was tasked with maintaining a sentinel watch over the Ghoul Stars and ensuring that these xenos or other hostile forces did not emerge from that region to plague Imperial space.

At some point, the Death Spectres launched a major offensive campaign to destroy the Cythor Fiends once and for all, only to find their worlds strangely empty and devoid of the xenos' formerly teeming presence. As a result, the Death Spectres became aware of the fact that the Cythors possessed some type of technology which allowed them to ultimately evade any attempt to exterminate them.

Eventually, the Cythors reemerged on their old planets and reclaimed them. From then on, however, the Death Spectres limited themselves to simply repelling any attempts by the species to break out of their containment in the Ghoul Stars.

This changed in the 41st Millennium, when the species was largely exterminated according to the records of the historitors of the Adeptus Terra by the efforts of the Black Templars and Death Spectres Chapters during the Ghoul Stars Crusade led by the Black Templars' High Marshal Helbrecht, the first crusade led by Helbrecht after he attained that rank.

In the wake of that crusade, only the Cythor Fiends' homeworlds in the Ghoul Stars remained outside Imperial control. However, the historitors did not record that when the Black Templars arrived at their homeworlds to complete the crusade, they, like the Death Spectres before them, found the Cythor homeworlds completely deserted by the xenos except for their crystalline fortress-cities. What happened to the species remains a mystery.

In the Era Indomitus, Rogue Trader Janus Draik encountered what he later identified as a Cythor Fiend on the Seventh Blackstone Fortress located in the Western Reaches region of the Segmentum Pacificus. Draik stated in his own published report on xenos species that according to the information he gleaned from the Aeldari texts in his possession, the Cythor Fiends were technologically advanced enough of a species to have "evaded" Helbrecht's crusade through the use of these unknown technologies. Draik explained that this account could not be trusted, of course, since the Aeldari were well-known for their duplicity.

Cythor Fiends have also been observed on the Daemon World of Sublime on the edge of the Eye of Terror, a planet slowly disintegrating within the temporal anomaly produced by a Warp storm, that serves as a black market of sorts for the various mortal forces of Chaos, Daemons, the Drukhari, Aeldari Corsairs, the Harlequins and various other intelligent xenos species.

Anatomy and Physiology[]

Cythor Fiends are tall and slender humanoids who possess spindly, wire-thin limbs, and glassy skin that has a reflective quality. Cythor Fiends have elongated and inhuman faces that seemed to be almost an intended, grotesque mockery of the Human visage.

Cythor Fiends have a strange light in the deep pits that serve as their eyes, and seem to possess the ability to in some way temporarily paralyse anyone who meets their gaze.

According to the Space Marines of the Death Spectres Chapter who knew them best, the Cythor Fiends are not alive as Humans would understand the term.

Technology[]

On their homeworlds in the Ghoul Stars, the Cythor Fiends live in great fortress-cities with sheer walls of glimmering crystal and they possessed some uncanny crystal-based weapon technologies.

On the Seventh Blackstone Fortress, Rogue Trader Janus Draik observed a Cythor Fiend under assault by a pack of Ur-Ghuls. The Cythor held an object in its slender, claw-like hand that looked like a small, silver disc. As the Ur-Ghuls attacked, the alien turned the disc, causing it to flash, which then led the Cythor's body to collapse like a shattered glass.

A shower of glittering shards fell to the floor, then reformed into what looked like a crystal. The crystal moved of its own accord and passed through the mob of Ur-Ghuls. In only solar seconds, the Ur-Ghuls lay dead, their throats expertly sliced. These mobile crystals can also change their size and become quite small, and seem to possess the essence of the Cythor Fiend's psyche.

The Cythor Fiends are known to employ unique warships, one known class being what the Imperium has designated the Pinion-class Stealth Frigate.

Homeworld[]

9836-18 Grave Core is a gas giant located in a system of the Ghoul Stars. Before the Ghoul Stars Crusade, it served as the capital world of the Cythor Fiends' civilisation. It is unknown by what name the planet was called by the Cythor Fiends. 9836-18 Grave Core is the Imperial designation, with the number signifying it was the eighteenth world conquered during the Ghoul Stars Crusade.

The planet was a mid-sized gas giant which appeared blue from high orbit. Its atmosphere was toxic and extremely cold, unfit for most intelligent species. High Marshal Helbrecht of the Black Templars noted that the world closely resembled Neptune in the Sol System. 9836-18 Grave Core was later determined to be highly resistant to damage from Imperial Exterminatus-class weaponry, to an unnatural degree.

Grave Core was regarded by the Cythor Fiends as their primary homeworld in the region. The xenos had erected platforms in the world's atmosphere that supported their usual crystal fortress-cities. The Astartes of the Death Spectres Chapter who accompanied the Black Templars in the crusade hinted that they had once also assaulted Grave Core, just as the Black Templars now did, but had also found it deserted by the xenos.

The Black Templars had expected the Cythor Fiends to make their last stand of the Ghoul Stars Crusade there, but the entire species had already apparently fled the planet. Furious, the Black Templars attempted to destroy the world by unleashing an Exterminatus action, but failed even at that as the world seemed to be able to resist any form of damage.

As an alternative, the Black Templars then destroyed the Cythor Fiends' orbital platforms and tried to ignite the world's atmosphere by bombarding it with their armada. This took an unnaturally long time, and the Death Spectres' Captain Naroosh remarked that whatever the Imperials did to the gas giant, it would not matter in the long run, as the Cythor Fiends always returned to reclaim the worlds of their realm.

Sources[]

Codex: Black Templars (4th Edition), pg. 44
Fabius Bile: Primogenitor (Novel) by Josh Reynolds, Part One, Ch. 8
Helbrecht: The Crusader (Short Story) by Guy Haley
Liber Xenologis (Background Book), pp. 152-153
The Eternal Crusader (Novella) by Guy Haley, Ch. 1
What Wakes in the Dark (Short Story) by Miles A. Drake