Narrative Campaign: The Elysian Garden

This is the introductory segment that I have written for a planned narrative campaign that will be hosted within the Royal Oaks gaming club, hopefully some time soon. Please read and enjoy the prologue to our Narrative Campaign.

Prologue: The Elysian Garden

Tis the wind, and nothing more...

Looming over incessant stars, consuming gaseous waste and the infernal flames of eternity, the aperture distorted all it touched – a rift of time, space. Derelict, its whole essence void of illumination, its depths flaccid yet implacable. Vivacious in death; persecution is its entirety. 

Let not a soul be untouched lest the Gods belabor and the Delusional invigorate - lest my embrace fail to congeal the righteous flames.
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Doom’s embrace reached toward Grimaldus. The depths of despair stabbed at his being– enveloping him in a psychic sleeve – leaving the venerated war-king stooping in a cold sweat.  

            “Derelict abyss, thy mighty vigor shall never thwart our honored piety – submission and death be thy tool, and as such be it thy fall.”

The Crusade Fleet ascended through the abysmal nightmare that is deep space; the Warp rift dimming the cascading glory of Imperial starlight that pocketed the dismal locale. Imperial murals of the most pious grandeur couldn’t stand a finger to the intensity of conflicting forces entwining upon this desolate plateau.
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            Prism stood lifeless, a barren escapade of imperial ruins and forestry, it stood affront to the depraved melancholy of inner space. The most advanced organisms, demoralized avian posterity of ancestral glory, migrating north - far from the vast plain-deserts of the planet’s central hemisphere – anticipating the ordained changes coming to the wasted system.
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            Welcoming the aroma of death, blood, and sex, the possessed Eldar warmaster's glazed eye sockets scrutinized the erroneous but beautifully crafted carapace of the lost Eldar. Their nimble refinement burnished with a dastardly flawed yet suave wit, they stood as determined as weasels– deliberating and wistful.

            Deterred by not the interrogating warmaster nor the soul wrenching insanity of warp-state, the blackened angels remained resolute in their desire to serve the proposed contract.

            “Souls are born, taken, and lost. One matters not in the ultimatum of Chaos, nor does such ultimatums truly matter for the one. Our desires are simple, are they not, friends? Simple presence acknowledges me, yes, but too what... your curiosity leads ? Agreement is the only key to such an answer.”

            In charlatan manner, the lead of the trio did reply,

 “Neither obligatory service nor unremitting cravings tie us to your bigotry, but shared reverence of physical bereavement hold our hands close. Might ye’ understand we’re not doctrinal concubines, our souls bind to the mother, and the mother to her whims. Yes?”

“Curses be unto the irreverent, the Delusional, the false lovers and their guardians. If thy fate is destined so, it is destined so.”

All in agreement, the eldar-incarcerated deamon flickered in the maroon haze, vanishing through the rift. Distortion and aromas of Death’s tendrils eased their grip upon the pirate’s barge, the warmaster removing itself from the wretched motley in a clinging, kismet sling.
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Shas’ui Guan eyed the distant blip, a barren planet of sand and weed, long since decimated and reaching near a half dozen centuries of vigorous reanimation. Not an Imperial orifice has witnessed the evolution of this halo, this desolate paradise. As well, never has an enclave of the Greater Good ever reached so deep and so far into the expansive universe. 
The phalanx commanders were given a prerogative; always spoken of in hushed voices and bleak conferences, its main sanction kept secret from all but the most elite of the Battle.

            Speculations of mineral deposits, possible Third Sphere stronghold, or a death mission for the Cadre arranged through political bias and inter-sept competitions were what passed the time of the common warrior. No one truly could say for certain why they were embarking on this long journey

            Guan turns his focus back to the distant elysian garden with awe, his mind swirling with an ever expanding spiral of thoughts and anticipations. It wanders, speculating on the utopian system’s odd shadow, as if it were a star being enveloped by a deep fog, forever destined to bestial ruin. The shadow pulsated and moved, barely noticeable by the naked eye, its spasms detectable only by advanced technological arrays – even then the sporadic undulations of its diluted tendrils could only be identified as slight…rifts, tears: augmentations of time, matter, and the basic existence of space itself.
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            Changes were wafting through the mountains. Deliverance was broiling with unending pulses of psychic fragrances that washed over the Captain’s sensory organs. Sensations of a wholly alternate domain… a special realm the battle worn, veteran commander felt ever so seldom: such a feeling that arises when one is powerless, grasping for air while succumbing to the benign clutches of an intangible tendril emanating from a tangible enemy. Few psykers held such sway over Shrike - his will resilient in comparison even to the great Primarch Corax. Such enemies are what felled the greatest of the Raven Guard. Such enemies are what stroke slightly at Shrike’s soul – urging him to take to the stars and claim his righteous revenge.

            “’Tis some visitor,” he muttered, “Tapping at my door… never shall the raven sleep. Never, till dusk finds the mean to our espousal’s end.”

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm working on corrections as soon as I finish this post, going over it for a fourth time to make sure it all correlates as needed. Hope you enjoyed, the link for photo credit is here. Pull-quote here. This was a lot of fun to write! Happy Wargaming!