Presenting: The Red Corsairs

Nergal the Tempter

Lueskeltuani Frenzyn mainioita Liberators-taustoja intouduin itsekin hieman kirjailemaan Red Corsairs -armeijani taustastooria. Tarina on toki ollut olemassa jo tätä ennen, mutta ei koskaan kokonaisuudessaan kirjallisessa muodossa. Vaihteen vuoksi englanniksi. Hyviä lukuhetkiä GW-henkisen humpan parissa.


Joitain vanhempia blogauksia mun Red Corsaireista löytyy englanniksi täältä.


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The bold, the proud, the boastful Chapter Master of the Astral Claws, formerly known as Lufgt Huron, the Tyrant of Badab, was after his defeat at the climax of the last battle of the Badab war and thereafter known only as Blackheart. Of those that rallied to his banner at Badab; the Astral Claws, the Mantis Warriors, the Lamenters, and the Executioners, only Huron’s own Astral Claws remained loyal, carrying Huron’s broken body into the Maelstrom, where Huron was made whole again. 

Murat's Crew

Deep into the howling warp-storm did Huron take his ship and his crew. The Astral Claws' silver, blue and gold armor was now painted in bright crimson and the black of the abyss. They had become the Red Corsairs. Huron and his Red Corsairs found safe harbor on a planet they renamed New Badab, and from there Huron sent out raiding parties to plunder and lay devastation to Imperial shipping lanes far and wide.

"Uncle Fester" - Plague Marines Rhino

One such raid in particular proved of note, for the prize was indeed worthy of Blackheart: The Suleiman, an Astartes Battle Barge, like a behemoth of legend drifting on the currents of the warp, wounded from battle and its ammunition storages all but depleted. The Space Marines on board, who were of the White Scars chapter, had to a man been driven insane by the daemons of the Warp. The culprit: the ship’s mistreated and scorned abhuman chief engineer Voormas, who had broken the warp seals, and given the creatures of the Immaterium access to the ship's interiors. Voormas, now a Chaos Sorcerer pledged to Slaanesh, the Lord of Pleasure, presented the Suleiman and its warp-addled contents to Huron, and thus pledged his undying allegiance to the Master of the Red Corsairs.

Of the White Scars on board not many survived the ordeal intact. Most joined the Cult of the Possessed, or were turned into mindless Chaos Spawn, but the leader of the White Scars Space Marines, a young Astartes Captain by the name of Jagha, also pledged his allegiance to Huron, with stipulation that he’d be allowed to remain on the Suleiman. Huron, who was in an unusually magnanimous mood, was impressed with the man’s courage, and granted him this wish. Jagha's allegiance was first and foremost to the ship, and there is little doubt of the duplicity of his pledge of allegiance to the Chaos Lord, but the nature of Chaos is to corrupt, and soon Jagha too became one of the Red Corsairs.

Mightily pleased was Huron, and thus was Voormas made a lord in the Prince of New Badab’s court. The ship was renamed The Blasphemer, and Huron’s First Mate Nergal, recently ascended to daemonhood, was given captaincy over it. Nergal, a champion of the Skull Harvest of New Badab, saw that his moment of greatness was at hand. Gathering to him his brother Princes Barbatos the Flayer, and Sobek the Devourer, and summoning his lieutenants Barbossa and Murat, as well as Angra of the Cult of Berserkers, and Plagueis and Typhon of the Cult of Pestilence, he set out to make a name for himself in the crimson warp-tides.

Among the crew of The Blasphemer there were also others, whose names rang with infamy, or who made such a name for themselves later. Of these bear mention the individual known as King Hell, a Sorcerer of Slaanesh claiming to come from the far Northern Reaches of a Feral World, and also known the Butcher of Encino Bay, whose archaic Chaos Armor was gifted to him by Slaanesh himself; and Barakka, the Warlord of Tortuqua and the leader of the Blood Reavers, once a rival of Huron, but bested, and thus cowed into service along with the Terminator-armored bodyguard.

There were also the Beasts of the Deep, an obliterator cult, found and recruited in the depths of the Hellforge World known as Davy Jones’ Locker. And there were the mighty machines of war and destruction salvaged from battlefields far and wide, taken as loot from Imperial and Astartes forces, and built in the Hellforges of the Maelstrom: the mighty Land Raider The Kraken, the Chaos Predator Orca, and the two Chaos Vindicators Black Bess and Scylla. The Hellforges, under the ever watchful eye of Voormas are to this day at work, crafting new malign creations of war and conquest.

This account of the origins of The Blasphemer's Crew, who are sometimes also called the Vulture Fleet is put in dubious light by another tale, not oft repeated in the presence of Nergal or those in his favor. By the account of this other tale it was not Nergal, but Sobek the Devourer, Daemon Prince of Nurgle, who was Huron's First Mate, and the one chosen to captain The Blasphemer. The tale tells of treachery in the midst of battle, for as Sobek fought ferociously in the front lines, Nergal, then only an Aspiring Champion of Chaos himself, plotted his downfall. Nergal had found the favor of Slaanesh, and with the help of a coven of sorcerers recruited on a remote world, he made sure that when next Sobek fell in battle, and was sent to the Immaterium to recuperate, he would not find his way back to the material world. Events transpired much as Nergal had planned, and for his effort he was ascended to Daemon Prince status himself.

Plagueis' Crew

The millenia old Sobek did not go down so easily however, for when he learned of the craven treachery of his First Mate, which prevented Sobek from materializing completely, he found another way to return... His daemon soul was too vast to inhabit another material body, so he chose a wholly different type of vessel, one which was much less awe-inspiring than the mighty winged form of a Daemon Prince.

The vessel had other advantages, however: Sobek returned in the disguise of spirits of pestilence inhabiting the corpses of dead Imperial Guardsmen, his soul split evenly among them, so that if one (Or even a hundred!) fell, Sobek would live on. Thus returned, Sobek started to plot Nergal's downfall, watching Nergal through dead eyes, waiting for the right moment...

"The Bloody Bucket" - Khorne Berzerkers Rhino

The Blasphemer has ranged far and wide, and battled foes all over the Ultima Segmentum. Among their many enemies are The Liberators, a renegade Space Marine chapter whom Nergal has named archnemeses, and the Iron Warriors warband led by the two Sorcerer-Warsmiths Dutrox and Iqbal. There was also the ever present threat of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Nostromo, whose path constantly crossed the same shipping lanes the Red Corsairs were preying on.

Some time ago the crew of The Blasphemer returned to their home port of Tortuqua, their ship laden with bounty and settled on a long sabbatical. This is the official story anyway. There were also rumors of revolt among the marauder trash inhabiting Tortuqua, but Nergal (as well as Barakka) remain silent on the matter. Most suspect the revolt was crushed swiftly and decisively, and not without a small amount of guile and treachery, as is the way of the Daemon Prince Nergal, for soon after, the ringleaders of this revolt were seen raising the flags of Nergal of Tortuqua.


More recently, Nergal has again summoned his lieutenants and allies, and there has been talk of The Blasphemer once again going forth into the Ultima Segmentum, to wage war, to plunder, and to raid, ravage and slaughter in the name of the Ruinous Powers. What will come of this remains to be seen.

"Sobek's Vengeance" - Plague Zombies