Ruby Mariners

Chosen from among the most formidable corsairs of Port All, the Ruby Mariners are the Crimson Queen's elite, warriors of the void without compare, fighting under a crimson banner for the freedom, the pride and the wealth their dynasties inherited for ten millennia, bestowed upon them by the grace of the Emperor himself. Within their veins runs the blood of ancient settlers from Terra, of pioneers who survived on the very fringes of the Imperium. Against Xenos and Heresy, they stood for as long as the oldest archives of the Imperium reach into the past and the primordial flame of their fervor never died.

## Doctrine

The Mariners of the Crimson Queen live and die for a war in the void. Whether during Star Fort sieges, ship to ship engagements or subversive missions against enemy craft, where the void is the mariner's battlefield, they are trained and skilled supremely, unparalleled among all forces of Sector Gondwana. Not even the voidfarers of Feirefitz rival their skill when fighting in zero-g and on the hulls of starships in open space.

Specific units of Ruby Mariners specialize further in atmospheric combat, mass boarding actions, and infiltration. Most often such specializations are based on the experience and preference of the rogue trader under which the mariner served. In the same vein, the equipment and armament of the mariners vary from ship to ship according to preference, but all enjoy access to the Tabernacle's arsenals which include uniquely efficient ancient patterns and technologies acquired from dubious sources. It is said that some even brandish Xenos weapons claimed from their foes, whilst others incorporate extensive augmentation into their suits.

The preferred combat of all Ruby Mariners is the rapid strike, attacking quickly and decisively before the foe can react. Where the first attack fails to vanquish the enemy whole, the Mariners prefer to lure their foes into ambushes and forcing them to fight on the mariner's terms. By disabling gravplates and lights, the mariners often recreate weightless darkness wherein they fight best and most deadly.

## Conscription and Training

Born and raised on unknown worlds, on fleets and ships of the shadow fiefdom under the Crimson Queen's reign, all Ruby Mariners were hired as crew by one of the Queen's corsairs. Aboard their starfaring vessel, on travels of commerce and war, they managed to rise through the ranks, master  knowledge, speech, and skill until their ship's master took note and entered their name into the legendary scrolls of ruby, the list of tithes paid by each rogue trader and corsair to the Crimson Queen.

Those given into the hands of the queen as part of the tithe are inspected and tested most thoroughly by her chosen and would spend years more serving aboard the outmost vessels of her dominion, before ever setting foot onto the deck of one such craft faring with the Tabernacle Fleet.

Only there, at the heart of the Crimson Queen's domain, are the ruby mariners chosen from among the ranks of those ascended. There, they are given arms and armor in red and gold, are instructed in the ancient arts of war only the Tabernacle remembers. The ancient knowledge is burnt into their memory, ancient machinery embedded into their bones and in the end, they become creatures of the void, at home on any vessel's outer hull more than under a planet's sky.

Once they have sailed with the Tabernacle, the Ruby Mariners are sent into the void once again, outward to become the Queen's chosen emissaries, elite warriors, and guardians aboard the very ships they once were hired onto, to search initiates of the next generation and prolong her eternal reign.

## Astrography

As are the Corsairs of Port All, the Ruby Mariners are most at home in the Erinnyenmere, that dark and distant region just short of the uncharted regions. There exist a great number of rogue asteroids and worlds and uncolonized systems claimed in the name of the Crimson Queen, where settlers and pioneers of older ages dwell. From here, the Mariners go out alongside the Rogue Traders, some inward to the worlds of the Triumvirate where profits are abundant. Others outward, over unknown passes through the rift and into the uncharted regions where the stakes are higher – but so are the rewards.

Rare Ruby Mariners are aboard every vessel of the Corsairs and these roam all of Sector Gondwana. But it is much rarer to see the Queen's Mariners in greater deployments. Those are sent only where the queen decides to go to war. Such occasions are rare and even more secretive, thus little is known about the full strength and deployments of the Ruby Mariners.

## History

### Legend of the thirteen mariners

As is all the history of her domain, the origin of the Ruby Mariners is known only to the innermost trusted circles of the Crimson Queen. For these are dangerous legends of the dark old ages before the coming of the Imperium, long before the Fiefdom retreated into shadows as all its neighbors fell before the might of Emperor's Legions.

In those days, legends tell, the young Crimson Queen held court aboard the Tabernacle amid a fleet of noble vessels now long lost to the ravages of time. Each of these ships belongs to one of the fiefdom's highest lords, who sat on thrones far from the commoner's masses on their worlds. Here, the Queen beheld the awakening of humanity and the rebirth of its galactic civilization. Armies and fleets sweeping from Holy Terra across all worlds of the galaxy were on their way even to these furthest regions of the spiral arm. Their coming was inevitable, like a force of nature approaching with immutable certainty. The young Queen of Crimson saw the worlds of lesser powers burning, and she knew there was going to be war  - war for the sake of her domain.

There would either be a forlorn war of resistance against oncoming might of the Imperium, against legions of untold billions drawing their might from a million worlds and more. A war, the queen recognized, the fiefdom stood no chance to win.

Or she would be forced to wage war against her own lords, for their minds were slow and petty, and each would rise to claim her throne should she even suggest bending the knee for the new God-Emperor coming.

Within her fleet indeed waited for usurpers of the throne, vigilant to cease any moment of her weakness to overthrow her dynasty. But none would dare to challenge her openly, for they minds extended not beyond the world of the court and they thought only in ways of cabals and intrigue.

The Crimson Queen, however, had a right mind for war, and she would not waste time with petty moves in the great game of power. Instead, she trusted in the skill of the common soldiers and their arms, and from the crew of her Tabernacle she chose thirteen mariners, one for each noble, and tasked them to assemble forces to take the noble's vessels outright and kill their treacherous masters.

The nobles, who trusted wholly the gilded armor and powerful weaponry of their vessels, did never expect a boarding action, for the Mariners were common folk and no noble thought them capable of ever performing such a task. But the Mariners, void-farers without compare, made their way across the abyss easily undetected, and neither lances nor cannons or the pitiful household guards of nobles were able to stop their strike.

Five of the fiefdom's noble lords were killed in their sleep by infiltrating assassins. Three were sucked into the cold void of space after directed charges cracked the tainted window glass. Two suffocated along with all their crew when poison gas was introduced into their life support. Two more met their end attempting to flee the fleet once chaos erupted when their shuttles exploded before even leaving their bays.

The last stood his ground, making ready for war, and died sat on his throne, when his sabotages fusion reactor exploded and engulfed him, briefly, in the fires of a newborn star.

From this day on, the Crimson Queen would reign unrivaled for ten thousand years and at any time, Ruby Mariners would be her right hand, the most trusted force of the Fiefdom, personally chosen by the unseen monarch they serve.

## Notable Units

### Mariners

At the core of the Crimson Queen's elite force fight these most versatile and durable warriors of the void. Equipped to withstand the hard vacuum of space even under fire and amidst a voidship battle, these soldiers of the Tabernacle are specialists of boarding action. Besides the art of war, these soldiers have mastered skills in starship construction and sabotage, knowing exactly where to exploit weak points in ship's systems and hulls and how to cripple an enemy vessel without even entering its bulk.

Their weaponry ranges greatly depending on the ship's masters under which they served before being chosen by the Queen. This versatility makes them effective in many situations and unpredictable on the battlefield.

But among their foes, they are most feared not for their armaments, but their utter silence. No voice, no death-scream nor last prayer escapes their sealed suits and armored helmets. In battle, they appear almost as automatons, machines marching against the weak flesh of their enemies.

### Harpooneers

Whereas most mariners are skilled in the art of combat in the void, none possess such mastery in movement as the Harpooneers. More swiftly than any other force in Sector Gondwana, they traverse the void between battling starships, fortresses and stations. From afar, they use precision rifles and long-range support strikes to devastate the enemy, at close range they resort to fearsome bladed weapons.

Their mobility is aided by ancient equipment, mobility packs for the void, magnetic harpoons and other impulse machines allowing them to fight without fear of the cosmic deep. They go where no enemy can follow and laugh as the skies burn around them.

Even among the Ruby Mariners, the Harpooneers are a strange folk of their own, living in isolated enclaves even aboard their master's ships. They often venture into the open void when not called upon, and bathe in radiation and the cosmic light. Only the high priests of the Cult Mechanicus Cambria, who tend to their augmentations, ever see a Harpooneer with their void-suit removed. Some say, what is left within is more machine than human form. As legends have it they were once hunters on the fringes of the Thetys Rift, long before the demons overtook its realm and leviathans much akin to those of ancient Holy Terra roamed these skies. From these ancient days, they preserved a unique language and songs, and the cryptic spacer runes with which they still communicate.

### Void Raptors

Aided are the Ruby Mariners by exotic war machines dwelling in the void. These are patterns unknown even to the wise of many Mechanicum Worlds, preserved in the unique archives of the Tabernacle. Such automata and their masters are rare even in the Queen's Fleet, but where they arrive in battle, they turn the tide of entire wars. They rip open the hulls of starfaring vessels and devour the crew within, pushing machine spirits to insanity and wreaking havoc among the minds of the living. Their appearance as monstrosities belies the mechanical nature at their core. Still, they are hunted by the Inquisition, for their radical nature has been deemed heretical by some.

### Cosmos Kastelan Automata

Buried deep within the Tabernacle Data-Hives were found the fractured patterns of ancient automata, war machines designed by the humankind to fight perilous wars in the open void. These mighty war machines had rested long, forgotten. Not even the wisest among the Queen's engineseers were capable of reactivating the forges for this pattern and deemed it long lost to time.

This changed only with the establishment of the Triumvirate when the Mechanicus Cult of Cambria first sent explorator priests to visit the shadow worlds of the Queen's Fiefdom. They took the remnants of the ancient pattern, and for five long centuries studied and revered them. After long decades of careful consideration and integration of the fragments into the patterns of known machines, the holiest forges upon the Ringworld Cambria produced the first re-iteration of these ancient machines in millennia. This was the birth of the Cosmos Kastelan, and many of their number were given to the Crimson Queen as a reward for bringing such ancient knowledge back to the Imperium.

These re-discovered war automata now reinforce heavy boarding forces of the Ruby Mariners, breaking easily through interior compartments of enemy ships, destroying bulkheads and fortifications in swift, decisive action. In the narrow corridors and cramped cells of many vessels, their presence alone routs the enemy. In larger, open halls, their formations remain unbroken even under heavy fire, offering cover for the Mariners to follow.

### Auxilia Automata

Aided in their wars among the stars are the Ruby Mariners by exotic Void Automata. In ancient times these forms were made for wars and victories long forgotten. Only in decaying archives and the distant memory of the oldest machine spirits aboard venerable vessels of the Imperial vessels do these automata exist now in most parts of the galaxy. But in some places, such as the Tabernacle Fleet, their kind is still conceived and brought to machine-life. Little more than feral animals cast in brass and iron, these mechanical creatures require great skill to command and are gifted only to the veterans among the Ruby Mariners. But to those who know how to handle these precise instruments of specialized power, they offer invaluable service and opportunities for victory.

#### Aries

At its core, the Aries houses concentrated melta charges offering a single shot to burn through meters of condensed starship hull. Like a battering ram breaking the gates, the Aries breaks the walls of enemy vessels, offering an entrance way utterly unexpected for boarding parties and sabotage charges. Applied to the right position and weak point on a star-ship hull, the Aries alone, with the blessings of the Omnissiah, may cause massive devastation and fatal secondary detonations.

#### Auctor

A utility platform designed for adaptability, almost any tool, and small arms can be mounted upon the hard-points of the Auctor Automaton. The Techpriests of the Mariner's configure these automata with greatest care and invocations of victory when adjusting their configuration for the specific mission's needs. Depending on the command's behest, these machines may be used to retrieve wounded mariners, to offer noo-sphere support or act as armed sentries. Most often they carry additional ammunition and arms for prolonged boarding operations and form a crude supply line should the battle draw on.

#### Testa

The most unusual of all auxiliary automata is the Testa Auger and Vox relay. A simple sphere outfitted with grav-drives and simple thrusters, the Testa offers communications and reconnaissance in the void to landing and oncoming Mariner troops. Its singular eye penetrates hulls and compartments easily on a small scale, allowing the identification of weak points, hidden companionways, and hatches on the outer hull.