Blackstone Fortress - Blackstone Fortress: A Blackstone Fortress, known to the Aeldari as a Talisman of Vaul, is a massive, alien-constructed starfort and Warp-based strategic weapon employed by both the Imperium of Man and the forces of Chaos during their more recent conflicts.According to some Imperial scholars, the Blackstone Fortresses were constructed and first used during the war between the Old Ones and the Necrons remembered in Aeldari legend as the War in Heaven. To capitalise on the Necrons' and their C'tan masters' vulnerability to Warp-based attacks during the War in Heaven, the fortresses were equipped with a Warp Cannon that could create a devastating rip in the fabric of realspace that would unleash an eruption of psychic energy from the Immaterium powerful enough to destroy entire star systems. This power can be linked with that of the other fortresses to create an even more powerful beam, as became clear when Abaddon the Despoiler used two of the fortresses to destroy the planet Fularis II, and three to cause the Tarantis star to go supernova during the Gothic War.The six Blackstone Fortresses were discovered early in the Imperium's history in the 33rd Millennium, scattered across the void. Seemingly ancient even at that time, the dormant structures were cyclopean in scale and utterly mysterious. No sign could be found of those who constructed them. Despite exhaustive attempts at analysis, none could determine the nature of the super-hardened, onyx-like metals from which they were constructed.The early Imperium ultimately claimed the Blackstone Fortresses for its own. Even dormant, the enormous battle stations made for exceptional deep-space naval bases. Towed into position by pilot craft, and encrusted with secondary Imperial structures, the Blackstone Fortresses became cornerstones of Imperial naval might.It was during the horrors of the Gothic War -- the twelfth of Abaddon the Despoiler's notorious Black Crusades -- that the Blackstone Fortresses were awoken and their hidden capabilities as weapons of mass destruction made manifest. None know how the Despoiler came by the fell lore required to bring the Blackstone Fortresses' systems to life, but as the Gothic War ground on, it became clear that Abaddon's primary objective was to seize as many of these titanic weapons platforms from the Imperium as he could.By the end of that tumultuous naval conﬂict, two of the fortresses were in the hands of the Black Legion, and at least one more had been destroyed. It was one of these legendary battle stations that was secretly given as a gift by the Despoiler to Huron Blackheart, the Chaos Lord of the Red Corsairs, in the wake of his rebellion against the Imperium during the Badab War.Such a kingly offering not only bought the loyalty of the Red Corsairs for Abaddon's great galactic endeavour to claim Terra in the 13th Black Crusade in ca. 999.M41, but also demonstrated the sheer incredible might of the Despoiler. After all, a warlord who could afford to give away even one such preeminent superweapon must be supremely confident in their own power.The Blackstone Fortresses also influenced the outcome of the most recent Black Crusade of Chaos against the Imperium. One of these massive battle stations, the Will of Eternity, was used by the Despoiler as an artificial meteor to destroy the defences of the Fortress World of Cadia in a massive kinetic strike at the height of the 13th Black Crusade. Its weapon systems had been previously disabled by the attack of the Imperial Fists' star fortress Phalanx, but Abaddon found another way to transform it into a terrible weapon of mass destruction.