Mu'sha Sept

### **Specialty**

Rapid, close-range firefights by teams of Battlesuits and frequent usage of auxiliaries.

### **Sept Colour(s)**

Urban camo with black helmets and red details

## Prime World Information

### **Location**

The Forbidden Zone

The **Mu'sha Sept** of the T'au Empire is the Cadre of T'au forces and alien auxiliaries that are based on Mu'sha in the T'au Third Sphere Expansion. They are led by Commander Riptide and are stationed at the edge of the Farsight Enclaves.

## Sept History

The Mu’sha Sept is unique in that it officially began as a police force, trying to keep order in the crime-rampant Hive-World of Modra– renamed Mu'sha after the T'au took control. The pacification force located on the planet learned early on that mercy was a worthless commodity, for while the Water Caste had assured the loyalty of the planetary nobility, the hive scum below only cared about the intense yoke of Imperial Law lifting from their shoulders, and anarchy reigned.

For many long years the police force of Mu'sha struggled to keep the crime from spilling out. Using stun batons to subdue the rowdy elements and bringing them to ineffective re-education camps, they barely stopped the evidence of societal breakdown bubbling up to the contented nobles. On they few times it did, no matter, the ruling class were never going to risk their lives of luxury by attempting to hold them down. They continued their merry lives, leaving the ill equipped T'au police forces to keep some semblance of order. That was, however, until the arrival of Shas’Ui Tu’sai.

Tu’sai, known later in life as Riptide, was a solitary child during his formative years, psychological deviancies leaving him anti-social and obsessive over minute details. This dedication thrust upon him by a quirk of birth lead him to become a champion student of his generation, a fiercely independent thinker who managed to surpass his fellows in almost every physical and military manner, eventually pushing himself a year ahead of his fellow pupils with nothing but determination and strength; sparring sessions often ended with him throwing his opponents as though they were dolls. While this caused much suspicion, fear and bad blood between himself and his fellows, Riptide moved past it, becoming a Pathfinder Sergeant, earning much renown for his swift, ruthless strikes. However, Riptide's personal gut instincts and desires for decisive crushing blows, ones his enemies can never come back from, as well as a penchant for close, aggressive combat put him at odds with the Empire's battle doctrine. Riptide, through force of will, managed to keep his personal feelings subdued, continuing on to better himself in his chosen aspects of war, and finally was promoted to a battlesuit piloting role that he took to with zeal.

However, once within the armoured might of his Crisis Battlesuit, Riptide's restraint began to waver, as his push to destroy enemies in such a way that they could never return again lead to him using vastly disproportionate force. The T'au Empire who once lauded him as a minor hero for his victories were finding it harder and harder to excuse his ever more brutal subjugations of unruly populations. Even after they only sent him the worst of their recruits he still managed to continue his duty as he saw fit, his own grueling training quickly breaking the weak and turning those Fire Warriors who survived into streamlined killers. Eventually, after a particularly brutal mission to subjugate a pocket of rebelling Imperial sympathisers, during which his Commander was killed, they had him quietly promoted to Shas’Ui, put him in command of his small Cadre, and sent him to a stationary posting as the commander of Mu'sha, believing that the unsolvable problem would keep him permanently busy.

Upon arrival, Riptide felt nothing but disgust, disgust at the decadent nobles in their spires, disgust at the scum attempting to spill out from the depths of the Hive, but most of all disgust at the weakness of his T'au predecessors, too fearful to enact what he saw as the only true solution. After a few weeks of surveillance, allowing the local police the opportunity to show their worth to him, he enacted his plan. After having every pict-screen and vox unit in the Hive set to receive the cameras on his squads suits, he and a specially chosen band of pilots descended. The gangers bellow, only used to light shows of force from the fearful police or the occasional tentative advance from Enforcer squads, were caught completely off guard in the bloodbath that followed.

Laying into the mulling crowds with lances of plasma and burning the shanties to the ground, none were allowed to escape Riptide's ire. Their innocence was irrelevant, for this was not a punishment, this was a warning. They would show the rest of the planet how he ruled, and they would know that even sleeping next to a dissident was a fatal mistake. Riptide would continue his merciless enforcement, until the citizens of Mu'sha were willing even to turn in their own neighbours in order to escape his unforgiving wrath. After his first decisive descent into the Hives below, he turned his gaze to the spires above. Seeing the degenerates that dared to try and command him, he initiated a state of martial law, before condemning them as traitors against the T'au Empire, a crime for which he saw only execution as a worthy punishment. After his purges, even his most vocal of opponents in the greater Empire had to admit he had turned a worthless world of decadence and crime into a model society for all those surrounding it.

After establishing a new regime to uphold his societal visions, Riptide brought his achievements to the T'au Ethereals, confident that his unmitigated success would convince them that he was worthy of re-entering the greater T'au society once more. In the face of his brutal, unremorseful actions, the Ethereals reached a conclusion. They had received word of a string of violent unrest in the fringes of the Damocles Gulf, a few worlds wishing to rejoin the Imperium but most simply believing they would be better off independent from T'au rule. Knowing that taking each world individually would tie up valuable resources and that attempting to cow them into submission would be counteractive, they hatched a plan. Informing Riptide that they had a vital mission, they promoted him to Shas’El, and sent him and his Cadre into the worst affected of these worlds, and while publicly announcing that they were merely the bodyguards of a Water Caste diplomat after Riptide had left earshot, his true instructions were far more sinister.

After the representatives of the rebels had arrived at the landing zones, they were displeased to see that nobody was there to meet them. Then, they turned to the noise from the sky. Descending on his newly customized Battlesuit, Riptide began laying about with an experimental weapon built to his specifications, a large headed hammer, wreathed in a crackling field of energy capable of breaching through all but the most hardy of defenses, laying waste to the few pieces of heavy armour that the representatives had thought to bring. After that, the planets fall was inevitable. An unyielding wave washed the planet clean of any taint of unrest, Riptide refusing to even open com-channels to accept surrender as he destroyed all in his path. In the end the planet had surrendered, and Riptide marched his forces home, filled with pride that he and his men had succeeded so swiftly when others had not. Yet when he returned to the T'au capital, he was met with fear and derision. Confused, he headed for the Ethereal Council, only to be arrested before he could enter. While he was frozen within a cryogenics chamber, the Ethereals were hard at work, assuring the other rebellious worlds that he had gone rogue, and was currently undergoing re-education. The dissenters grudgingly accepted this story, and once more began their activities. To Riptide, they told only that he was incarcerated as protection against assassins suspected of trying to kill him, and the coordinates of another boarder world. Twice more he descended, twice more he left only charred corpses behind, twice more he was locked away. After the second planet was razed, many of the worlds began to openly support re-joining the Empire, if only to keep this specter of death from arriving on their own home. After the third strike, all it took was a rumour that Riptide was approaching to make a planet quickly re-enter the fold.

This was Riptide's life for the next decade, spending his time either cut off from society, feared and hated by those who knew his name, or being used as a tool of terror by the Ethereals who publicly denounced him at every turn. In due time Riptide became aware of this, but as always he stoically accepted his lot, suppressing his anger and wrath into bitterness and resigning himself to his incarceration with the knowledge that all will surely see his logic in time. That was before he heard of the Farsight Enclaves.

Riptide had always revered Farsight as a paragon of T’au'va, and always sought to emulate him in combat. And then, Farsight broke from the Empire. This was a crushing blow to Riptide's spirit, as he had always viewed loyalty as the ultimate part of valour, and now seeing his hero fall from this lofty height took a toll on him. But what was worse was how the people of the Enclaves saw their new leader.

Riptide saw Farsight as being his future, that if he continued on his path he would eventually be the untouchable paragon of all the virtues he held dearest, and he assumed that as long as he did not waver that he too would be viewed as a hero. And yet no matter how well he fought, no matter how many worlds he broke and brought back to compliance, he was still feared and hated by those he protected. And yet this traitor who scorned everything Riptide held dear was still viewed as a hero to his people. Anger and wrath bubbled up through him, and instead of returning to the T'au Empire, he headed straight for the Enclaves, intent on destroying everything in his path. Landing upon the world of Lub'grahl, he was dismayed to find he could not penetrate into the underground caverns, instead taking out his ire on those still on the surface and by felling the drab earthen spires that littered the surface. By the time Riptide was forced to retreat under the retaliations of Sub-Commander Torchstar, he left the once protruding surface of the planet levelled as though by the hand of a god.

In this display of unsanctioned, unrestrained hatred, the Ethereals saw how to potentially solve two problems at once. Certain elements were having suspicions about the true nature of Riptide's deployments, and were beginning to probe too deeply, and despite the Ethereals pronouncements the people were beginning to suspect that Riptide wasn't as rogue as they were led to believe. In a hasty ceremony, Riptide was made a Shas'O, and he and the few surviving T'au he spent his young life training with were appointed as permanent defenders against the insidious grasp of the Enclaves. He was based on a highly defended Space Station on the boarder of the Forbidden Zone, with representatives of the T'au Castes ensuring that it can survive independently of the Empire, needing only to be kept stocked with resources and manpower.

Mu'sha is seen by all in the Empire as the penal legion it truly is, a means to remove troublesome aspects of Tau society while still preserving the Greater Good, though Riptide still holds strong to his vision of leading an army of noble warriors and paragons, despite its futility.

## Sept Culture & Politics

The Mu’sha T'au fight with the skill and precision of well trained and well drilled soldiers, striking hard and fast while still showing honour in war. They fight like shock trooper units, hurtling into the fray of the enemy to blind and confuse them with their close quarters tactics, sending them into mass panic and masterfully destroying enemy moral, ending battles before too many lives can be lost. The penal soldiers, however, aim to draw out conflict as long as possible, assaulting the enemy where they are weakest and often butchering any who attempt to surrender.

While they are seen as scum by the people of the Empire, on Mu’sha it is a different story. Citizens there have heard stories of a time before Riptide, and they are unable to comprehend that such a paragon of civilization could have been a lawless nightmare. While Mu’sha Fire Warriors and Gue'la Auxiliaries are seen as impetuous, up close, unpredictable fighters at best by the greater Tau Empire, none can deny their combat skill or loyalty to the Greater Good, and it is these noble soldiers that keep Riptide's hope alive and prevent him from spiraling into madness.

## The Sept within the Tau Empire

Much like Riptide before them, almost all of those present in the Mu'sha Coalition are there as punishment, from petty theft to insubordination, every member has a story to tell, and none of them pleasant.

The Ethereal Caste view him as an unpleasant but necessary measure to keep their benign appearance to prospective vassal worlds while also utilising the distasteful talents of certain members of their population. Whenever a T'au hero falls from grace, either through failure in the field, uncouth behaviour or insubordination, the Ethereals always find themselves happy that Mu'sha is constantly requesting reinforcements.

## Combat Doctrine

Mu'sha possess unusually few Fire Caste soldiers, and aside from Riptide's personal cadre of Battlesuit Pilots and what few Fire Warriors they can recruit from Mu’sha they have to settle for the very same criminality and scum that Riptide worked so hard to wipe out. They fight using mainly close range weapons like Pulse Blasters, Pulse Carbines, Kroot Hunting Rifles, combat shotguns and have a profinity for melee weapons such as Honour Blades, Equalisers and looted Gue’vesa armaments. They modelled their fighting style on the violence they usually grew up in, either on the brutal Kroot held worlds or in the Under Hives of Gue’la planets, which taught them none of the honour Riptide had always envisioned his men would have. Whenever he can force them to, his soldiers are trained to hone their speed and accuracy to be able to fire at close range and then whirl their guns around to fire on a completely new target outside the firing arc of the original target, a trick most of his auxiliaries take to with sickening glee. Mu'sha utilise units such as Kroot melee packs, Tau Pathfinder strike teams and Battlesuit squads, and Gue’la Breacher Teams almost exclusively, knowing that being closer to your enemy means it is a lot easier to kill them, as well as more fun in the eyes of the auxiliaries. As Riptide finds it almost impossible to restrict Auxiliary weaponry they often use use whatever equipment they can get their hands on and keep out of sight, and much to the disgust of Riptide they prove to be effective all the same.

In terms of heavier firepower Mu'sha still utilise Hammerhead and Sky Ray Gunships, however they are more well known for favouring lighter vehicles such as the Tetra, the Piranha Skimmers, and the Devilfish, all of which are either retaken from the Enclaves or the out of date models supplied by the Empire. Mu'sha still possesses a surprisingly large number of Battlesuits, particularly favouring XV104 Riptide Battlesuit of which Riptide owns a custom model, in comparison with their T'au numbers, and thanks to the ruthless training given to the pilots by Riptide, they are some of the best there is, which is a sharp contrast to the soldiers marching into battle alongside them. Mu'sha finds it easier to call upon Kroot Auxiliaries for any heavier support, from the small Kroot Hound who hunt and stalk their prey to the mighty Great Knarloc who can overwhelm an enemy through sheer strength alone, as opposed to the much more numerous penal Gue'vessa. While these supports might seem well suited to such a Sept, Riptide is loathe to accept the aid of such honourless and monstrous beasts.

## Notable Members

**Zhao**: Appointed by the Ethereal Council to oversee Riptide's defence of the Empire from the insidious Forbidden Zone and ensure that he continues to show restraint in the face of his hated foes. And expert manipulator, Zhao is capable of focusing and channeling Riptide's rage and directing it at whatever enemy they are facing at the time. Lacking major combat skills due to age, Zhao prefers to lead from the ships in orbit, where he can communicate with all of his forces simultaneously, as well as keeping the Ethereal Council on T’au updated on the activities of Riptide.

**"Swiftstrike" Xunsu**: A renowned Commander, Xunsu is one of the masters of the ways of battle as put down by Commander Puretide, and has even received the high honour of being implanted with a Puretide Engram Neurochip, allowing him to draw upon Puretide's tactical brilliance during battles, which allowed him to rise to prominence within the Empire. Unfortunately, a cataclysmic defeat at the hands of the Tyranid menace left a great swath of the 5th Sphere Expansion uninhabitable and greatly strengthened the Splinter Fleet that was attempting to consume the Empire. Having fallen so far from favour, Xunsu was appointed as the bodyguard of Aun’Vre Zhao, and soon found himself far from the eyes of the Empire at the edge of the Forbidden Zone.

**Tou**: Tou was a pupil of Ke'lshan Sho'Aun before rising through the ranks and attaining the rank of Fio’O himself. Like his teacher before him, Tou was an eccentric who often ignored instructions in order to improve prior creations and experiment with different weapons. Seeing a unique use in him and wishing to keep him safe and out if the way, Tou was sent as head of the Earth Caste representation to the Mu’sha Coalition, where he spent many productive years, using Commander Riptide and his Cadre as test subjects for his experimental weapons. However, a mere decade into his post, his experimentation caught up with him and his laboratory was filled with a wave of plasma. It was only through the dutiful efforts of his Fio’Vre assistants that he survived, and though his body is now more machine than flesh, his creations continue to appear on the battlefield, each more deadly than the last.

**Pian’ju**: Unlike his fellows, Pian’ju was not sent to the Mu’sha Coalition as punishment, on the contrary, Pian'ju was appointed as the Por’O of the Mu'sha Coalition for his skill at deception and his silver tongue. The Ethereals know that to face the Enclaves with any chance of victory they must cripple it, and to that end Pian'ju and his retinue seek to tear them apart piece by piece. While the Fire and Air Castes meet them on the field of battle, the Water Caste seek to turn their erstwhile confederacy into a disconnected rabble, easy pickings for the warriors to come.

**Sheji**: Having proven himself a coward by fleeing from battle in his untouched Hammerhead, Sheji was quickly relegated to the position of a minor gunner in the Mu’sha Coalitions Or'es El'leath. However, this is where his more distasteful talents came to the fore, as he showed great skill in knowing exactly where to hit the enemy in order to produce the most amount of carnage, weather flooding a field hospital with burning plasma or cracking open a heavily defended HQ bunker like an egg, Sheji showed an unnerving glee in causing as much damage as possible from his lofty perch in the sky. His skill in this regard lead him to quickly rise to the position of Kor’O, after an unfortunate incident where the previous Kor'O and most of the fleets officers were killed when the wreckage of an Ork Bomba that Sheji had shot down collided with their shuttle. It is strange, but almost all of Sheji’s detractors end their days with burning detritus falling on them from the sky.

**"Riptide" Tu'sai**: The overall military commander of the Mu'sha Sept, Riptide is as infamous in the T'au Empire as any Enclave leader. Riptide is a brutal and unflinching warrior, traits which resulted in his relegation to the edge of the Forbidden Zone. His presence is as much a preventative measure as a military one, the mere hint of his presence in a system enough to keep a planets wavering loyalty firmly in the favour of the Empire. His military abilities are not restricted to a threatening presence, however, and he has proven himself time and again against the enemy forces of the Farsight Enclaves, the Greenskin menace, and the ravenous Tyranids.

**"Windrider" Shan'dan**: Approaching his first century of service in the T'au Empire, Windrider is currently the oldest member of the Mu'sha Sept, and one of the few Riptide counts as a friend. Utilising an adapted variant of the XV02 Pilot Battlesuit designed by Fio'O Tou, he has continually served Riptide throughout the years, using decades of skill and the advanced mechanics of his battlesuit he is still capable of performing feats of aviation younger pilots can only dream of, easily being capable of bringing the soldiers of Mu'sha anywhere on the battlefield.

**"Thunderstrike" Lei'gong**: While Thunderstrike himself has been dead many decades, his consciousness has continued to survive in the form of an AI engram, currently controlling a venerable KV128 Stormsurge Ballistic Suit. While he was alive, he mentored Riptide, later acting as his commanding officer when he became a Shas'El. While he often joked that his teachings had no effect, based on the vast differences between their preferred combat doctrines, Riptide would be the first to say that his patronage was instrumental to his later life. Currently acts as one of the Mu'sha Coalition's most reliable military tacticians.

**"Sirencall" Jingdi**: Even as a young Fire Caste warrior, O'Shaserra showed great promise as stealth operative, quickly becoming accustomed to leading her own squad of stealth suits. However, her insubordination and unwillingness to respect authority she viewed as weak caused great consternation between her and her commanders, and after a string of defeats caused by her actions she was sent quickly to the Mu'Sha Sept. However, her talents as a lone operative came to the fore under Riptides command, with Jingdi, working with Fio'O Tou, developing battle drones capable of flooding enemy communications with white noise, allowing her to cut off valuable enemy units from the main force before engaging.

**"Hurricane" Ju'feng**: Following a disastrous skirmish against the Tyranid Hive Fleet Lyngbakr in 018.M42, Ju'feng lost all four limbs, as well as large areas of body tissue and his left eye. Fitted with bionic replacements, he is more machine now than T'au. As a result, he has been permanently interred into a life support system, capable of being integrated into his Ta'unar Supremacy Armour, granting him a much higher degree of control as a result. However, he no longer has senses of his own, his eyes and ears wired to the Battlesuits's sense arrays. He lives in a bath of cool fluid, numb and sleeping without dreaming, when his services as a warrior or tactician are not needed. In spite of this, he continues to serve the Sept diligently.

**"Trueshot" Zhen'shi**: Aside from a series of minor mishaps, Zhen’shi has an exemplary record of service under the T'au Empire. It is for this reason, and not as punishment, that he has been assigned to the Mu'Sha Sept. While the Ethereals recognise the value represented by Riptide, they also know that such an asset must be controlled. Fabricating a series of minor failings, they had Zhen’shi sent to the Forbidden Zone, where he was instructed to infiltrate Riptide's hub of advisors, which his record and skill quickly allowed. He now acts on the Ethereals behalf as the voice of reason while others around him pull the leash in their eagerness to fight the enemy.

**"Firestorm" Feng'bao**: The youngest of Riptides inner circle, Feng’bao was assigned to the Clade as punishment for his misconduct during his time as a test pilot for the XV109 Y'Vahra Battlesuit. In a campaign against an Ork Waaagh! Feng’bao disregarded direct orders, piloting his prototype Battlesuit directly into the Ork Kill Kroozer before flooding the ship with plasma, straining his suit and causing irreversible damage to its Nova Reactor. The incident was played to be a superlative success, as indeed it was to the Earth Caste monitoring his systems, while Feng’bao was decided to be of more use using his skills to combat the spread of the Shas'ka Lasa Sept, a particularly invasive Sept of the Farsight Enclaves.

## Sept Fleet

1 Fortress Station

3 Or'es El'leath Class Battleships

5 Lar'shi Class Cruisers

10 Kir'shasvre Heavy Escorts

19 Orcas

12 AX39 Sun Shark Bombers

12 AX3 Razorshark Strike Fighters

## Sept Advanced Technology

**Dai'chui**: Designed by Fio'O Tou, this hammer was based off an ancient T'au honour weapon and is carried by Commander Riptide upon his Battlesuit. The Octagonal head can, with a gesture, be wreathed in a power field offered by Imperial defectors, capable of tearing through even Dreadnought armour with ease.

**Ko'u**: A series of communication drones redesigned by Tou, the Ko'u is capable of blanketing select communication networks in their immediate surroundings with ear-piercing white noise, flooding the com-systems of any opposition and rendering them easy pickings for Jingdi to descend upon.

## Relations

### Enemies:

Farsight Enclaves

WAAAGH! Grumlok

### By the Mu'sha Sept

"*We are no different from you, we too wish for peace. Yet it seems we alone know that if you wish for peace, you must be prepared for war.* "
—Commander Riptide
"*These are red and blue Gue'ron'sha with the white trim have been far more hostile to the Greater Good than most. These 'Space Marines' in particular hail from Battlement, a planet where our intervention would have ve crushed their rebellion piecemeal. Today, these Gue'ron'sha threaten the 5th Sphere Expansion by inciting rebellions, sabotage, and aiding in enemy gue'la defenses. No price is too heavy for the Greater Good, but it is better for our enemies to pay it than us. Commander, you know what to do. Take care of it.* "
—Etheral Aun'vre Zhao and the Etherial Council to Commander Riptide
*Feel free to add your own*
### About the Mu'sha Sept

"*It is my aim to reunite my people once more, liberated from the woeful ignorance of the Ethereal Caste. I hold no enmity towards any who have yet to see the light, and I hope in time to bring them into the fold. All but him. Commander Tu'sai has a well earned moniker, Riptide suits him. He is nothing more than a weapon, a rabid dog held on a weak leash by his Ethereal masters, and he must be put down as one. Do not mistake my words for enmity. If I could convince him of our truth, I would. But I cannot, and I see no reason to dwell on the subject any further.*"
—Commander Farsight
"*We act as one, and united we cannot fall. From each of us, the Greater Good requires devotion and loyalty. However, it also calls for us to uphold honour in all things. That is what I cannot condone in the soldiers of Commander Tu'sai. I know Riptide, and his men show none of his honour, with barely any regard for the Greater Good. They quickly reveal themselves to be no more than the criminal scum they are, and I could wish no more upon the Enclaves than they.*"
—Commander Shadowsun
"*The new age brings new threats to the Tau'va. Most of these threats are external, and we can unite against such enemies with our combined efforts. But the Mu'sha... the Mu'sha are a new threat that comes from within T'au itself. They will seek to hunt and destroy us no matter the cost to the Greater Good. They cannot be bargained with, or convinced of our truth. They will stop at nothing to end us. They are dangerous, radical terrorists who must be confronted and eliminated before they can pose a threat to the Enclaves and destroy our homes. We must do this... for the Greater Good.*"
—Sub-commander Torchstar
"*Dis Riptide git gives a right propa fight. His Boyz are some uv ‘da only fish 'eads 'oo like ta get 'n close. I'd like ta get ma hands on ‘dat shiny hamma uv his. I've seen wot it kan do. Ohohoho 'dat'd be nice ta swing. I kould probably put wun togetha myself, but, ya know, an Ork luvs 'is loot'n.*"
—Warboss Grumlok
"*Ah... I see that you finally found a way to stop the Under-Hives from terrorizing the world, and as a result bringing peace. I love seeing others of my kind realizing that peace is not always an option, they should've known that sometimes blood must be shed. Though i must admit; Sometimes its easier to make peace with someone then eliminating them. I look forward to the day when we will meet Riptide; Until then, know this, Sept Xe'Voh is your ally and whenever you may need gear or vehicles, Give us a call.* "
—Shas'Rah Coldwind