Craftworld Ithyl-Loc

Craftworld Ithyl-Loc is a fairly prosperous Craftworld currently enjoying the fruits of its many successful campaigns. With a stable population and unconventional leadership, Ithyl-Loc prefers not to directly intervene in battles, manipulating nearby Imperium forces into action instead, however when they deploy they typically take to the field in armoured formations, risking as few lives as possible in their campaigns so as not to jeopardise the stability they enjoy.

## History

### Early Years

A fairly small Craftworld to escape the Fall of the Eldar, Craftworld Ithyl-Loc largely stayed out of conflicts that followed. They made every attempt to stabilise their losses after Slaanesh was born, though they found themselves drawn into conflicts more than they hoped. A large portion of the Craftworld walked the Path of the Warrior out of necessity, swelling the ranks of the Craftworld's Aspect Warriors so that they could fight effectively, however they still relied heavily on their citizenry to wage war effectively. With already low numbers, they felt every loss dearly and it was clearly not a sustainable path.

However, one campaign against the Imperium of Man had left their forces decimated and morale shattered. They misjudged the Imperium's strength and resolve to fight and paid dearly for it, fleeing the ire of a vengeful Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and his Deathwatch kill-teams that had hunted their forces tirelessly from start to finish. They were broken, many aboard spoke of doom and the seers' visions were plagued with death and destruction. The writing was seemingly on the wall and they all knew it with the exception of one seer, Farseer Kelethan Velnoriel. Kelethan spoke of one final campaign that would be their salvation or their doom. It didn't appear to be of much interest, an Imperial agri-world would be the target of a Tyranid Hive Fleet and the bio-mass would lead to the Tyranids gaining enough of a presence to threaten the Craftworld before they could escape the sector. They felt the shadow in the warp, which didn't help to quiet the doomsayers among them, but a desperate seer council agreed to allow Kelethan to lead a small warband against the agri-world and its defenders with the goal of sabotaging their central processing hub to destroy the planet's core before the Tyranids arrived. There would be no escape from this one, no falling back if they failed as if the Imperials didn't kill them, the encroaching Tyranids would.

### Desperation

When they arrived on the planet it became clear they were not the only force disrupting the Imperials. A raiding force of Drukhari were in the process of rounding up slaves to take back to Commorragh. While this could work in their favour, they could not rely on the Drukhari not to attack them too. They managed to avoid the Drukhari raiding parties for the mostpart, but one of them came too close and a skirmish ensued. Strangely, the raiding force was miniscule and all but fell back immediately, leaving a single Raider transport full of Trueborn to fend off the Craftworld's warhost. They easily disabled the vehicle and decimated the inhabitants, though this was exactly part of Kelethan's plan. He identified a pair of Trueborn, sisters who stood back to back though what surprised Kelethan was that one called for parley. He had seen this in his vision and while his forces protested, he ordered the two be taken captive.

It was clear that one of the pair was against the surrender, constantly chastising the other who called for parley and stating her wish to at least die in combat as opposed to being executed by the Craftworld. However, Kelethan instead adopted to keep them prisoner and took them back to the Craftworld after completing his objective on the agri-world, the Drukhari seeming to leave as soon as they came upon the Craftworld forces. Kelethan wasn't stupid, he suspected that someone aboard the Raider he shot down had enemies and their battle was a setup to kill off political rivals, but that affected nothing. The Craftworld had to change and these two were the agents that would bring the change; either that or he would simply have the pair executed if he was wrong.

### Indoctrination

Kelethan engaged in a campaign of mental manipulation with the pair of captives. They were hard to break, their minds were strong and he knew enough about the Drukhari to know that pain wouldn't achieve anything. Instead he started on the younger of the two, the one who had called for parley initially. He would frequently bring her from her cell to engage in intellectual debates, discussing their way of life in Commorragh and the stark contrast to Craftworld life. He used his psychic gifts to subtely influence her mind, indoctrinating her to reject Drukhari and manipulating her psyche to be more accepting of their way of life. It was a dark path to go down and he hoped this path wouldn't damn his soul, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Once he observed tangible results with the first of the sisters, he started his efforts on the older one. She was harder to break down than the other, partially due to her injuries being less severe though partially due to her age. She was the older and more headstrong of the two, though this still played into Kelethan's plans as he used her stubbornness against her. As he broke down her mental defences, he watched as she sunk into a deep depression as her entire existence was called into question in her mind. He had done what he could and only hoped that it was enough.

### Agents of Change

Sure enough, Kelethan's vision came to fruition. The younger of the two Drukhari, Lireia Narésiel, had begun to embrace Craftworld life and moved from Path to Path. Thalinia Narésiel, the elder sister, had merely bounced between the various Aspect shrines. She had been an arena fighter in Commorragh, so the Path of the Warrior came naturally to her, though Kelethan still kept both under close observation. Thalinia had a tendency to take pleasure in toying with lesser experienced warriors during their sparring sessions and had to be brought in line by a number of temple Exarchs through her time studying their ways of battle. Lireia on the other hand had rekindled her psychic abilities and was honing it through the Path of the Seer. The pair were ostracised by their peers, many still viewing them as depraved savages, though the crucible of battle was where they each gained the respect of their peers, with Thalinia single-handedly saving her squad of Howling Banshees from a squad of Space Marines who charged in behind them while they were engaged with other Imperial forces, and Lireia carving a path through Chaos Space Marines and Cultists to allow the squad of Guardians she was leading to escape certain death.

The true change, however, came within the Drukhari pair themselves. Thalinia was given an opportunity to get her revenge on Farseer Velnoriel after all this time. Separated from the rest of the strikeforce while she was serving under the Striking Scorpion shrine, Thalinia found herself alone with Kelethan after he dragged her from the site of an Imperial counter-attack that felled her squad. She prepared to bury her chainsword into the Farseer's back, her soul crying out for his blood for everything he had done to her, but when he confessed his sins and apologised to her for everything he had done to bring them to this point, she hesitated. All the feelings of anger and rage evaporated and she saw him for what he was. His actions weighed heavily on him and he was now a broken old seer who knew death was coming for him. He said he knew she would kill him here and that was the reason he led the expedition. As the Imperials closed on their position, Kelethan asked Thalinia to kill him, knowing he was not stealthy enough to slip past the encroaching Imperials and wishing for his soul to join with the Infinity Circuit rather than his soulstone falling into human hands. It was the first death she took no pleasure in, killing the farseer swiftly and painlessly, before taking his soulstone and whatever soulstones she could recover from her squad back tot he Craftworld.

This weighed heavily on the young Aspect Warrior's mind. She returned to the Craftworld though she teetered on the brink of falling into a depression she would never recover from. The thing that kept her going was anger. Anger at the Craftworld seers who had prophesised the doom of their Craftworld and seemed to just accept that this was their future. She took her first step into Craftworld leadership as she walked the Path of Command, a very divisive move as the older, more traditional elements of the Craftworld leadership believed her to be behind the death of Farseer Velnoriel and did not trust her, while younger members of the Craftworld, particularly those she had fought alongside, supported her and wished to follow her into battle.

### Sisters Defiant

Thalinia's experience on the Path of Command was challenging. Many seers dismissed her advice out of hand and did not include her in any military engagements. She was a commander in name only as while she had the support of the Aspect Warriors, the seers were far less receptive of her, especially given her outspoken position on their prophecies. It all came to a head when Thalinia finally found a Farseer who trusted and supported her; Lireia had lost herself upon the Path of the Seer and spoke out openly in defence of her sister.

When Lireia mentioned the threat posed on the nearby Imperial planet of Amarah Prime. It was currently experiencing a war between the Imperium, Forces of Chaos and a Tyranid Hive Fleet, though there was a potential for the conflict to spill over onto their Craftworld. Furthermore, she suspected a fragment of a former Craftworld to be buried beneath its surface. The seers dismissed the novice Farseer's concerns and said they would not intervene which caused Thalinia to lose it. She said she would go with or without their blessing and when she was forbidden to go, she stormed out and raised an army herself. With the support of the Aspect shrines, it didn't take long before a warhost was assembled and they left for Amarah Prime.

### The War for Amarah Prime

The forces of Craftworld Ithyl-Loc arrived in system to find it far worse for wear than Lireia's initial visions had predicted. The Imperial forces were on the backfoot and even the forces of Chaos had been pushed back by the innumerable alien creatures. Immediately, Thalinia deployed her forces to gather information, learning that the Imperials were here to secure an STC template, though none of this interested Thalinia. Now that she was on the planet, even she could feel its presence. The item of value on the planet was the fragment of a lost Craftworld.

Thalinia started waging her campaign against everyone on the planet. She showed no mercy, crushing all who opposed her with minimal losses to her own warhost. She favoured fast, mechanised strikes into the enemy lines, maintaining their distance and dispatching their enemies from afar with overwhelming firepower. She favoured the use of a Warp Jump Generator to grant her the mobility to be wherever she needed on the battlefield, as well as leading daring pushes into enemy lines to eliminate enemy commanders, artillery or support elements.

The Craftworld forces quickly located the ideal site to start excavating the fragment of the lost Craftworld and no enemy force got near. The forces of Chaos and Imperium eventually gave up, focusing their efforts on each other and fighting over the STC system that had now been uncovered by the Imperium. Tyranids still pressed in, but Thalinia exterminated any Tyranids that got close. However, it was clear the Tyranids were gaining too much ground far too quickly and at the rate they were going, the Imperial forces would be overwhelmed before Thalinia's warband could excavate and extract their prize.

She contacted the local commanders, a Space Marine Captain and an Imperial Guard Tank Commander, and offered to assist them in a risky strike against the Tyranids. Negotiations were tenuous, since Thalinia had been fighting against them and had personally defeated both in combat, but eventually she convinced them of their need for cooperation. After all, the humans would not have enough time to extract the STC if they did not do something about the Tyranids. After all, the planet had almost entirely been consumed by the Tyranids with the exception of a small contingent of Chaos Space Marines who were in the process of withdrawing, as well as a small pocket of Aeldari and the Imperial forces' last stand.

Leading an assault on the main Tyranid spawning pools, Thalinia led her forces from the front, as usual, however they used their mobility to move around the flank, picking off important Tyranid beasts and blasting holes in the swarm of uncountable creatures while the humans held the line against the bulk of the Tyranid forces. As soon as the opportunity arose, Thalinia struck into the heart of the swarm, attacking the main capillary tower. Her warriors cleared the nearby area, fast moving Aspect Warriors and mechanised forces dismounted as Lireia administered a potent biotoxin developed by the Craftworld forces during their time on the planet. Once it was administered and the feeding tubes started to grow a sickly colour, Thalinia ordered the retreat. She had done her job, infecting the Tyranid spawning grounds and the Hive Fleet tendril that reached into the system. Perhaps it would be enough for the Imperium to reclaim control of the planet, perhaps not; Thalinia did not care beyond buying time for her forces to excavate the fragment of the lost Craftworld. Mounting up in their vehicles, the Craftworld forces quit the field, leaving the Imperium to clean up the nearby Tyranids or get consumed by their overwhelming numbers.

Thalinia returned to the Craftworld to praise and adulation. The fragment of the Craftworld that the Aeldari had recovered included an intact Infinity Circuit among the resources recovered. In a single act of defiance against the Craftworld seers, Thalinia had rescued countless Aeldari souls from certain doom. Without her intervention, it likely would have been ruptured and destroyed by the Tyranids in their consumption of the planet, the souls consumed by Slaanesh.

### A Time of Prosperity

Amarah Prime was just the start of Thalinia's list of conquests. She led her warhost across the stars, under the guidance of her sister's prophecies; Lireia was the only Farseer she trusted, despite their begrudging acceptance of her now. Wherever she went, she left the battlefield with minimal casualties and returned to the Craftworld with more than she left it with. While the seers were far more cautious and typically decided against intervening in conflicts around the stars, Thalinia jumped in feet first.

Before long, the fruits of her labours started to show. The Craftworld's population stabilised, despite getting involved in more conflicts than before, and even started to increase. Furthermore, every time they brought back the spoils of their conquest, the Craftworld got richer and more powerful. The Craftworld prospered for the first time in millenia.

However, this drew the attention of a small splinter group of Tyranids that attacked the Craftworld. Fortunately, it was not a tendril from the larger Hive Fleet that had been part of the seers initial prophecies, but seemed to be the remnants of an invasion force that had been cut off from the rest of the fleet. That said, it was no small amount of Tyranids and Thalinia mobilised the Craftworld's Aspect Warriors and Guardian hosts in their defence. Her time on Amarah Prime had honed her ability to hunt the Tyranids, as they had been the main force that attacked her excavation efforts there. Without the innumerable reinforcements that made Tyranids such a huge threat during most conflicts, it was more an opportunity for Thalinia to display her skills to those who still doubted her, especially the doomsayers who saw the Tyranids invasion as a sign of the end that they had foreseen.

Leading the defence from the front lines, something that some hoped would lead to her death, she engaged in an extermination campaign against any Tyranid organism that dared set foot on the Craftworld's surface. She wanted to find the Tyranid Hive Tyrant, the leader beast for the swarm, and defeat it for all to see. She was done with trying to appease the seers who still hated everything she represented and decided to take an approach more akin to her time in Commorragh. She would make a display of strength for all to see.

She located the Hive Tyrant and instructed her Aspect Warriors to cut a path through the swarm to get her to it. They obliged, following her orders without question since she had proven herself time and again with her military conquests, as she led a spearhead through the Tyranid lines, aiming to pierce the heart of the swarm. Instructing her warriors not to get involved in her battle with the Hive Tyrant and delegating command to Lireia, Thalinia leapt into combat with the towering behemoth. In that moment, she was no longer an Autarch of Craftworld Ithyl-Loc, she was a Bloodbride of the Cult of the Crimson Dance. She dodged around the Hive Tyrant's attacks, weaving with unmatched agility around its deadly claws. As Lireia managed command of the Craftworld's forces in Thalinia's stead, knowing what her sister aimed to do all too well, Thalinia made a spectacle of her battle with the Hive Tyrant. Her blood raced as she did battle with the beast and she never felt more alive as she did in that moment. It was just like her time in the arenas of her former Wych Cult and a feeling of ecstasy flowed through her as she did battle.

As the swarm thinned around them, Thalinia eventually dealt the killing blow to the Hive Tyrant, thrusting her power sword deep through the head of the beast and controlling its descent to the ground while it thrashed about in its death throes, much as a beastmaster might wrangle a captured beast. As the dust settled on the Craftworld, the Tyranid swarm had been eliminated and the Hive Tyrant lay dead at Thalinia's feet, the spectacle visible for all to see.

### A New Outlook

With Thalinia's authority within the Craftworld secured through her display of prowess in the Craftworld's defence, the Craftworld saw small changes to their lifestyles. Having two former Drukhari in prominent positions brought subtle changes to the personal lives of the Craftworld populace. They would not fall to depravity, nor would they abandon the Path structure, but they allowed themselves more freedoms than more conservative Craftworlds might. Relationships blossomed and birth rates rose, further bolstering the Craftworld's population which in turn increased its prosperity as more Eldar lived to improve their society. Though eternally wary of She Who Thirsts, the Craftworld population enjoyed their lives a little more. While they still engaged in battle, Thalinia's more mechanised hit and run tactics meant that win or lose they took very few casualties.

Through the years of propserity, the Craftworld flourished. Many still trod the Path of the Warrior, the Howling Banshee temple in particular gaining much attention since Thalinia's ascendance to a prominent leadership figure in the Craftworld. However, through this time of peace, Thalinia developed one weakness. In a relationship with a skilled artisan named Kerathin Nelariei, Thalinia had a child named Lyanna Narésiel. The young girl was rash and headstrong, though while she wanted for nothing she gew frustrated with her life. She joined the Path of the Artisan, following in her father's footsteps, though when she moved onto the Path of the Warrior, joining the Howling Banshee shrine, her heritage started to grind on her. Everything she did was merely compared with the deeds of her mother and she found herself eternally in her shadow.

After leaving the Path of the Warrior, Lyanna had a falling out with her mother. It was expected that Lyanna would follow in her mother's footsteps and become an Autarch, however Lyanna simply did not wish to. She expressed her thoughts to her mother and the two had an argument; Thalinia called her daughter a petulant brat, which Lyanna did not take well. She sought solace with her aunt, Farseer Lireia Narésiel, and opened up about her feelings and talked of her concerns for her future; she also asked Lireia what the skeins of fate had planned for her. Casting the runes, the Farseer said that there are countless branches for the fate of an individual, but reassured Lyanna not to worry and that she would have many chances to prove herself as she was still very young for an Aeldari.

### Stardancer Corsairs

The first step of Lyanna's plan was to join the Path of the Mariner, learning to steer capital class ships. The second part of her plan took many years to fully realise, allowing her time to master her craft as a steersman as she attended social gatherings and maintained connections to those she had practiced alongside during her time as a member of the Howling Banshee shrine. She planted whispers in the ears of her fellow Asuryani, sowing seeds of discontent with Craftworld life and implanting a desire for freedom of its shackles.

Word of this reached Thalinia, who used her own influence to keep the topic from Craftworld leadership, as she knew that such actions would constitute a temporary exile of Lyanna in the form of walking the Path of the Outcast. When she confronted Lyanna about it, hoping that Lyanna would see reason and stop sowing dissent among other young Aeldari of the Craftworld, it backfired and Lyanna instead enacted the plan she had been working on since their last argument. Stealing a ship and rallying those discontent with the constraints of the Path and the authoritarian discipline of the Craftworld, Lyanna fled the Craftworld. However, while she had planned for a pursuit from her act of larceny, none came. In truth, it was Lireia, her aunt, who persuaded the Craftworld leadership not to stop her, warning that the Craftworld would need her as much as she would need the Craftworld in the future.

Having left the strict rigidity of the Craftworld life behind, the collection of mostly young Aeldari were at a loss for what to do with their newly acquired freedom. They had lived under the Path system for so long that none of them really knew what to do now that they were unconstrained, so Lyanna provided direction for them: piracy. There were many targets small enough for them to hit and ripe for the taking, with many more targets available once they grew in size and power. They targeted indiscriminantly, any non-Aeldari target they could realistically hit was potential for profit and they found raiding to be quite profitable. Lyanna named their newly formed Corsair band the Stardancer Corsairs and their flagship, the Song of Lileath, after the Aeldari goddess of fortune, dreams, psychic energy and innocence.

Lireia proved to be correct, as the Stardancer Corsairs would frequently return to aid the Craftworld in its endeavours. Lyanna had a desire to show her mother up and her life as a Corsair Princess had only served to feed her ego, though it had simultaenously fed her talent and prowess in battle. It was an unexpected outcome of what had initially been seen as a childish tantrum and hijacking of Craftworld ships, though it only served to aid the Craftworld's prosperity and success.

## Notable Characters

### Autarch Thalinia Narésiel

Thalinia Narésiel is an experienced Autarch of Craftworld Ithyl-Loc, and a hero who brought in an age of prosperity for the whole Craftworld.

Originally a Drukhari Trueborn from the Dark City of Commorragh, Thalinia was and still is a divisive figure among the populace of Craftworld Ithyl-Loc. There are factions who see her as a perversion of their way of life, not fit for military command, let alone wider leadership of the Craftworld, however there are also factions who see her as their saviour and the future for the Craftworld.

She is a calm, calculated individual, well versed in both the art of combat as well as diplomacy and politics. Her former life in the Dark City set her up well to rocket through the ranks after she and her sister, Lireia Narésiel, defected to the Craftworld, since the politics of the Craftworld were not that dissimilar to that of her Kabal, with less focus on murder and more on gaining the favour of others.

Through her storied and controversial career aboard the Craftworld, Thalinia has proven herself to be a most capable leader and combatant. She maintains high expectations of her troops, however she never throws their lives away callously, nor does she send them into situations she wouldn't herself walk into. She is often found at the tip of the spear, charging into the Craftworld's enemies on the front line and taking on the most dangerous jobs herself, both as a means to test her own strength and inspire her troops to do the same.

### Farseer Lireia Narésiel

Lireia Narésiel is a potent Farseer on Craftworld Ithyl-Loc, known for her battlefield support and surprising martial prowess for a Farseer who has never walked the Path of the Warrior.

Originally born in Commorragh as a Drukhari Trueborn, Lireia is a controversial Farseer due to the Drukhari's usual hatred of psykers, though since leaving Commorragh, Lireia has seen her people's psychic potential as a path to power. While she harbours some disdain for Craftworld seers who debate their interpretations of visions until it's too late to affect them, she undertook her journey on the Path of the Seer to change this, much in the way her elder sister, Thalinia Narésiel, walked the Path of Command to change the Craftworld's stagnation.

Highly intelligent and possessing a Drukhari's aptitude for politics, Lireia was the one who negotiated their original survival when they were betrayed by their Dracon during a realspace raid and were about to be executed by Craftworld Ithyl-Loc. She found it easy to slip into Craftworld life, originally only doing it to keep up appearances, but embracing the security and lack of open treachery that she had become so accustomed to in Commorragh.

### Farseer Kelethan Velnoriel (Deceased)

Kelethan Velnoriel was the architect of the Craftworld's restoration to prosperity. He was a driven seer for the Craftworld well known for his accurate visions as well as his tactical acumen.

While he walked to the Path of the Artisan to a high level of success, his fame among the Craftworld came from his multiple successful campaigns that he led during the time that other seers and citizens of the Craftworld were preaching of doom for them and their world. He always kept his head up high and led his forces against any foe that threatened the Craftworld, using his visions to shut down threats before they even started. He put the fate of the Craftworld above all else, occasionally leading him down a dark path as he made decisions that etched their presence into his soul all in defence of his home.

He had a daughter, Aluwyn Velnoriel, though with her exile from the Craftworld for exploring incredibly taboo forms of art he lost all contact with her. His one regret was being unable to tell her how proud he was of her as an artisan, despite her sometimes grisly choices of medium, before he met his fate on the battlefield, his final campaign against the Imperium of Man in defence of the Craftworld.