Derrok-Marneal

Dreadfin's Corpse, symbol of Dreadfin Hunters

Teal along Crimson and Acru - Representing scales, blood and bone of Dreadfin

*Original craftworld idea by TheLesdlyGuy, expanded upon and brought to Wiki by their approval.*

"***Thee raise thy spirits, and raise thy blades!
No time for sorrow when hunt awaits.
Thee raise thy engines, and raise banners high!
Our future gory, our glory is nigh!
Thee raise thy chalice, and fill it with blood!
Today, we hunt, for Kurnous - our god.

To be a Dreadfin Hunter, to be among the crew.
To be from death begotten, oh how many had we slew?
To be a Dreadfin Hunter, to be above the rest.
Our deeds never forgotten, and for it might we fest!

Thee raise thy guns, and raise thy fists!
Dead shall not be remembered, dead shall not be missed.
Thee raise thy ears, and raise from the ground!
There's always more hunts, out there to be found.
Thee raise your voice up, up into the choir!
For today, the Dreadfins shall scour once more.

To be a Dreadfin Hunter, to be among the crew.
To be from death begotten, oh how many had we slew?
To be a Dreadfin Hunter, to be above the rest.
Our deeds never forgotten, and for it might we fest!

Thee raise thy hopes, and raise through the waves!
Kurnous shall bless us, the strongest he saves.
Thee raise thy pride, and raise banners once more!
To kill, to free, to hunt we all swore.
Thee raise thy head, and pray to the god.
For fortune and power, for time that we've got.

To be a Dreadfin Hunter, to be among the crew.
To be from death begotten, oh how many had we slew?
To be a Dreadfin Hunter, to be above the rest.
Our deeds never forgotten, and for it might we fest!
And now, our strength and fortune shall come, in hunt, to test.***"
—The shantie common across Dreadfin Hunters, often sung to a sound of sharpening knives, patter of warboots and a low humming before raids.
**Derrok-Marneal** is traditionalist Aeldari Craftworld, acquiring much of its crew from warriors among exodite worlds, ruled by hereditary title of the captain, claimed to be descendants of original Dreadfin Hunter, a blessed hero of Kurnous on eternal hunt. Following the legends, craftworld excelled at stealing relics, and slaying mightiest of beasts to sell their trophies or take payment for having the danger eliminated. With the Fall and most of their employers dead however, they came to take the payment with the same violence they present to foes, and in the form of now the most precious resource of all: spiritstones.

Not many now recall that for a time, even after Fall it still maintained noble purpose: only after grievous, but won, battle with thousand sons warband and foul chaos over particuliar soul manipulating relic did they went to raid their kin. Same relic that cracked most of their spiritstones and which they now use to subvert and erase souls from the stones. Traditional tolls were dead with the empire of eldar. Spiritstones became a new currency - one without which, one feared death, and with many of, could field a wraith army to display his richness. Thus started the endless economic races, trading inwards and outwards, killing to fear the death no more.

## History

### The Tale of the Dreadfin

Come and listen closely, young scrub'. I got a tale to tell. It might just save yar's life so weary, better listen well. So they say, a long ago, before Eldarkind, before Kurnous embraces Isha in love to make 'em even, she, as it goes for women, made several challenges to prove the love, you see. There was a great potential in the future of life Isha embodied, and as such Kurnous was not only of the muckers out to get 'er hand. Khaine, and many lesser gods, saw the power mortal children could bring and all wanted it for them. She, meanwhile, wanted love, but only a singular, most personal and true, with the one most willing and strong. The competitions were fierce. Some involved maintaining mortals, others duels on many fields, gods involving physical traits prevailed, for life, after all, is physical aspect foremostly. Finally, the rawest of them left: Kurnous, our patron, and the fellon Khaine one I mentioned earlier. Both fitted with strength, one though fuelled by wit and pure desire to survive, second, by pure anger.

Take gods be damned guess what was the final test. The killin' of creation Isha made out herself alone, specifficly to counter the last remaining candidates. The Dreadfin, yes, you think good. Beast was bigger than our ship, or maybe three combined, some portrait is a serpent, others as a big and spacious bulk of meat with fins to swim through current of galaxy, doesn't matter. Its teal-tinted scales were nearly impiercable even by the gods themselves, and its teeth were able to hurt them. Isha put a lot into that thing. The hunt took years of preparations. On Kurnouses side at least. The Khaine fought and fought on and on, trying to kill the being despite Isha pouring her healing blessings onto it. Kurnous went straight into the belly of the beast, splatter of acid within its belly hurting him badly. Yet from inside of the belly, he managed to find a weak spot, and shot a deadly arrow straight line gutts-hearth and then to hearth of the goddess. With this one shot, he guaranteed himself love eternal, and for eldar it was known from it that wit and instinct always win over pure rage and tenacity.

Are you still with me here? Probably bored 'bout me tellin ya what the dead gods did, like anyone would care now. Well, then, let me tell you that Isha loved all of her creations. Dreadfin included. And so, the beasty revived itself, filled with life giving blessings. It reincarnated slowly, smaller than it used to be but as cunning and resilient as ever. In fact so slowly it revived that by the time it became a threat the veil between gods and eldarkind had already been made, and thus Kurnous couldn't come back to strike it down once more. He hath chosen one of his blessed to become a Hunter and do that bidding instead. Now, nobody actually knows what their name was, and all would like to claim its of their bloodline, but what's known is many tried to become the Hunter only to fail, ribcage tattered and blood staining blackness of the void.

The actual Hunter was hunting the pray for years on end, losing an arm and a leg in its attacks, but never giving up, until like the god, they dived head first into beast's belly, their remaining flesh burned by the acid as they made their way to the hearth and tore it with a blow on the brink of exhaustion.Dreadfin hath eaten whole planets of eldar by then, and Isha wasn't much happy with that, making Hunter's kill of the Dreadfin the last one it needed. Thus, a second virtue was tought: tenacity can still be rewarding if you know how to proceed.

Now, what do I think of it? Tales are nice and pleasant to ear, easy to remember, spread and repeat. But in each there is a grain of truth from old war they say, and let me tell you, the Dreadfin likely have been a grand ship of the soulless ones. Hunter? Maybe a captain, or a ship, going into whatever they've got to be like an infinity circuit, to blow that to splinters. Some who believe the Hunter was indeed a ship, or even a fleet whole indeed, often believe also that each of us 'ere, exodites from globe-lands, share the blood with one of its crew members, which is unlikely, but keeps their morales up so I won't judge. Anyway. Point is, the beastie died once from a hand of a god, and then mortal repeated it, mortal after which we are all named, our hero, and ancestor of our ol' captain.

### Before the Fall

Hmh? Wanna know what our forefathers have been doing on this wraithbone vessel, too? Oh, mate, good person did you ask! The only true records come from paychecks and trophies, as stories of families ain't to be fully trusted. Destroyed a Necron Tomb here, cleaned a planet of hounds that had speed of windriders elsewhere. Life was fine, it was. But between you and me, and kin of ours, the truth is known that ever since souless escaped to their little mass graves beneath ground, untouched by stars, the menace of chaos hath became our main and true enemy. And we've dealt with lots of that too, cleaning one incursion after other one.

Marauders: strike here, strike there, get us some trade, and we are out, that's the lifestile we chose. What were we trading? Relics. Metal. Food. Hunter was told to have scraped a scale loosened by the shot of Kurnous, and having used it as shield, and as him, we were all eager to have trophies of our own too. All good hunters need a trophy to prove their hunt is more than a story. And in this world, for truth, people must pay. Show folk their trophies, have them grant you material power for truth. This is the way. And it always should. By the way, we now call cap's quarters "The Dreadfin Scale", apparently having grown out to a size of almost a whole craftworld segment due to regenerative propeties if you buy into that.

Anyway, well, then, upon hunts 'o plenty, getting hired all round, you gonna see same people from time to time, and how they change over it. And the people, oh people... Earth-bound-kin got as unhinged and decadent as they tell ya. We came in for killing and defense, so haven't had to care as long as metal and food were flowing, we had our standards unlike them. But you knew things started getting real shady when the attack request was to raid another planet of kin and take prisioners, or what is worse, to attack the planet of kin who wrote the request itself with specific detailing to take em bodies raw and do what we wished and "relief our stressed". Disgusting things, I tell ya. Some raid groups responded to such call, but naturally we disowned them as no longer within our honour and morals. Sometimes sadly, to keep up relations with our longer time clients, given near all started sending ridicioulous request, we had to agree to "slay some of our kin from the other planet" kind of requests to keep the trade flowin, especially that we could rob remains after. Were people with such lack of standard much more than beast we slew for daily, anyways? At lest gave em death more respectful than by overdosing or other hedonistic pursuits. The more the earthbound detached, the more food stead of metal we went for, to not come to them as often as before. And in retrospect? Should have slaughtered more of our kin instead. Metal would have come useful, when what was to come, came.

Indeed. The psionic shockwave from 'em earth-bound capital, name of it be lost to the void, getting torn to shreads hit us too. Lucky us, navigators aside, we have never had much of psionicly talented, and only small fraction of these got their insides blown out. What was truely a problem however, were the damned pink skinned suckers trying to board us stern side. Well, suffice to say, we "retired" from taking jobs after that one, not that there was from who anyhow. Luckily again, be it thanks to our hunting skills, damage was more in crew than the equipment or ship, so we could cruise on and live, taking folk from those far-our worlds that while savage, at least had some of our kin on them.

Soon after we escaped the range of deamon tides and grabbed a few hands from worlds to dive back in for a revange, and to be claimed heroes, we got delivered info on what actually went out. We were not happy. Nobody to show trophies to that wouldn't be struggling for survival themselves, meant bad things for us, and the strength of the foe was too big to reclaim the whole thing in glory. Atop of that, messangers brought to us the path system. Yes, the thing you gotta follow, else She who can go stab herself in the eye will suck onto your soul, which is pretty unpleasant expiriance as far as I've been told. The submission was reluctant, but they given gear with it, gear which we could well use, considering there would be more ocassions Masks we didn't need, but the aspect shrines were formed, and the now ever so precious spiritsone infused armours were granted to us, from the craftworlds where the wave drowned more souls.

Once we got settled with that? Contacts cut, and out for the hunt, to take back least the slimmer of what was left of kin.

### The War of Souls

War. Yes, we waged it onto the deamonkind, and purged a great many of it. A terrible truth: many a monkeigh and lesser came to submit to them, and we had to rip them apart to get by the strings to their masters. Engegaments were going out left and right, all in name of our race, despite risking our souls for it, doing a charity crusade of lost men. One bleeding hound, or might I say, bird, tracked by stench of their psykic footprint to a former maiden world of one of our clients though, would give us war we would hail from winning, albeit much hurt even to this time. Most recent legendary battle of ours, one that blew the wind pushing us onto the current we currently are on. Indeed, I'm speaking of The War of Souls.

I mentioned the people on the planet paid us couple times. They did, as we fared better gainst ork invaders than bunch of medidating monks spending most time in saunas, speaking about the luxary of rebirth. Rebirth was a thing at the time, when our souls would be dragged to our gods and not to that abomination, but wherever your soul did end up was pretty random - which by the way, is a reason why not all of us share actual blood according to that "all descendants of hunter" theory. We thought about them as one-life-through resort, that they were praising rebirth for it brought them there to live in peace and whatever. Turns out, those bastards had a relic controlling souls to them. Not hard to figure they used to circulate their souls specificly back to bodies on their planet. And before you ask, yes we tried doing that too. Would you know, grasp of god-killing crapshoot is slightly stronger than some relic. We do as much as we can with it.

Anyway, back to the story... The horned deamons simply charge at you blind, respectable but foolish. The mucks take a while to get rid of, but are about as sluggish as they look, if not more. Spawns of the Thirster, beyond vendetta, are formidable in their speed forcing one to be weary. Now, the beak-heads? Damned sorcerers, hunting magic artifacts bout as good as we hunt them, contracting both wit, instinct and dedication as much as we were tought about them. And this one, armed with monkeigh, sniffed relic able to rip them souls from cans of our flesh, and even the spiritstones as we were to learn. Non ideal for a race already having soul-related problems to have a foe with such powers, as you can imagine. We had to stop them.

The first wave was casual. Navigator with five of the squads going down to wreck little havoc, cripple enemies, take stones and leave. Killed some horrors, recalling unusual number of the flame-breathers, nothing out of ordinary as far as unborn go.
It soon became obvious though that enemy wasn't much intrested in fight, looking for something instead. The small squad of monkeigh our raiders picked up for beign weak and in open after investigation turned out to be a scout squad, albeit flame-weapons equipped, clearly sent out for something. Navigator, as that's what they do best, upon gathering "weird scraps" from sorcerer of theirs, pinpointed what, and if retellings are to be true, got struck with a vision shortly after. They came back to the craftworlds harbor quick. And after that it really began.

See, we could have had it done quick. Check-in, check-out, full strength, devout. But well ya know how we are. Not all trusted some raid team navigator. His crew was loyal, good be that, but other crews, well... Some responded because people coming back to the craft like this was unusual. Some enticed by the pressence of a relic, some halfway thinking they are joining a competition. Other to prove the point of their proclaimed genorosity, or to help out folk speaking of greater danger legit, like in the old times, for a favour or them joining in to them later. Regardless reasons, from five raid teams, the second wave grew into round about fifty. Or maybe fifty survived? Details are sketchy. A lot more than they started with - but not a full strength. Still, they gave it a shot.

An navigator felt the presence of the relic within a vault, at center of world's capital. As malformed as it was now, going immidiently in was a hazard. Dropships rained from the sky around it, piercing it like Kurnouses arrows the void of space, followed by a screech and a trail, which despite our foes having deamonic mulch for brains, raised up attention. Artillery batteries took at least five of the pods down, survivors countable on your own hand, and dead more numerous than sum of our teeth and another guy's, the navigator that initiated the thing among them. Tragedy, yes, seeing a vessel holding brave warriors crush and burn from shells of lead tearing it through and out, before skills could be even presented, death without glory. But it made others see the place is indeed defended and worth going for.

Couple of teams dedicated a guy to inform their respective bands that the word was true, and to help the crashlanders. These odd-outs would quickly form a group of their own, and escape via one of the shuttles. Not before having three others destroyed for a cover up, and getting flanked resulting in some casualities, but hey, most made it, so that's a detail. Monkeigh quickly started coming to locations they saw our men drop. Some teams menaged to scrap their shuttles and get into the city, wasting those cans time, others had the scrapping done by them. Some had to, or wanted to engage.

Now, remember that thing bout flamers and flame weapons in general? Yeah, that was not just one squad. Whole Kurnous-be-damned boat of them was on the flame thing, the pyromaniacs. All black armours with funnily-shaped tall helmets, all flame imagary, all flame weapons as if they were Fire Dragons with almost no mental capacity, and what's left of it being just a mixture of demonic energic and fire. Bad news was, it's hard to get into melee when a wall of fire is blocking your way, you know. It wasn't easy, never was gonna be, and for the better of it, I guess. They had to result to harpoons and pistols to keep up, and of course destroying whatever supplies those maniacs had for renewing their flame weapons, usually in explosive right-in-your-face fashion. The casting ones were a struggle too, but of course, who would have expected, focused on throwing balls of fire mostly.

Few teams died in assault, few thinned down the enemy by a unit or two, leaving something to mark the bodies as their property for later, usually by a scrape-mark on armour. Those who got in the city hid in the ruins then began sneaking on patrols and removing the guard, results again varying. Did you know there was a guy who apparently had but two fellons from their team killed, because they accidentaly fired at the celling? Punished themselves for it immidently, got found due to the noise of falling cracked wraithbone, and burned to crisp, but damn good anegdote reminding to secure yee guns if I heard one.

Where was I... Ah yes. Most of them artillery batteries from earlier were mid-city, but those few on outskirts taken after having owners thrown out and beheaded proved useful in cleaning off the squads that went to the field searching for pods. Day first for us looked rather nicely I might say. Enemy obviously knew jig was up, but didn't seem concerned enough to go front center. Some psionic blasts came up every now and then, and bigger buildings were beign destroyed. Some squads strook deeper into town, much to never be heard from again. Other hid by the walls, pileing bodies up to count who's spoils are who's.

Ah, forgot to mention, weird but convinient thing about these monkeigh - most had no flesh under the armour somehow. Almost led us to believe the armour was possesed by some incorporeal aliens, but it's tad more likely that the same way our tormentor is sucking our souls when they die, their patron sucked upon their bodies somehow. And again, what was in place of meat there was ashes and flame, so goes in the fire theme just right. Also, before you ask, no we don't have a name for them. Might have been our greatest war, but they are still out there so the job ain't done, and by the law of honour, their true name is the one they use. Which we don't know, as not one of us ever bothered to decipher monkeighs tounge. When we menage to wipe them, we will earn naming them in the history as we see fit. Just for now gotta be making up some titles.

Back to ours now, some rested, just kept on hunting and making sure buildings them metal-pants destroyed to rat us and clear the shooting line would fall inconviniently, or would wait until reinforcement arrive. Couple of next days were bassicly that, plus some pushes deeper into city and heavy guns beign brought up to defend. Deamons were also all present and threatening of course, but not high in numbers, and flames of some could be just outrunned. Some famillies have stories from this early assault but credibility of these, again, is non-existant. Two waves after us, now onto the big one, third.

The folk got back to the craftworld, told the gig is legit. Remember those went-in-the-city guys I mentioned? We only seen what have been ashes of them, maybe, but they did one thing for sure, and that was activating a webway gate right back of the enemy line. Poor souls likely thought they would make it back, but probably stopped the work when they saw enemy coming to not raise suspision up.

Anyway, those who told the gig was legit, yeah... At that time politics were, obviously, rough. Second we earned money has no real value and earthbound are gone, economy had shaken. Shortly said, we went from having trade people on the lead, to full martial. Who would know, people who actually learn menaging resource are better leaders than those whose main abillities revolve around wielding weapons and killing. No offense, of course. Though, teams were bored, since all the time it was just lotsa deamon slaying, and then boom! A powerful relic pressence, basically confirmed. Little info on what the hell could these monks have held at the time, but bosses were looking to gain up some loyality and power, plus, if powerful enaugh, it could have had kicked the economy up back by having it exchanged between teams for a time. Crude, but always something. Even Captain gone onto the trend, sent few of their personal ones to investigate. It's their squads navigator who felt out that there was an on-ground gate, saving a lot of trouble.

Teams were bursting in one after one in waves, hiding, and trying to sabotage the anti-air weaponry the comebackers told about. Why? Well, gates are pretty and all, but they have to be keeped on, and can only have so much travel through at once. Same reason we ever bothered with dropshiping onto anything. That, and accessability of course. Teams that went through the gate been little dissapointed they didnt get a warm welcome, but hey, they felt out psykers of these fire-maniacs pretty quick, and stormed at their back. Together with those already on, and joining from fly-down, it was an anvil and a hammer against "keep away!" squad. Those who rushed in the mid for the relic meanwhile saw some bad shiet. Good couple hundreed armours, and even more so mutated nit-wits along deamons. Worst part? A fellon, characterized by ours as "flame headed", kneeling casual before the bird of fates. Covered in fire and feathers looking like made out of ash, of course.

Once the back cleaners caught up, the main part of the war began, thousands of men on each side. Some of ours tried to skim in the sanctum, most went semi-frontal. The navigator from captains figured, and broadcasted that shall we loose the relic will send our souls away, before getting burned to crisp from inside, at a cast from the bird. Harpoon folk mostly focused on tripping down unstable-looking freaks, or dragging them in sword range, since they got no fire to block that option out. The drakes engaged in a fire waving contest, which at least distracted enemies a little. Gulls saw the match in monkeigh on flying pieces of deamon and metal, and of course had to dodge endless streams of all-shaped fire. A lot of the time we would have a brave, or suicidal bunch cut into their ranks, just to draw fire and make job easier for rest. Fins, or as other worlds call them, Dire Avengers, had relatively easy one, just lotsa shooting and dodging, bassically no charge. Good at destroying those who would dare come to them, also.

Casualities on our side included, mostly, burning. Which you could have probably expected. Especially bad that with psykic birdery, some of the fires of metal-pants menaged to melt in our armours. At least it did not spread out, usually. Again, pride obscures the details of the event, but apparently my father died right then, said to jab his knife through the armour so hard his hand went through on another side and little fire-gheists jumped them from behind. Not so glamorous, people got a laugh from that one. So, yeah...

From good news, we gained ground, street after street, and praying field after praying field getting closer to the tample-sanctum. Sadly thats about when it all went to ash. And to be precise. The chaser and loot teams that went straight after relic got anihiliated. By the bird fellon. Seemed to focus those ones, so we tried to bait em, but they caught up quick. Never engaged frontal where we could trap and kill it either. Their hot-heated general dueled our captains folk one by one, even slaying two or three, their brains and skull splinters flying around and about. And loud "boom" was heard, the worst thing. Good bit of ground fell down, killing theirs and ours, except deamons who simply shrugged physics off. The bird fellon dived into the hole for good while - we still fought. At that point it was good month long campaign you know. We knew older, but still.

On the upside, hole gave us an adventage. Normally it was pretty hard to tell when the firefolk were dead. Hole in the front? Standing. Headless? Standing. Dismemberment usually worked, but even then parts had to be damaged so they would not wiggle. Good thing our knives cut nice, and we thought to use them. What we didn't thought about however, was to follow the damned birb. Propably because our best navigators were dead at that point, which we didn't figure, likely was enemies plan. We didn't even know the guys who were after relic are dead. No bodies to tell, just ash, and there was so much ash some people choked on it at that point! One had to clean the pipes every once in a while.

Anyway, when after a hour or two bird emerged back, they had an altar sized piece they carried in both their hands of fire. Shots were immidietly fired, but were easly absorbed into the flames, and... You know it, the soulforge bursted. All of us, enemies, deamons, flame head, kneeled down before the bird. Us to stand up quick, but. There was a but. Whispers of madness. Endless hatred. And worst of all. Almost all our stones, cracked, fell down and burned. And with them rage within our veins lit as well.One of three captain's men that were still alive, called to this day "The Extinguisher", took oppurtunity of flame-head kneeling to pierce 'em a hole with a spear whole way through and kick them into the ground where their flame would dissapear into the earth to not be seen again.

Next up? Well, many died, a lot going berserk against our virtues. Great Enemy's deamons saw us weakened, and proceeded to go kill-crazy too, bursting from ours and enemy sorcerers alike. Good for us, they were not friends with the flame-folk, who in turn wanted us all for themselves. In all that chaos though, fourth wave came in. Our cap on the lead.

Aaaand we won, took the thing, end of story. Joking. Well, halfway. As once our captain, alerted by the navigator in their death breath, apparently a right hand, came to the field, stuff took a turn for the well. Especially that enemies tried not to hurt us too much now, as they wanted us alive to experiment upon with the relic. Hard to not hit hard with flame though. Pushed em' back, pushed em' off in the pit, and it was somewhat menagable.

Story my mother told me says that captain walked right inside the bird's body of fire to find part of the beast which would be material and destroyed it, banishing the thing. Equaly likely, the deamon just considered themselves done after cracking our stones, and thought we already deployed full force with navigator as our main leader. Either way they dissapeared from the scene, leaving flame-folk and great enemy's beasts equally unorganized, giving us high ground at least on that front. The wave was quick, deamons started getting dense, first thing cap did was ordering folk preparing and treating to fall back through the gate... "The only thing more stupid than living a fool, is to die a fool" as they say. Which shines a very bad light on my father...

They also said to screw the armours and get the main thing, which people agreed with more readily. Might be the only reason it got carried here, honestly, people died in such quantites that made people making up victory stories about their dead relatives as easy as killin' a child as you could get from this speach already.

Much thankfully, people inside the craftworld were prepared and killing any deamons that somehow got in, and plenty of navigators gathered inside to both keep the portal, close it as soon as folk got back, and deter unwanted onboarders. After the prize was secured, and slowly moving to main vaults, people who got back requested spirit stones off those who had them not cracked, leading to quarrels, and ultimately barters. That's how our new economy started back up when money's worth plumited. Relics, weapon, and food for a working gem. And the Soulforge research breakthrough would only increase the value of one.

### The Raids

Could ya guess. Yes, we are getting there. Well, the pressure on figuring whether the payout was worth having half our crew in the ashes was high, so navigators quick got onto figuring what the hell the fuss was about, almost as quick as they set course away from the eye so to tamper any possible following. What was quickly figured was that bonesingers were the ones resonating better with it.

Then, it was figured, it allowed one to manipulate a soul many times fold better than shall they not have used it. It could distort the essence of soul in a spiritstone, as if affecting the mind of the dead post-mortem. It helped us gain back the ships, it could make wraith constructs more intelligent, and what was most important to people at the time - it could erease the soul from a spiritstone entirely, making it a threat most potent against any of our kin, a true existential threat, an ultimate beast... And a tool to regain the many spiritstones destroyed during its initial use, with usage of other eldar folk ones, but bout that later.

Naturally, given we finally had a big one of a trophy to show to other kin, it was exacly what captain did, contacting them for the first time since the path system was established.Unexpectably... They weren't much happy. Turns out, since we took our leave, most craftworlds became their own individual eldar empires, albeit ridiciolously miniature to the original thing. When the ones cap contacted heard we got a relic that could manipulate souls to a decent extent, beaten off from talons and flames, instead of beign thankful, they took it as us beign a heavily wounded prey full of precious insides. They raided us, and got promptly killed likewise to these earth-bound-kin who got, quite as them, too greedy.

Their spiritstones were stolen, and counteroffensive was launched, from which we got even more of em. The profits were not nearly high to bounce back to everyone having spiritstones, but it sparked an idea. And thus begun many raids on other craftworlds, under the guise of pirateship. We closed the contacts once more, as is anyones right to do, and adorned symbols of bands stead of craftworld's so not to give those we kill a calling card to kill us back. And to those who ask directly some way, we say that we simply have many split-offs, fatalist outcast path band that became Anhrathe thinking that for birthing She Who Thirst punishement should be death of us all, which, there was actually one such group as far as I have been told.

If I were to be asked, we truely are more Anhrathe than Asuryani, still, unlike most Anhrathe following the paths once given to us, even if we don't talk with other craftworlds about related matters. That'd be the entire story so far for you. Well, now, kid, heard you wanted to join a raiding band? You are still too young, though... there might be a place for you in some.

## Paths of the Hunt

Derrok-Marneal, like all other path system following craftworlds, possesses its own aspect shrines. Given its seperatistic nature, however, traditions of these had a chance to develop quite divergent from their most standardized form. Below are the three aspects of the highest influence.

### The Fins/Dreadfin's Fangs

Shrine of Dire Avengers closest to core values of the craftworld, the mix of cunning, tenacity, and pride-tainted nobility. Largest and most popular shrine of the craftworld, with its own subshrines dedicated to various raiding bands. Its members swear an oath of duality, for not to betray the faith in Kurnous, patron god of Derrok-Marneal, and are specifficly selected by exarchs upon proving themselves on the field, with original members beign picked among some of the greatest hunters. One among them, now long an exarch is Extinguisher himself, known for befelling the chaos lord during the War of Souls.

Fins adorn craftworld's, and so dreadfin's colours, along with various aquatic sculpts supposed to bring their resemblance closer to this legendary beast. With both their ego's and wits sharpened by the warmask, fins usually take the command positions relaying orders straight from the autarch, with no one else above them. When not on the move, however, they are the ones calling out the enemy's weakspots, and holding the assault lines up together by their sheer will to persist. It's seen as an great honour and form of social promotion to be deemed worthy of becoming a dreadfin's fang, especially by such an legend as the Extinguisher. As such, aspiration is bred, and with it came the spread one might not suspect from cherry picking shrine.

### Sky Gulls

The Sky Gulls shrine is based upon aspect of Swooping Hawks. The aspect itself is sometimes connected with Kurnous, and needed little reformation to fit itself nicely within. While Fins call enemy's weakspots, its the gulls who use their swiftness and precision to shoot them through, much like Kurnous, and afterwards original Hunter shot through the Dreadfin from inside. In doing so, they embody the first virtue perfectly, though lack of balance coming with second of them, tenacity, making them out of reach for the place as the most popular shrine.

Gulls paint their armours according to one of the team, though are characterized by white wings much like in the standard. In fact, out of the shrines on the craftworld, it remained the most untouched by its culture. Becoming a Gull is usually taken as promotion from team lookout, with members actively choosing to join it instead of beign chosen to do so. Lookouts job though, and so Gulls'es, is looked at with slight disdain as both usually avoid engagements and are first to leave them if they come, in minds of Dreadfin Hunters, almost bordering cowardice. To repay for and make use of this, often times they are sat at the front line and made to bait enemies charge before diving off, leaving only a trail of soon-to-explode grenades.

### Storm Drakes

On the oposing end, the Storm Drakes shrine basing off Fire Dragons embraces the second virtue of craftworld's founding legend to hearth while lacking in first. Unyelding, tenacious, unstoppable. These are the traits which characterize each of the Storm Drakes in their masks, spreading fire and destruction upon their foes without as little as a flinch. Most noticable change of their core tradition is more animalistic, broad and in comparasent bulky armour they wear, defending them greater against their foes at the cost of mobility.

In battle, Drakes form the roaring frontline, directly backed by harpooneers dragging foes in their range using hooked wraithbone chains. They are the ones establishing defense lines, inclunging land mines and throwing special wraithbone-wall-generating grenades. They also enjoy wraith conscruts as companions in battle, deployed in "tide-walls" with them where harpooners wouldn't be of use, particullarly against deamons. Indeed such comradery with wraith constructs do they exhibit, that the shrines never join any raid bands to work as blades for hire instead, just to enrich themselves and make their personal bands made up from constructs.

## Major Raid Team Bands

### Soul Wardens

Personal raid team of the Captain, Xarlock Zurkel, few in number but legendary in deeds. Previously known simply as "The Retinue", renamed and shortened down to four members after the War of Souls, it bounced back by integrating greatest heroes of said big conflict to still small, but respectable hundred. The new name relates to their new duty, that beign guarding war relic known as Soulforge, which is constantly and sleplessly executed by 20 of its members swapping out on cycle basis. Certain members, for example Tayrak Crun also known as "Scaleborn" and Reftin Ashmak "Always Watching", original members delegated to guard Captain personaly, are extempt from this duty, along with ones unable to hold it for other reasons - for example "Extinguisher", now spiritual leader of Fins on the craftworld, their prime exarch.

While not guarding the Soulforge however, to prevail a top of the ladder, Soul Wardens host raids of their own, compensating small numbers in flesh with wraith constucts. Extinguisher himself is often the head of these raids, using the opportunity to train new Fins in battle, and pump the numbers by doing so too. The primary targets of Wardens are actual corsair ships, outcast bands, and offshoot ships nobody will cry about missing. They are not particullarly fond of spilling their kins blood, though know the befenits and enforce it. Every once in a while, using webway contacts, they also attack craftworlds in disputes with one another, forcing one to pay for never set "bounty", to further their corsair guise.

Captain himself, master-autarch of the band, also leads the raids ever so often, however much less so ever since Soulforges propeties were discovered. After all, sometimes guises fall, and he is the one that has to handle it - usually so in blodsheed. Whenever enemy ships approach the craftworld, he must be ready to defend and move it. Whenever a raid team makes a mistake by leaving witnesses who menage to figure out from where attack came, he must come to webway and kill the messanger who would share it, or blackmail them by display force. The Captain might not be as much of war leader as he used to be, however, as ever he remains fiercely loyal and ready to do everything to defend it. As a son of whom he believes to share a spirit with original Hunter, he also pursues his personal hunt to find the soul of his father, and learn the truth once and for all using the Soulforge.

### Scourged

Band holding largest amount of population, in opposite to Soul Wardens, are Scourged. Previously a rag-tag group of cold, ruthless warriors counting in hundreds, had been cursed with their name for their lack of involvement during War of Souls as they saw it as beneath them, and a waste of time and resource, having sent just one raid team and only for final strike along with Captain. In spite of this curse, however, having a plenty of living, and whats more important, possesing intact spiritsones warriors proved quite lucrative for the band. The newfound wealth allowed them to buy out another bands, increasing their efficiency in raids, and allowing for rapid expansion into the conglamorate they are now.

Cultural whiplash and eventual osmosis as well as sheer bulk of Scourged made it among the most internally diverse and competetive of the bands, to the point internal alliances market was made further attracting new hunters in by intrest. Individual raid teams of Scourged, despite each beign ruled by a member of original team, or having been integrated to that higher circle by them, quite reliably act independent or outright against of each other. Such competetiveness made them also one of most agressive and least picky of targets. Once the ladder of the market was set, each raid team wanted to climb to the top only to eventually fall down from greed by choosing target too strong. Though with this those below learn and strive to be even better, thus cycle continues.

### The Harpoon

Harpoon. A tool of wraithbone hook and chain, imbeding itself in its victims so the distance between them is can be shortened as its user wishes, but causing little harm on its own. Claimed to be a source of locomotion for the Hunter while inside Dreadfin's organs. A support. Much like it raid band under its name, "The Harpoon", gathers its wealth by working for hire and supporting other bands. Originally formed from long heritage line of medics, dating back to times when their main bother was to make cures for deamonic plagues and antidotes for venoms afflicted by monsters they got a bounty to destroy, they quickly gathered wealth thanks to formation of new economy coinciding with severly burned masses.

Using this wealth they bought themselves permament patronage of a storm drake shrine, and to further enhance this asset, also a raid team specializing in their titular weapon, name of which was used since for entire band. With these two investements secured they would go onto becoming one of more profitable bands, though never having planned to expand like Scourged did, they would indulge in sort of decadance undfound even among other bands for hire. They are only band wearing spiritstones at display at all times in fact, and are perhaps only accepted on board due to quality of their services... and the fact no one really wants to oposse those who hold most of medical staff on their side.

### Ghosts

Among bands, fittingly, ghosts are one of most rarely seen on the battlefield on raided craftworlds. However, they still make big appearance in spiritstone trade by pumping other resources into the system, making it work. They trade food, supplies, weaponry. They are rumoured to track other band's raids, and use them as a distraction to spihon off resources for their own gain. Such parasitism is not met with particculiar friendliness, thus making them among least liked. People often making stories about having collaborated with them where they are presented as snobbish to an extreme, and little better than customers from shortly before the Fall. Yet Ghost's ships remain ever elusive and their pressence on market unquestioned, earning them something of respect.

"Ghosts" don't actually exist as a band, beign only a figurehead on the list and trades created by captain to not damage the ego of craftworld's inhabitants. Instead, they are a caste of workers placed in "The Dreadfin Scale" built directly around captain's cabin shortly after the Fall. They are the ones who refuse to kill their kin, and are instead silently given another way to contribute. Thus, though not apparent to most of the crew, several eldar paths unseen elsewhere blossom, and the craftworld survives.

### Kurnouses Chosen

A band integrated with fragment of the craftworld they rule over, Kurnouses Chosen are among last still holding mass litanies and actively worshipping craftworld's patron god in contrast to simple prayers before hunts and shrine sacrifices commited after them seen as standard among most bands. They also prize themselves as hosts of navigators training ground, many of which join the band after training, to earn profits for it while working aboard other band's ships. Unlike most other, even for-hire bands however, to not violate their convoluted holy oaths, they refuse to shed the blood of their kin, forcing them into alternative main source of income. Using their many navigators, they are most skilled at finding used-to-be maiden worlds, where all spiritstones originally come from. And in these now deamon infested planets orbiting the Eye of Terror they find the necessary resource to trade with others and survive by doing so.

### Eternal Vendetta

One of the smallest bands, composed mostly of Soul Wardens rejects and only twice as numerous as them, but among most dedicated to their purpose. Their name self evidently states their goal - to finish the hunt once started and fulfill Hunters oath of 'wasting no arrows' thus ensuring death of all prey. Beign composed of War of Souls veterans they know deamonic fire bird withdrew and some of the embalmed monkeigh still live. And while this is the case, the honour of craftworld is broken. Some of them think that in fact, craftworld only started killing other of their kin because of this stain on honour tainting it so, and see their mission as one of redemption. Themselves, much like Kurnouses Chosen, don't raid other craftworlds, opting to gather spiritstones on maiden worlds to stay in the economy, even if beign nowhere as efficient at it. At very least, the locations of both their goals are close enough, thus they can switch between both quite freely.

For the rest of the craftworld, they act as scout drone in a sense, and thus their relevance in this list. They are frequently checked down upon, though usually not directly helped. Many other teams and bands want the hunt finished, all however know full story, and don't want to end up roasted like the team which started the war. Members of Vendetta know this too, which contributes to their philosophy of martyrysm and cold cynism. But shall day come they ascend from a nuissance to warband of ash golems to truelly having found their long escaped prey... The hunt might just breath life into morals of craftworld anew as they claim.