#kyroptera

[nevesmose]

So there I was being Kubo on Lexicanum when I saw this:

Lmao Kryroptera. But that's a really interesting idea. What's the citation?

Jolly good, at least isn't an audio drama that only exists on a wax phonograph cylinder or something that was revealed to ADB in a dream.

Having read the chapter over a few times and enjoyed a lot of typical Night Lords bickering and doing sarcastic impressions of each other, I think this is the relevant point (some jackass has been seen killing valuable legion serfs):

Aww. I was all excited for Space Detective Sevatar but this reads to me more like Curze wanting his captains to clamp down on the Legion being full of serial unalivers (sorry, couldn't resist) and bring him this one particular bat boy for judgement than it does an order for the Kyroptera to generally investigate murders on Night Lords vessels.

What a shame. I'd enjoy Space Detective Sevatar, it sounds like a 90s anime.

[the-sisters-library]

Our brethren are sadly ignorant of the elusive Alastor Rushal. Could you give us a taste?

*hand signs* Welcome back to my library! Try not to bump your horns on the chandelier this time, yeah?

Alastor Rushal is elusive indeed. So much so that I’ve only found one novella in one book in which his name is mentioned a total of 9 times. These pages are most of what we know about him.

He was a Raven Guard captured - or more likely defected to - Night Lords at Isstvan V. He was tortured including by Sevatar. He had his tongue cut out as part of that torture. He struck out his own armor markings and fights with Sevatar. Sevatar insisted that Rushal join the Kyroptera, over the objections of other Night Lords captains. He has a badass weapon called a “meteor hammer” that’s described as more of an energy weapon in the form of a huge flail with a mace. I think of it as similar to the sci-fi version of the Witch King of Angmar’s weapon.

Unfortunately we don’t know anything else, really, as the authors seem to have dropped the thread on this guy. We don’t know his motivations, why he turned, what exactly happened to him at Isstvan? All open questions that Black Library may never answer.

[tagedeszorns]

Bloody raven-bat - Alastor Rushal. Again.

Night Lords and torture go together like peaches and cream.

[fuukonomiko]

[Book excerpt: Forge World Horus Heresy: Crusade]The Night Lords fought a civil war for the soul of their Legion in Thramas

The Tragedy of the Night Lords legion Posted on Reddit by Karthak_Maz_Urzak

Horus sent Curze to the Thramas sector to harness its resources for his rebellion, but, well, that ended up being a bit of a self-own. Curze wasn't pleased to see what had become of the worlds he had once overseen.

Long had the worlds that surrounded now-dead Nostramo suffered under the rule of the Night Haunter. His stringent and unforgiving code of law had enforced a dreary life of suffering and toil upon those who served him, with any infraction, no matter how insignificant, punished by maiming or death. While it had maintained a brutal form of order, it had done so by means of a fear so ingrained that it had begun to eat away at the souls of those who dwelt under its burden, the suppressed sins of its people a threat overlooked by their old masters. With the Night Haunter's absence during the final years of the Great Crusade this threat would come to the fore, with many of the worlds of that far sector overthrowing the tyrannical regimes forced upon them by the Night Lords and reverting to the anarchic ways of their past. Corrupt syndicates and brutal gangs took control of cities and worlds, indulging in all that Konrad Curze had forbidden and bringing a more chaotic terror to the weak that dwelt on those benighted worlds.

The syndicates who ruled these worlds thought the return of Curze meant new profits, and they stood ready to supply Horus' rebellion. But to Konrad they were an insult to all he had ever sought to achieve, and he put their worlds to the torch.

This would set the pattern for Konrad Curze's return to his adopted home, with even those worlds that had remained largely true to his draconian laws suffering a blight of gruesome punishments to ensure their loyalty. While the other Traitor Legions busied themselves with the initial assaults on the warp channels leading to distant Terra, and Paramar and Karadoc now vast battlefields for the warlords fighting over the Imperium's corpse, the Night Lords set about a private war. For the return of the Night Haunter was far more than the prosecution of the Warmaster's conquest, but also a piece of a vision that the Night Haunter had long dreaded, the next step on a path that had begun when Horus raised his banner at Isstvan. In the descent of Nostramo and its neighbours into madness and debauchery, and the setting of brother against brother, he saw the beginnings of his own demise and the eternal damnation of his Legion. It was a fate he still fought to deny, though his methods were ever more led by desperation before cunning, and he loosed the warriors of his Legion to eradicate all signs of that possibility, to wipe clean the stain of perfidy with blood and perhaps turn the course of fate itself.

Led by Nakrid Thole, a late-generation recruit from Nostramo, the gutter scum of the Legion wanted to keep Curze occupied with his visions and regrets so that they could plunder and kill to their heart's content. Opposed to him stood both Terrans and Nostramans, veterans and new recruits, who were committed to Horus' rebellion but who wanted the Legion's actions to mean something. Their totem was Sevatar.

Though seen by history as the battlefield that would pit the Night Lords against the Dark Angels, Thramas would also be the field upon which another battle would be fought, a battle for the soul of Konrad Curze himself. Lost among the grand battles and terrible slaughters that formed the backdrop of the assault on the Thramas Sector, the Night Lords underwent their own quiet rebellion. The two faces of the Legion fought a sullen fratricidal struggle for control of their Legion and its Primarch. There were those that yearned for the glory days· when the Night Lords stood among the legends of the Imperium, a military force to be reckoned with, and those who sought only the bloody mandate to pillage and kill in the wild stars at the edge of Imperium space. Horus had offered them freedom in his rebellion and therein lay the heart of their tragedy, for in freedom they had found only despair, both in the decline of their Primarch and in the decline of their Legion.

This would be no war in the open between brothers, but a brutal struggle in the shadows, with honour-duel kills, battlefield incidents and the disgrace of rival officers serving as the main weapons. Though the filth of the Legion enjoyed great success at first, in the end it was the savagery of Thole and his ilk that brought about their own doom.

Despite the apparent failure of the Night Haunter's plans, it would be his actions that finally tipped the balance of power within the Legion to those of his sons that sought to free him from his visions. For in giving the more headstrong portions of his Legion their freedom he had allowed them to overextend their forces and commit themselves to a series of battles that were now beyond their means to finish - they were caught in the trap of their own hubris. In the final months of the Thramas Campaign, many of those that bore the Cross of Bone were cut down, Nakrid Thole falling at Thramas, Vaeduc the Maimed at Sheol and Malithos and Cel Herec at the hands of Sevatar and his Atramentar. With their deaths, the more loyal sons of Curze finally took control of the Legion, with Sevatar assembling a new inner council, the Kyroptera of the Night Lords, filled with warriors he counted as loyal to his cause and the Legion's survival. This new council would lead while the Primarch languished at the edge of death, setting a more pragmatic course than those that had taken the reins for the majority of the Thramas Campaign.

Sevatar and the new Kyroptera intended to reunite the Legion, to cleanse them and make them proud conquerors once more. But then. The Lion and his sons. A force that could not be overcome. But that alone was not enough to end the VIIIth Legion. No, their father saw to that, stirring from his torpor and launching a futile assault on the Dark Angels. And so died the most loyal sons of the VIIIth, those who followed Curze into the Lion's jaws, leaving the rest to flee, never again to be a true Legion.

(If anyone needs any further proof how badass Sevatar is, here you go).

[apothecary-khyron]

Bio:

Khyron Zaal is, or more appropriately, was the Apothecary of the Seventh Claw, Ninth Company of the Eighth Legion during the Unification Wars, Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.

A "Night Child" born among the subterranean Prison Sinks of Terra, Khyron knew not of natural light or free air for most of his childhood.

Nor of kindness or mercy as he fought tooth and nail with the constant influx of prisoners from the world above for what meager resources were available to those condemned to the world below.

But from the world above came the Emperor of Man, who actively sought out the so-called 'Night Children' to become the first Legionnaires of the Eighth Legion.

Khyron and several other children, if you could even adress them as such, received the first implants of the geneseed of Konrad Curze.

They did not reject the geneseed. It was almost as if it were made for them as it accented their pale flesh and keen senses yet cursed them to forever view the world before them through nocturnal lenses. No matter where they were, they would always stand among the shadows.

Khyron and his new-found brothers first drew blood when they enacted retribution against the Saragorn Enclave, The Court of Antius, and The March of Ten Million.

For reasons yet unknown to them, they were driven by moral absolution and a desire to enact retribution. Through their black eyes they saw no victims of circumstance or coerced accomplices, only guilty and innocent. They knew of no mercy for the guility. They had not come as enforcers, but as executioners.

Their actions would come back to haunt them as the Emperor decreed 'Send the Eighth!' to pacify Oxitania through either annihilation or through King Gotha's surrender.

As the Ninth's blue clad ranks came by land and air, they were almost massacred to the last. These events would forever haunt the young apothecary known as Khyron as he would relive the vain struggles to save his brothers every several nights for the following centuries.

After the Unification Wars came to an end, King Gotha was granted rites of trade and given the Ninth Company to serve as his protection amongst the stars, an action that would forever embitter Khyron as stood mere feet away from the man responsible for his brothers' deaths for centuries.

Any records detailing what occured during this time have either been lost or unknown.

After Gotha no longer had use for them, Khyron and his Brothers were reuinited with a changed legion that had fallen from their former status as the Emperor's agents of retribution and resorted to a brutal acts merely for sadistic pleasure they received from it.

Nonetheless, Khyron and the Ninth continued to serve dutifully, enacting compliance and retribution swiftly and brutally where it was needed although still alienated from their primarch and fellow legionnaires for the sin of being Terran-born.

During the Great Crusade, Khyron had failed his obligations to his primarch and the legion in ways unknown and was condemned to wear the Sinner's Gauntlets, ensuring his death at the hands of either his Primarch or the Kyroptera was an inevitability.

After centuries of decline caused by unmoderated sadism and bitterness, the Eighth Legion turned their bolters and chainblades on their brothers alongside fellow traitors upon the worlds of the Istvaan system, forever ensuring their damnation.

What actions he took and what attrocities he committed during the Horus Heresy are unknown to all but him, though they have left him a jaded and bitter individual.

As of M40, Khyron is active among the splintered ranks born from Jago Sevatarion's seperation of the Legion.

He wanders amongst his lost brothers and attends to his duties where he is needed, and remains forever marked by the Sinner's Gauntlets that declare his life forfeit should his brothers feel so.

Though his death seems prevented by the fact that a skilled apothecary is difficult to find among the ranks of his traitorous brothers.

[tennochic]

Banshee Prime blazes in Scorched Steel with Simulor, Synoid Gammacor, and Dulus Dark Split-Sword, accessorizing with the Gazal chest plate, Gazal shoulder guard, Gazal leg plates, and Ormolu Kyroptera syandana.

[yourgamecheats]

Warframe celebrates anniversaries on Switch and PS4 with free stuff

Warframe celebrates anniversaries on Switch and PS4 with free stuff

One year ago this month, Warframe launched for Nintendo Switch. Six years ago this month, it launched for the PlayStation 4. Rather than celebrate these milestones separately, developer Digital Extremes is gifting players on both system skins, noggles, and more.

For PS4 players, you need to log in anytime between now and December 2 to receive an Obsidian Kyroptera Syandana, Obsidian Dex Dakra…

[nevesmose]

Mutuals who are much cooler than I am and know about things like this:

If Konrad and the leading Night Lords were a metal band called KYROPTERA what genre of metal would they be?

I'm up to something.

[nevesmose]

Fic ideas: Sevatar's first week as First Captain, where he realizes how many cats he has to herd as part of his new position? Konrad and Mortarion being awful bffs together? Horus and his scrungly new goth brother? Kyroptera joint venting session?

Last Chance on 8th Street

So in a perhaps too literal interpretation I combined "Sevatar's first week herding cats" with "Horus and his scrungly goth brother" and this was where things ended up. Trying to go for a kind of The Iron Giant "stereotypical 1950s USA that never really existed" vibe I think?

Somewhere in the idealised American past, a no-good street punk is sentenced to community service.

He's just so bald, Sevatar thought unkindly as he looked at the back of Police Chief Horus Lupercal's head. So goddamn bald.

It definitely wasn't the first time he had been in the back of a police car, but it was the first time he'd done it without his hands cuffed behind his back.

"You should consider yourself very fortunate to get away with community service after what you did," Horus said, staring daggers at him in the rear-view mirror. "But my father the mayor has decided to try out a new rehabilitation policy on you instead."

That explained the personal chauffeur treatment, Sevatar supposed, grimacing at yet another mention of my father the mayor. If they ever made a talking Horus Lupercal doll, that's what it would say every time you pulled its string.

"Gee whiz, Chief," Sevatar said insincerely. "All this fuss over a little jaywalking?"

"Jaywalking," Horus repeated flatly.

"Yeah, jaywalking. I jaywalked all the way across town at three in the morning to a nice suburban house and then I jaydrove off in their Cadillac. I pulled some jaydonuts in it and then I jayburned it." He shrugged expressively. "But it started with jaywalking."

Horus didn't reply as they halted next to a low, nondescript building with a sign saying 8th STREET MUNICIPAL CAT SHELTER.

"Here we are," he announced. "Your community service. Get out. It's time you met my brother."

"Oh yeah?" Sevatar left the car, scowling, and adjusted his leather jacket with an air of immense self-importance. "And which brother would that be exactly? Because it feels like there's about a hundred of you. Which reminds me," he added nastily, "give my sympathies to Mrs Mayor."

"A real comedian, aren't you?" Horus replied. "Let me put it this way. He's not one of the ones my father the mayor allows to be seen in public."

"Oh shit, is it the crazy one? The one the Army did all those psychic UFO mind control experiments on?"

"Is that what they say about him?" Horus asked innocently. He shouldered open the main door of the building and led Sevatar into a small, dimly-lit reception area empty except for a few metal folding chairs, a desk with a disconnected rotary phone on it, and a poster of a cat on one wall.

"He must be out in the yard," Horus said, gesturing to a door leading to the rear of the building. "And just remember," he continued, turning to point a finger at Sevatar, "when you fail at this, which you will because you're nothing but a worthless punk, I will be here to arrest you personally. Have fun."

With that he left, either ignoring or not hearing Sevatar's response. Sevatar shrugged, lit up a cigarette and headed out into the yard behind the building.

Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't this - an open, grass-covered space dotted with trees and what looked like a variety of homemade cat-sized climbing frames, scratching posts and houses.

And above all, what looked like thousands of cats, everywhere he looked. The most cats he'd ever seen. Like in that horror movie about birds, but... with cats. For some reason every single one of them was some variety of black, grey or white in colour.

Sitting cross-legged in the centre of the yard, surrounded by his own personal clowder, was Konrad Curze, the crazy one of the Mayor's sons.

He was tall, tall enough that you could see it even sitting down, and far thinner than any healthy person should be. He wore grey jeans and a black turtleneck sweater which, combined with his long black hair and intense dark eyes, made him look like a kind of depressed, disappointed beatnik.

The cat hair all over his clothes didn't help.

"Those things will kill you," Curze said, looking over at Sevatar. His voice was raspy, like he'd either used it far too much or far too little.

"What, the cats?"

He shook his head and gently pushed a tuxedo cat with a peculiar marking on its forehead off his lap so he could stand up and walk over to Sevatar. "Cigarettes. Cats will just eat you after you die."

He had to be seven feet tall at least. Sevatar, who fell back on humour at times of uncertainty, found himself compelled to make some kind of remark.

"What's the weather like up there, Legs?"

"Bright and breezy," Curze replied in the same whispery tone. "You must be Jago Sevatarion, here to serve the community."

"It's Sevatar. And yeah, I guess so. Didn't think it would be a community of cats though."

"Cats are vital to the community," Curze replied. "While their actions in keeping down pest populations may seem brutal, or even downright sadistic, their overall contribution is very positive to society."

"Right. But what about, like... endangered birds? Don't they hunt them too?"

"That's utterly irrelevant to me, Sevatar. I just like cats."

They walked together around the yard, with Curze describing in great detail the various duties involved in running the shelter and Sevatar mostly trying not to step on any of the residents.

Eventually his curiosity got the better of him. "You know, they say you're crazy," he ventured at a stopping point in Curze's feline monologue while he was being shown the special-care area.

"They're right," Curze answered bluntly. "Now, Malcharion here is very old and needs his food mushed up with some water."

"Okay. But you don't seem too crazy right now."

Curze paused and looked at him. "I have good days and bad days," he said. "Today is a good day. Do not under any circumstances let Gendor near any of the other cats' food," he added, pointing at a malevolent-looking grey tabby. "He is entirely untrustworthy."

In the end they agreed that Sevatar would be back at nine the next morning, but when the next morning came he woke up at half past eight with no possible way to get to 8th Street on time.

So he gave up and just kind of wandered around, smoking and making vague plans to skip town. That was something people did, after all. Just vanishing one day.

His thoughts were interrupted by a blurry black shape looming up in his peripherial vision. It quickly resolved itself into Konrad Curze and his cat-hair-covered turtleneck who grabbed him forcefully.

"You should be at the cat shelter," Curze rasped, somehow making the phrase into the most terrifying threat Sevatar had ever heard. The taller man had him pinned up against the wall, just about lifting him off his feet through sheer wiry strength, but then he suddenly drew back.

"You weigh hardly anything, Sevatar," he said. "When did you last eat?"

Sevatar told him, and that was how the man who up until that point had seemed intent on killing him insisted on going to the nearest diner instead.

Curze sat opposite him in their booth with a cup of coffee while Sevatar, who had taken the statement to get whatever you want well and truly to heart, was working his way through a cheeseburger, fries, soda, milkshake and a sundae the size of a toddler.

"Today hasn't been a good day," Curze said, as if that explained everything. "I'm given to understand that for you it's this or prison. Is that right?"

Sevatar shrugged. "And, so what if it is?"

Curze thought for a moment, clasping his long fingers around his coffee cup.

"It's very much the same for me," he said eventually. "If I fail at this I'll be of no use at all to my father the Mayor, as Horus so endearingly puts it."

"Is that so?" Sevatar said, or at least intended to say, around a mouthful of burger. It came out as more of a generic inquisitive sound which didn't seem to bother Curze.

"The next step from there would be a long stay at an institution somewhere very far away and, I think, an eventful appointment with a lobotomist. It would be as if I never existed at all."

"That's rough," Sevatar said, not entirely unkindly.

Curze gave a rueful smile. "That's my father," he replied. "He's done it before with his little disappointments. Did you know there used to be twenty of us?"

"No," Sevatar replied, "I didn't know that."

On impulse, he wiped the fry grease off on his white T-shirt and then held out his hand to Curze.

"I'll make you a deal," he said. "Let's help each other to stay out of institutions as long as we can. Just don't try to kill me again."

They shook hands and started discussing how to herd cats.

[nevesmose]

When Sevatar invites you to join the new Kyroptera but then you realise he also included his mute Raven Guard boyfriend in order to rig every vote in his favour:

[tagedeszorns]

Alastor Rushal, the Raven

Buckle up, the daily portion of murderous Night Lords-madness is about to be served!

Alastor's a little-described character, but whose brief appearances have left a lasting impression on the fandom (and on me).

So many questions! What exactly happened between him and Sevatar? All just Stockholm syndrome or something else entirely? The traitor is silent about it (yeah, so much room for pun-related activities here ...). In any case, there's quite some fanfiction starring everybody's favourite Night Lord/Raven Guard-hybrid at Ao3. Mostly in connection with Sevatar and I definitely won't complain about that.

Last seen in a cell aboard the Invincible Reason, current status ... Let's hope alive!

[tagedeszorns]

Alastor Rushal - the raven in bat's clothing.

I don't know if I haven't found the book telling his whole story or if there is none. Either way - he's a silent, alluring mystery to me.

Sevatar's dutiful shadow and the only rank-and-file Kyroptera.

[apothecary-khyron]

Curze: "These gauntlets mark your life as forfeit when either I, My Equerry, or the Kyroptera decide you have lost your usefulness."

Khyron: "What if I actually want to die?"

Curze, Whispering to Shang and Sevatar: "Fuck. How do I respond to that?"

Shang: *Shrug.*

Sevatar: *Brandishing Chainglaive with homicidal intent.*

[apothecary-khyron]

[After the Thramas Crusade]

Khyron: "The First Captain is missing, the Kyroptera are all dead, three fourths of the legion have gone rogue or fallen to chaos, and I'm having to euthanize more battle brothers than I save.

This is fine, everything is fine."

[tennochic]

Volt Prime treads softly in Rainfall Fog with Telos Akbolto and Orthos, accessorizing with the Eos Prime chest plate, Ki’Teer Foros leg plates, and Ormolu Kyroptera syandana.

[tennochic]

Nyx Prime poses in Lavender Surf with Telos Akbolto Ormolu and Tonbo, accessorizing with the Ki’Teer shoulder plates, Pakal leg guards, and Kyroptera Ormolu syandana.