Lu'Nasad

"I have seen it. Lu'Nasad, Dresil'ach, the Forgotten Ruin. It comes for us like an assassin in the night, and it will consume us all. Are you ready, Human? Are you ready to meet your God-Emperor?"

— Farseer Caille of the Crow Spirits

Lu'Nasad, now known as Dresil'ach in the Aeldari Lexicon, which means the "Forgotten Ruin," was a minor craftworld of the Asuryani Aeldari that was destroyed after fleeing from their civilisation's destruction during the Fall of the Aeldari. The scholars, Farseers and Warlocks of Lu'Nasad had spent Terran centuries studying and discovering lost paths within the Webway which led through the Empyrean that no living being had walked since time out of mind.

As fate would have it, the dark, twisting, and largely unknown paths taken by Lu'Nasad took her not to salvation, but directly into the seething heart of the Rifts of Hecaton, a region of unnatural darkness in the far depths of the Koronus Expanse. The stars of the Rifts of Hecaton are white dwarfs and neutron stars that are guttered and dead, and the few bold Rogue Traders who have gone there do not return.

There in the midst of these damned and forgotten stars, Lu'Nasad came face-to-face with powerful forces of the Empyrean that were manifesting in realspace as a result of the psychic turmoil created across the galaxy by the birth of Slaanesh. A desperate and largely futile battle ensued as Lu'Nasad's defenders were overwhelmed by the forces of Chaos, and in short order the craftworld fell silent and drifted further into the Rifts, her only uncorrupted survivors the powerful Farseer Anaris and the crew of his ship.

Bathed in the energies of the Warp and infused with the taint of Chaos, Lu'Nasad became a twisted, ugly parody of herself. Now, in the 41st Millennium, the nightmare craftworld spoken of in Aeldari prophecy returned some thirty standard years ago from its ten-thousand-Terran-year exile among the savage, roiling Rifts of Hecaton.

Her once-teeming inhabitants dead or corrupted, her formerly elegant spires toppled, her streets choked with the bones of her defenders, and her Infinity Circuit driven mad by centuries of pain and terror, Lu'Nasad once again wanders the Koronus Expanse, sowing madness and destruction in her wake.

Only the Aeldari Corsairs of the Crow Spirits, descendants of the inhabitants of Lu'Nasad, and Warlock Bhaine Dhûn of Craftworld Kaelor are fully aware of the danger the corrupted craftworld poses to the galaxy. They are currently seeking the aid of Human explorers of the Koronus Expanse in destroying it as their Farseers' psychic visions have all foreseen that only with Human aid will the tortured souls of the Forgotten Ruin finally be put to rest.

History[]

A Fall from Grace[]

"The decadence and malignancy and sheer hubris of our ancestors rent the very fabric of space and time, and brought forth the existence of a new god of Chaos. We owe a debt to all races that we repay with the slow death of our own."

— Asuryani Farseer Anaris

Ten Terran millennia ago the once proud empire of the Aeldari reached the pinnacle of its achievement and began its slow slide into decadence, corruption, and ultimate destruction. The proud and haughty Aeldari saw themselves as the perfect species, above the squalor and petty squabbling of the lesser intelligent peoples of the galaxy. They had mastered technology and tamed the Webway, transcended the need for toil and suffering, and their worlds were peaceful and rich with art and music.

Unfortunately, as pride goes before a fall, the arrogance and hubris of the Aeldari slowly ate away at the heart of their glorious empire. Aeldari society turned decadent and depraved, the people filling their ample leisure with dark excesses. Not all Aeldari in these dark times became gibbering sybarites devoted only to pleasure and excess however. There were those who foresaw the disastrous end that was coming.

These Aeldari, derided as self-punishing puritanical fanatics by their brethren, built massive, continent-sized voidships with which to flee the depravity of their people. These great ships, called "craftworlds" by their masters, fled to the furthest reaches of space with numerous like-minded Aeldari settlers of the empire's frontier Maiden Worlds called the Exodites. It was in these out of the way places that both the Craftworld Aeldari and the Exodites believed they would be safe from the depraved excesses of their brethren and the coming doom that they had foreseen.

Eventually, the sheer depravity and excess of Aeldari society brought about the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, god of pleasure and amoral hedonism. With a mighty scream and a burst of pure psychic power, Slaanesh came forth from the Warp and destroyed the core worlds of the Aeldari Empire in an instant. Billions of Aeldari died in agony, their souls devoured by Slaanesh. This event created the Eye of Terror, a massive tear in reality where the Warp and realspace co-exist, and it swallowed the seat of Aeldari society whole.

Even the far-flung Exodites who had fled their peoples' slide into madness, and the people and crew of the numerous craftworlds, heard the cries of Slaanesh's coming. Sadness filled their hearts at the loss of their kinsmen and their once great civilisation. The Aeldari felt resignation as well, for they knew that there was nothing that they could do, and that this fate was their final punishment for the sins of their people.

The craftworlds with their refugees scattered to the solar winds, hounded across the galaxy by the forces of Chaos. Few survived the initial solar decades as they were caught and killed in the psychic fallout of the birth of Slaanesh. The rest dispersed, traversing the stars and carrying their precious cargo, those lucky few who survived the Fall of the Aeldari, to the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

As they travelled and the centuries passed, the craftworlds slowly took on their final shape. They grew in size to meet the needs of their populations, the Bonesingers reshaping the vessels into something more akin to wandering planetoids than mere starships.

Each craftworld soon became a true artificial world unto itself. Even before the Fall each craftworld had developed unique cultures among their populations, foreshadowing the manifold Paths and Aspects that the Asuryani Aeldari would soon come to follow. Some were dedicated to martial prowess while others were more content to contemplate the mysteries of the vast unknown.

A Desperate Flight[]

"And thus they fled, the countless children of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine. As their gods died in agony and their kinsmen turned on one another like savage beasts and the worlds that formed the cradle of their civilization were swallowed whole by the Ruinous Powers they fled like cowards. They retreated to their voidships and turned their faces away in shame, leaving mankind to pick up after them like ill-behaved children."

— From the journal of Kobras Aquairre

When the Fall of the Aeldari finally came, and the newborn Eye of Terror swallowed the Aeldari whole, Craftworld Lu'Nasad was docked on the extreme edge of the Aeldari's far-flung civilisation, taking on supplies and more Aeldari passengers. During those first terrible solar hours while their civilisation collapsed around their ears, the leaders of Lu'Nasad took on as many of their kinsmen as the ancient voidship could hold and fled the coming of Chaos.

Hounded by forces of the Ruinous Powers and suffering from the lingering after-effects of Slaanesh's violent psychic birth, Lu'Nasad's masters devised a desperate, dangerous plan to escape. Always concerned with travel, movement, and the secrets of the Webway, the scholars, Farseers, and Warlocks of Lu'Nasad had spent Terran centuries studying those ancient ways. During their studies they discovered records of Webway paths lost to the Aeldari's knowledge, locked doorways and lonely paths through the Empyrean that no living being had walked since time out of mind.

Indeed, they even charted some of these forgotten paths, and found them dangerous but largely passable. Surrounded by the forces of Chaos, with her warriors fighting ravenous Daemons in the streets and passageways running red with the blood of fallen Aeldari, Lu'Nasad threw all caution to the stars and plunged into the twisting, empty bowels of the Webway, finding there an unusually large, unstable path that could accommodate the bulk of the massive craftworld, and was never heard from again by its surviving brethren.

A Wandering Age[]

As fate would have it, the dark, twisting, and largely unknown paths taken by Lu'Nasad through the Webway took her not to salvation, but directly into the seething heart of the Rifts of Hecaton in the Koronus Expanse in the galactic northwest.

There in the midst of these damned and forgotten stars, Lu'Nasad came face to face with powerful forces of the Empyrean that were manifesting in realspace as a result of the psychic backlash created across the galaxy by the birth of Slaanesh. A desperate and largely futile battle ensued as Lu'Nasad's defenders were overwhelmed by the Chaos forces, and in short order the craftworld fell silent and drifted further into the Rifts of Hecaton, her only survivors the powerful Farseer Anaris and the crew of his ship.

Bathed in the energies of the Warp and infused with the taint of Chaos, Lu'Nasad became a twisted, ugly parody of herself. Her once proud defenders were corrupted, the ancient Aeldari souls within her Infinity Circuit were driven mad, and her elegant, soaring spires crumbled to dust only to be remade in a blasphemous mockery. Many of her Aspect Warriors were corrupted as well, their Chaos-infected spirit stones animating their suits of armour long after the dead physical bodies within these forlorn shells had fallen to dust.

The bones of her populace were stacked like cord wood in the streets, and Daemons cavorted in the once-sacred sanctums of the Bonesingers' Gardens as the corrupt Warp Spider shells skulked among the ruins and the debased Dire Avenger shells howled and gibbered in the long night.

For ten thousand Terran years and more, Lu'Nasad wandered the Rifts of Hecaton in this nightmare state, and now it has returned to the main region of the Koronus Expanse, deeply corrupt and mad with pain, on a terrible errand of its own design.

An Unwholesome Air[]

A result from the deadly psychic fallout of the corruption of its Infinity Circuit, Lu'Nasad itself is irrevocably corrupted after spending Terran millennia wandering the Empyrean. Once sweet and clean, the air of the craftworld is now haunted by the souls of long-dead Aeldari and tainted by the corruption of Chaos.

An acrid, charnel house smell lingers in the streets and buildings, and a thick, constantly swirling mist tints everything the colour of a day-old bruise. The lingering psychic echoes of death and destruction are incredibly dangerous to unprotected Aeldari. Special precautions, such as the protection of a spirit stone, are needed to keep a person safe.

A Dead Craftworld[]

Lu'Nasad Cityscape — A rare sketch of the abandoned cityscape of Lu'Nasad

Today as she cruises among the worlds of the Koronus Expanse, Lu'Nasad is nearly unrecognisable as the once proud and powerful craftworld of ten millennia ago. Her hull is bloated and misshapen, reformed by the corrupting touch of the Warp. It is scored and stained by her Terran centuries at large in the Rifts of Hecaton, and blasphemous prayers to the Ruinous Powers in the Dark Tongue of Chaos are scrawled all along her flanks.

Her wraithbone structure is worn and thin, and is now milky and translucent, almost ghostly in the dim light of the stars. The domes of her habitats are filled with a noxious mist, and dark shapes can be seen flitting through the ruins of her towers and congregating in vast parks choked with dust and fragments of bone.

In her wake trail long tendrils of debris and dust and pulverised wraithbone. No lights shine from her domes and view ports, and all hails go unanswered. She is ill-looking and ill-favoured, and those servants of the Emperor who set eyes on her know that, aside from her xenos heritage, there is something dreadfully unwholesome about the giant vessel.

Darkened Pathways[]

Once home to hundreds of thousands of Craftworld Aeldari, the craftworld also features massive crystalline domes kilometres long that cover whole cities complete with public spaces, broad street capillaries, towering spires, Exarch Aspect Shrines, and everything else one would expect to find in any craftworld built by the ancient and advanced Aeldari.

Where these places were once bustling with commerce and Aeldari life ten Terran millennia ago, they are now tombs, quiet save for the deep hum and sigh of the tortured craftworld's still-automated systems as it prowls the stars.

Gardens of Introspection - Once places of quiet meditation, these formerly beautiful places have, much like Lu'Nasad itself, been corrupted and twisted into something unrecognisable by the energies of Chaos. The towering trees and decorative plants have either rotted away to mere skeletons or are now twisted and vile things with waxy, purple-black leaves that spray noxious spores or leak poisonous sap when molested. The streams and reflecting pools are empty, choked with bones and the detritus of ten thousand standard years. In the sculpture gardens, the wraithbone statues have been pulled down or horribly defaced, replaced with crude, blasphemous statuary dedicated to the Ruinous Powers. Here and there is evidence of dark rituals; altars stained dark with blood, cast off ceremonial accoutrement, and heaps of sacrificial remains. While largely abandoned, there is danger here among these twisted pathways and blackened trees. The craftworld's insane Aspect Warrior Shells -- suits of Aspect Warrior armour animated by the Chaos-corrupted spirits of their former wearers -- walk here on occasion, the shattered minds and souls of these Chaos-corrupted Asuryani pining for the lost past and keeping liaisons long since forgotten. There are also the ever-present caustic, psycho-reactive mists that, much like in the rest of the ancient craftworld, hang over the gardens like a shroud.

Living Chambers - These tall, once graceful spires were once the dwelling place of the thousands of Aeldari that called Lu'Nasad home. Now they are crumbling, corrupt, dangerous edifices that lean crookedly against one another and reach up from the wraithbone core of the craftworld like skeletal fingers. The Aeldari who lived here perished long ago, torn apart by Daemons or their Chaos-corrupted kinsmen, mutated beyond imagining by the dread energies of the Warp, or killed by starvation, misfortune, or sheer madness. Each floor has a number of chamber abodes that branch off of a communal corridor. The rooms are sized, shaped, and laid out in a fashion alien to a Human eye, and tend to unsettle and discomfit Humans. After many Terran millennia of neglect and exposure to Warp energies, there is precious little left in the Living Chambers. The spires themselves are physically dangerous, their foundations crumbling and their structures weakened by millennia of decay, and anyone walking their deserted corridors must tread lightly for fear of plunging through a rotten translucent wraithbone floor to their death.

Mediation Shrines - Several of these open spaces are located on the upper levels of Lu'Nasad. Before the corruption of Chaos consumed the craftworld, these were pleasant park-like locations, where Aeldari could meditate upon their place in the galaxy as they let their eyes wander over the delicate wraithbone structures. In the many Terran millennia since, these once tranquil places have been transformed. Today, the Aeldari runic sigils are destroyed, the graceful wraithbone structures have been shattered, and the plant-filled knolls have been stripped bare, showing burnt and decrepit soil. Though the insane Aspect Warrior Shells of Lu'Nasad -- suits of Aspect Warrior armour animated by the Chaos-corrupted spirits of their former wearers -- regularly visit these centres in their mad wanderings through the craftworld, these places see little additional activity. Due to the wanton destruction that took place in dark rituals by Daemons and Chaos-corrupted Asuryani at these parks soon after corruption claimed the craftworld, there remain few active spirit stones.

Bonesingers' Gardens - Smaller and less common than the formerly lush Gardens of Introspection, it was here that the long dead Bonesingers of Lu'Nasad congregated with their fellows to commune, make art, and further explore the secrets of their craft. A combination sculpture park and outdoor workshop, the Bonesinger's Gardens were once home to a myriad of wraithbone statues both graceful and contemplative. They also possessed numerous small singing areas given over to other, related arts where Bonesingers could congregate to improve themselves and their Path. Now, however, the Bonesinger's Gardens on Lu'Nasad are grim and oppressive places indeed. Their statues have been torn down or defaced, and black, thorny wraithbone vines engulf those still standing. The graceful arches and spires of the workspaces are collapsed, and the ground is littered with broken wraithbone and shattered spirit stones seized from long-dead Asuryani by their corrupted fellows. Worst of all, dozens of the deadly Aeldari automata known as Wraithguard stalk the once well-tended paths and rubble-strewn fields. Driven by the Chaos-maddened souls of ancient Craftworld Aeldari heroes, these silent sentinels attack anything they encounter, including one another, and the bones of their victims and the shattered husks of dead Wraithguard can still be found tangled together in low-lying areas of the Bonesingers' Gardens.

Landing Platforms - Ringing the outer perimeter of the craftworld at regular intervals are Lu'Nasad's numerous docks. Ranging in size from landing pads just big enough for a shuttle to huge docks large enough to dock a cruiser-sized voidship and protected by powerful Pulsar Lance batteries, these docks extend out into the void on delicately cantilevered wraithbone supports. Just off these extended docks are the burned, collapsed, or otherwise ruined remains of Lu'Nasad's port facilities. Corrupt Wraithguard and various kinds of Daemon still stalk here, making the docks very dangerous indeed.

Internal Webway Portals - Scattered among the ruins of Lu'Nasad are countless, Aeldari-sized Webway portals that connect to the remains of the craftworld's own internal Webway transport system. Like its larger, galaxy-spanning cousin, Lu'Nasad's internal Webway allows quick and relatively safe travel between points on the vast craftworld through special extradimensional tunnels driven through the very fabric of the Warp and realspace. The internal Webway portals on the craftworld consist of a free-standing, intricately decorated wraithbone arch roughly three metres high. Within each archway is a shimmering energy field that shows a constantly swirling pattern of blue light occasionally shot through with crackling, blue-black energy bolts. While most still work, the long exposure to the Warp has twisted and corrupted Lu'Nasad's internal Webway, and using it is incredibly dangerous.

Core Spires - A set of massive spires are central to Lu'Nasad, and extend from deep within the craftworld to high above its surface area. These spires circulate and purify the construct's atmosphere. When the craftworld was corrupted by Chaos, these spires ceased to function properly. Access portals are present on these spires, and represent the most direct path for any explorers of Lu'Nasad to enter the craftworld's Soul Shrine. While travelling through the core spires, any Human explorers will not encounter any of the craftworld's defenders. However, climbing through the filth and muck can be quite treacherous in itself.

Plasma Core - Directly in the centre of the main dorsal side habitat of the corrupted craftworld towers the ancient, seething core of the craftworld's plasma generators. Dozens of kilometres high, the plasma core is the tallest structure on Lu'Nasad, and perhaps the most important. The generator itself is a single, graceful spire that tapers to a sharp point and houses the plasma generators and the numerous spirit stones that constantly monitor its performance. It is ringed by containment field generators and is enveloped in a crackling, constantly shifting force field that occasionally vents raw plasma into the void. For innumerable Terran centuries the core has generated the power for the great craftworld, and it is a testament to the craftsmanship and technical acumen of the ancient Aeldari that it has done this for the past ten standard millennia without any support or regular maintenance.

Soul Shrine - Deep in the bowels of the dead craftworld lies its Soul Shrine where the spirit stones of deceased Craftworld Aeldari are brought to interface with the craftworld's Infinity Circuit. This massive room is as much a holy shrine as it is a technical nerve centre, and is home to the majority of Lu'Nasad's remaining spirit stones. The walls and ceiling, along with numerous plinths and small obelisks that look all the world like workstations on a voidship's bridge, are completely covered in twinkling gems of various size, each holding the soul of a long-dead Aeldari. The entire place is bathed in a mellow, multi-hued glow reminiscent of sunlight slanting through stained glass windows, and the only sound is the low hum of the great ship's ancient systems.

Craftworld Defences[]

Despite their deep connection to the more immaterial and the spiritual aspects of existence, the Craftworld Aeldari are also an incredibly martial people. Indeed, every Asuryani born is trained in the common weapons and tactics of their people so that they may take up arms to defend their craftworld. They know more about the art of war than Humanity will ever know, and they were waging war among the stars before Mankind had progressed much farther than using sharpened stones as weapons.

Each craftworld is home to many citizen-soldier Guardians, highly specialized Aspect Warriors, armoured vehicles, fighter craft and elegant and deadly voidships. Lu'Nasad was no different, and once boasted a powerful navy and some of the finest Aspect Warriors to be found among their people.

Nearly all of these forces were wiped out during those first solar months among the Rifts of Hecaton, and those that weren't were twisted nearly beyond recognition by the power of Chaos. The remains of Lu'Nasad's martial heritage can still be found among its crumbling ruins, and each is equal parts treasure trove and deadly trap.

Aspect Warrior Shrines - Towering above surrounding wraithbone structures on either side of the central plasma core are the shrines of Lu'Nasad's Aspect Warriors. Each of these massive edifices, one dedicated to the Warp Spiders and the other to the Dire Avengers, is a self-contained military facility. Behind their towering doors are barracks, shrines, training facilities, marshalling yards, vast armouries, and hangars for Asuryani vehicles. Once these temples were home to throngs of Aspect Warriors and their Exarchs, and their presence served to remind all Craftworld Aeldari of the duty and sacrifice of these august warriors. The Aspect Warrior shrines today are much changed from their original form. Each is blackened and defaced, their mighty doors hanging agape and their facades a twisted mockery of their former glory. Within their echoing halls the remaining Aspect Warrior Shells -- suits of Aspect Warrior armour animated by the Chaos-corrupted spirits of their former wearers -- continue to gather, their bodies long since turned to dust. Along with the dangers of the maddened Aspect Warrior Shells, the shrines also contain a treasure trove of Asuryani wargear and historical records that date back to before the Fall of the Aeldari -- all of which are relics that any of the other Asuryani craftworlds would kill to possess.

Guardian Spires - The hundreds of delicate spires that once ascended from the craftworld's surface were the living quarters for its vast Craftworld Aeldari population. However, as those Aeldari died of the construct's Chaos-corruption, none came to clean away their bodies and replace the fallen members of the population. Today, these spires are largely abandoned. The only signs of the former inhabitants are the dimly glowing spirit stones found scattered amongst alien clothing and armour or bound to the wraithbone of the craftworld.

Grav Domes - Concentrated around the craftworld's Titan Temple dome are a number of other massive domes that were once home to the craftworld's grav tank units. These domes provided both storage and maintenance for the deadly Falcon, Fire Prism, and Night Spinner grav tanks that were favoured by the defenders of Lu'Nasad, as well as housing and training facilities for those who walked this particular path of warfare. Now these domes are mostly deserted, their barracks empty and their maintenance apparatus long silent. Some are home to Daemons or other Warp entities, and squads of insane Aspect Warrior Shells sometimes sweep through as if on an inspection tour. While most of the craftworld's armoured forces were destroyed in its defence against the forces of the Ruinous Powers, the occasional Falcon tank or Wave Serpent transport can still be found rotting away in its berth.

Pulsar Lances - Scattered across the surface of Lu'Nasad are countless, massive, fortified weapon emplacements mounting the lethal Craftworld Aeldari pulsar lances normally found on their naval voidships. They are mainly clustered around strategic locations like the craftworld's internal Webway gates, the plasma core, and the dome of the Titan Temple, but many are located among the Guardian Spires and among the shrines and long-dead forest domes. Many of these emplacements were destroyed in the long-ago battles with the forces of Chaos, and many more have rotted away or collapsed in on themselves over the long millennia. Others show signs of heavy fighting but are still active, their structures holed and blackened by weapons fire and the talons of Daemons. Those that were not destroyed outright or breached by enemy forces are still active and controlled by the souls of their deceased Asuryani gun crews, their bodies long turned to dust and their spirit stones glittering in the dark, waiting for a call to arms that will never come.

Titan Temple - Sealed since the craftworld's ill-fated plunge into the Rifts of Hecaton and still protected behind a crackling force field, the burnished dome of the Titan Temple rises gracefully above its surrounding buildings in the shadow of the craftworld's seething plasma core. Long ago this was home to Lu'Nasad's small force of Aeldari Titans and all of the Bonesingers and steersmen needed to operate them. Within the armoured walls of the Titan Temple is a wealth of information on Aeldari Titans and other advanced war machines of that xenos species.

Notable Lu'Nasad Aeldari[]

Anaris - Anaris is a Farseer who was the lone survivor of Lu'Nasad's corruption. His vessel, the Eclipse-class Cruiser Whisper of Anaris, was the only one to successfully navigate away from the craftworld as it fell and survive its trip out of the Rifts of Hecaton. Among his crew, only he had the willpower to resist the siren call of the treacherous Warp disruption of the craftworld's Infinity Circuit. This kept him alive while his crewmates died, their souls transferred to the Whisper's spirit stones, which now still control the vessel, making it a literal "ghost ship." Soon thereafter, Anaris died alone on an empty planet, overcome with sorrow for his lost craftworld and visions of a disastrous future. Since that time, his spirit stone was discovered by Human explorers in the Koronus Expanse. When they discovered it, these Humans chose to seal it in a stasis field, as a means of protecting their crew from the psychic influence of the Farseer. Standard years later, an enterprising member of that expedition sold the casket containing the spirit stone in its stasis field to the early colonists of Damaris. When sold, the explorers wove a creative tale that the casket contained a relic of Saint Drusus and presented forged documentation as evidence of this tale. Finally freed from the stasis field, the Farseer is extremely communicative for a being who died many Terran millennia ago. With the death of his body, most of his emotions have faded. Instead he is rationally driven to stop the assault of Lu'Nasad upon the Koronus Expanse and the rest of the galaxy. He believes that his influence with the souls of his people still aboard the damned craftworld may be enough to avert catastrophe. In the ancient past, Anaris was granted a vision of his success, but he remembers that in his vision, he required the assistance of Humans to turn the corrupted craftworld from its unholy rampage. He is desperate for any Human explorers in the Koronus Expanse who come into possession of his spirit stone to assist him in his quest. While he is reluctant to beg, he also realises that he holds no leverage. To compensate, he resorts to flattery, dire warnings, and vague promises of glory and riches to be found in the ruins of the corrupted craftworld.

Ilistaneth Anturien - Known as the "Bloody Hand" of the Crow Spirits, the long and bloody history of that band of Aeldari Corsairs within the last eleven Terran centuries can be attributed to one being -- the deadliest and most experienced warrior of the Crow Spirits, Ilistaneth Anturien. Anturien has been directly responsible for more death than almost any other individual within the Koronus Expanse. Cold and utterly ruthless, Ilistaneth harbours a profound loathing for all that is not Aeldari and knows joy only in the moment of triumph. Ilistaneth does not question the instructions given to him by his masters; his hatred for the enemies of his kind dwarfs any empathy he might have for the plight of his targets. A master of many weapons and just as many poisons, Ilistaneth is a terrifying adversary to face, and as many foes have died to his blades with a look of dread upon their face, as have perished at a great distance never knowing the cause of their demise. Ilistaneth possesses a vast and bewildering array of armaments and tools. The most astounding is a Holo-Suit -- normally worn by the mysterious Aeldari warrior-troubadours known as Harlequins, gifted to him by a troupe of Harlequins as a reward for slaying a target whose fate interfered with their own.

Caille - As one of the highest ranking members of the Aeldari Corsairs band known as the Crow Spirits, Farseer Caille is accustomed to cooperation from his underlings and has had few dealings with Humanity. By Craftworld Aeldari standards, he is a comparatively weak psyker to have attained the title of Farseer. His visions of the future are rare and often clouded. Instead of heeding them, he follows in the traditions of his people, focusing on the destruction of all who could be affected by the passing corruption of his ancestral home. Caille has heard the legends of Farseer Anaris and knows his people's tales regarding the glory that was Lu'Nasad. He will prove to be a bit awestruck if he comes into the presence of that ancestral hero. Alternatively, if Anaris has somehow been destroyed, he seethes with fervent anger. Either volatile extreme of mood may make him far easier for any Humnan explorers to manipulate. As his people lack a craftworld, but maintain the traditions of one, the Crow Spirits are bound by ties of etiquette to defer to the Asuryani of Craftworld Kaelor. Caille bristles at this fact but accepts it. Ultimately, he is likely to try to prove his devotion to the cause of stopping Lu'Nasad by exceeding any offers of assistance that the Kaelorian Warlock Bhaine Dhûn makes to Human explorers for their aid in destroying the corrupted craftworld.

Istaurmen Garadhûn - An Aeldari Corsair of the Crow Spirits, Garadhûn serves as the istaurmen -- diplomatic liaison -- for their flagship, the Fate's End. Because of this, he is far more tolerant of Humans and other non-Aeldari species than most of his kind. Keep in mind, however, the Crow Spirits are renowned, perhaps unfairly, for their wanton slaughter of all non-Aeldari they encounter. Garadhûn's superior is already near the limit of his patience by the time the Fate's End encounters any Human explorers who might aid them in destroying Lu'Nasad. The istaurmen has managed to persuade his commander not to begin a systematic destruction of all Humans within the Furibundus System.

Badb Ra - Fiercely devoted to the cause of Farseer Caille, Badb realises that her life and the lives of her companions are nothing compared to the devastation that has been foreseen by the retuirn of Lu'Nasad to the Koronus Expanse. Though Badb has little time for Humanity's primitive ways, she is willing to tolerate them if that becomes necessary. Ultimately, she knows preventing the portents of a dread future from coming to pass is more important than any personal glory. Badb is cold and aloof. She offers the bare minimum information necessary to attempt to get her way. She believes that if the artefact can be delivered to the Crow Spirits, then disaster may be averted and all of the Aeldari sacrifices justified.

Crow Spirits - These Aeldari Corsairs are descendants of those inhabitants of Lu'Nasad who were not aboard the craftworld at the time of its desecration. They are aware that it was lost to the Rifts of Hecaton, and the Farseers of their faction have long predicted its return as a hideously Chaos-corrupted force of destruction. Through the millennia, the Crow Spirits have dwelt within the Koronus Expanse, eliminating any whom their Farseers believed would hasten the craftworld's return. Over the thirty standard years since the craftworld's return, the Crow Spirits have been aggressively seeking out any means to destroy it. At the same time, their vessels have travelled throughout the Koronus Expanse to destroy those who might become tainted by the home of their ancestors. It is because of this endless quest to protect the Koronus Expanse from the taint of Lu'Nasad that the faction has earned its reputation as merciless killers of all non-Aeldari.

Sources[]

Rogue Trader: Edge of the Abyss (RPG), pp. 48, 59, 63-65
Rogue Trader: Fallen Suns (RPG), pp. 4, 7-12, 19-24, 28, 44-47