The Colonel and the Lionsmith

The Colonel and the Lionsmith

A pair of rival gods who have both forgotten their exact origins, although odds are they were probably human… probably…

What they do remember of their origin stories indicates that both are either mythological religious Gods, or transcendent gods of a long lost civilisation, but what exactly that civilisation was again the pair of forgetful deities do not recall; only that there were once many more of them, remembering names like the Vagabond, Grail and Moth.

Despite this lack of origin, both retain significant power, and when the two are forced to work together they are a very considerable force… that of course depends on them doing so.

Both Gods are legendary for their hatred of one another, but as with much of their existence, both have different reasons for why.

The Colonel claims that he was the mentor of the Lionsmith when he was mortal. The Lionsmith then betrayed him ascending to Godhood in order to wreak vengeance for a perceived slight, an act which destroyed their memories and left them both adrift.

The Lionsmith claims that the Colonel was raising him as a lamb for slaughter intending to steal his essence to empower himself, resulting in him seizing the power early in self defence. The Colonel in a fit of range invoked his power to scar him, he blocked and both lost their memories as a result.

Which ever is the case neither can effectively work together when not threatened by an outside enemy, typically Chaos.

As their name implies, both Gods are martial in their form and abilities.

The Colonel is also known as the Cartographer of Scars, for reasons that are quite obvious. Its entire being is practically scar tissue, it cannot see for its eyes are scars, it cannot feel pain as all skin is scar tissue. However, instead of impeding it, the Colonel can act as if the scars were not there at all. In fact the its primary ability is that it cannot be physically harmed by a creature attacking any scarred surface of its body by any means. This gives it an overwhelming advantage against Khornate daemons whose primary method of assault is physical. Even those who rely on blunt force are rendered impotent before the scars, as they are as much internal as external. The Colonel’s Scars have other purposes as well, for example if he is injured by alternate means, the method of attack done by that specific being loses effectiveness. If not killed then eventually a daemon will have to give up as eventually they’ll run out of things that can affect him. This does not make him invincible. Sufficient power can simply over power him, he can be restrained and trapped even if he cannot be harmed, his mind, scarred as it is, is not as resistant to damage as his body - as his own lack of memory demonstrates - and of course his resistance needs time to adapt. If assailed by too many threats all at once from drastically different sources then he will be unable to scar in time and could be overwhelmed, forcing the Colonel to learn well how to retreat when he is outmatched and outnumbered. Finally the Colonel is a superlative swordsman in the sense of inflicting scars. The Colonel is not very effective at actually killing his opponents, but instead can “scar them” permanently damaging characteristics. This includes literal damage, as well as conceptual damage, such as to memories making it likely that the Colonel did in fact cause both God’s damaged memories or something more obvious like strength or speed.

The Lionsmith is based more around the creation of special Chimeric creatures - which typically take upon leonine characteristics - and has a vast arsenal of creatures that it can create from raw warp stuff having amassed hundreds of specialist servitor types. This was primarily in his various attempts to kill the Colonel, as the he would inevitably grow immune to whatever creation the he had created necessitating the invention of a new servitor. While many are very specialist or even completely useless outside of special contexts, there are no other Gods in Alliance better at designing divine servitors, making its advice in that regard priceless. To complement the Smith’s servitors is its own formidable strength. Colonel and Smith both agree that he was created as a warrior God, and it shows, with his hammer able to utterly crush opponents, even ones significantly outside of his weight class. Perhaps the Colonel’s most dangerous ability is to reincarnate himself from his Servitors. While he will not detail exactly how he goes about this, it is likely linked to his domain. On occasion that he has been killed, the Smith has been observed literally ripping himself back out of a Servitor, considerably weakened, but very much alive.

Both Gods survive in part because they are extremely hard to put down, with the Colonel being near unkillable and the Lionsmith having enough back ups of himself to escape retribution. With several cults in the galaxy the biggest threat to them, aside from chaos, is each other. The two gods are almost constantly engaged in some form fight, be it the Colonel simply trying to scar the Smith and reduce his effectiveness to the Smith testing out his newest creation upon the Colonel. As neither are able to kill the other they are left in an unfortunate and destructive stalemate.

The offer from the nascent Alliance to participate in Pants Nurgle Day was offered to both gods as one in the hope that their mutual hatred of Chaos would prevail over their utter disdain for one another. A belief that was vindicated.

Both were deployed at significant distance from one another, and both were very disappointed that the other survived, albeit both by a hair’s breadth. The plagues of Nurgle had significantly worn down the Colonel and the Smith’s stock of monsters was severely depleted. However, both had managed to recover large amounts of power from Nurgle’s domain and with mediation by Zahak and Faust, both were convinced to stay with the Alliance.

While among their more disruptive members, they have proven to be very effective in their respective roles, the Colonel taking responsibility to defend weaker Gods from attack as well as acting as an agent in delaying and defeating Nurgle’s hunters as he gains more and more scars from their specific plagues increasing his effectiveness against them.

The Lionsmith has been relegated to a more background role, assisting in the creation of divine servitors with Gods like Sophont and Faust, as well as creating a particularly important Servitor to the Alliance’s survival. In essence a “decoy” created with a minimum of divine essence, which can take a miniscule imprint of a God’s essence. It’s job is to amplify the signal the small amount of essence produces just enough to make it appear as if a God is attempting to hide.

Once created the Servitor is commanded to conceal itself, constantly moving to throw off Nurgle and any other hunters that maybe pursuing the Gods. While not perfect, the Smith has mass manufactured thousands of them, seeding the warp with decoys which has slowed down the methodical Nurgalites considerably, forcing them to chase after wild geese as the Gods continue to conceal themselves.