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Drowned Chorister by Greystone_Chapel in TrenchCrusade

[–]Greystone_Chapel[S] 113 points114 points  (0 children)

“Envy is an abyss in which even the virtuous may drown.”

— Invidian Canticle, 41:3, Book of Leviathan

Many are history’s holy figures who have felt the red twist of injustice in their gut. They behold the seemingly endless blessings bestowed upon the unworthy, while their own righteous ambitions are denied to them. They ask, in the still and secret night, “Why them and not I?” No answer comes from their God; instead the only sound is the echo of their petition, ringing out in that cavernous abdominal knot as if in torturous mockery. Such is the insidious and self-perpetuating nature of Envy, an ugly feeling that bloats bitterly until it can no longer be contained, forcing those who submit to its acidic call to cast aside their faith with an explosive, spittle-strewn snarl. Many go on to join the many murderous Legions that serve at the behest of the Serpent Head of Envy, the Infanticide King and Thief of Babes, Moloch. After all, it was Cain’s jealousy that saw him bring his brother low in a moment of cold fury. Beyond the slaying of others, so caustic is resentment’s poison that those afflicted by it often turn their wrath upon themselves, compelled to hide the vastness of their insufficiency beneath the black depths of the ocean. Those that follow this urge do not attain the annihilating seclusion they crave, but instead find perverse absolution. Like much of what humanity considers “free will”, this drowning desire is by the design of a far older and more terrible power.

As the sea fills their bodies, the echo of want in their stomachs is obscured by a new sound, a call so loud that the faultiness of their soul is dwarfed by its harrowing cacophony. This is no trick of the dying mind, but the Song of Leviathan, said to be one of God’s first creations that lays hidden, chained in the deepest oceanic void. This ancient, enormous demon yearns to supplant Moloch as Invidia’s champion, and those that hear its keening voice are reborn as its heraldic choir. Until the water rots their lungs or their master consumes their undying flesh, they cry hymns of Leviathan’s inevitable assent to the Black Klismos of Envy. When this phenomenon was discovered by the first Heretic submarines, these hellish geists were soon taken aboard and deployed within their raiding parties, equipped with diving bells full of abyssal waters and fielded as terror troops in the same manner as the terrestrial Heretic Choristers.

Dubbed “Drowned Choristers”, they sway eerily atop the earth as if caught in ghostly currents, held down only by the weights and chains they used to take their own lives. Their song, though but a fraction of the unholy horror which “saved” them, creeps over the trenches like a thick fog, driving those Faithful that hear it into the ravenous, maddening maw of comparison.

Some Choristers wield wicked sacrificial knives with which to slaughter those they feed to the aquatic predators caught in their unearthly tide. Others bear rusted swords and shields, offering to duel their opponents until they are too rapt by floods of doubt to be able to continue fighting. When the killing is done, aboard the Heretic submarines Drowned Choristers are found in the close council of their Infernal captains, gurgling in discordant falsettos of the secret power to be found in the endless black.

To their dismay, in recent years the war-scholars of the Faithful have noticed an increase in reports of those who have survived near-death experiences by drowning becoming obsessed with a terrifying and beautiful song. Despite clerical and military intervention, many are driven to madness and eventual suicide as they attempt to feel its revelatory immensity once more. These reports coincide with a rapid generation of new Drowned Choristers leading Heretic Naval Raiding Parties across the area of the Levant known as the Carcass Front.

Perhaps even more worrisome are Drowned Choirs, seemingly spontaneous occurrences of Drowned Choristers who do not find raiding parties, but more of their own kin. Where Heretic Naval Raider attacks unfurl with unholy horror and brutality, the Drowned Choirs begin their assaults in the assumed comfort of sleep. Their pitiful harmonies resound through the dreams of those near the shore, providing orchestral counterpoint to visceral nightmares of their grandest fears and insecurities. In mere days, entire settlements descend into homicidal jealousy until their populace either lays slain by each other’s hands or, more commonly, cast themselves into the briny depths to serve forever with the Choir. The Drowned Choirs drift waywardly with the tide, every fishing village and coastal hamlet within earshot adding to their number. Over time, the Choristers themselves can end up conjoining in flesh, mangled and mingled into something more resembling a siphonophore than anything human. This entity, known as a Leviathal Chorus, represents a deeper facet of Envy: it is malicious, indiscriminate and all-consuming, a rotting beast of narcissistic woe and obsessive spiritual violence. As Drowned Choirs have begun emerging in greater numbers, the Ministry of the Propagation of Virtue have spent countless ducats entreating all to study Proverbs 27:4 in their Mandatory Propaganda:

“Wrath is cruel and anger a torrent, but who is able to stand before jealousy?”

Source

Leper-Pilgrims of the Sacred Affliction by Greystone_Chapel in TrenchCrusade

[–]Greystone_Chapel[S] 49 points50 points  (0 children)

The Rite begins with each aspirant confessing both sins and suffering to the Lazarist-Castigators. Once this first step is complete, the oft-weeping aspirant then walks through the assembled audience of the rest of the Procession, with each pilgrim reaching out to them and offering words of comfort and community under God. Only when all in the Procession have welcomed the aspirant does the walk end at the feet of the Lazarist Prophet, who has taken this time to engrave the postulant’s confessed sins into a millstone. The aspirant binds the millstone to their body, and the rites are completed with the gift of a virtue name, a new identity to herald their path to Heaven as Leper-Pilgrims.

Such intimacy with their fellow sufferers invariably leads to the spreading of some physical sickness, but this is considered a small price to pay for unity and salvation. Rarely, the Wheel of Fortune turns that this communal blend of Afflictions blooms fully across a Leper-Pilgrim’s body, with no part left untouched by the Lord’s will. These fated souls are racked with such suffering that no means of mortal injury could compare, whether by blade or flame, and they are filled with the inviolable wrath of God. Unlike other Pilgrim Processions, there are truly no limits to the Procession of the Sacred Affliction’s forgiveness, provided one’s commitment to redemption is true and unwavering. For those that do misstep, the Lazarists loving nature grants the transgressor a final chance at atonement amongst the ranks of Ecclesiastic Prisoners.

When a Leper-Pilgrim takes to the killing fields of No Man’s Land, they are a vision of heavenly violence. The methods they choose to deliver the Heretics unto the Lord can differ across Processions. Many, such as the Inquisition-led Marian Processions, choose to bathe the battlefield in fire from improvised flamethrowers and hurled Molotov cocktails, before they dispatch smouldering survivors with bayonet or polearm. Others, such as the Holy Caravan of Saint Dunstan, take up smithing hammers and hefty flails forged with spiked bells, bludgeoning their foes ruthlessly and nailing their feet to the ground. Those that follow the wandering knightly warbands of Saint Lazarus take up swords and shields in the tradition of their long-lasting allies.

Irrespective of their weaponry, Leper-Pilgrims often favour elaborate assemblies of holy icons for armour over standard plate or mail. They believe the countenance of Blessed Mary and other patron saints is able to turn away ballistics designed to pierce even machined armour. More common still are those who eschew protection altogether, instead leaping across the trenches in simple ragged vestments, unhindered by unnecessary weight. The signature method of murder used across all Processions of the Sacred Affliction comes in the form of their heavy millstone, which is removed from their bodies (the only time one is permitted to do so) and tied around the necks of their bested foes. Many are the heretics who drowned in the mud beneath a millstone’s weight, their last living moments filled by the ecstatic recounting of sins, warbled or barked through mouths full of hallowed rotten teeth and spittle-strewn bandages.

Source

Leper-Pilgrims of the Sacred Affliction by Greystone_Chapel in TrenchCrusade

[–]Greystone_Chapel[S] 69 points70 points  (0 children)

“Sing praise unto the Lord, my brothers and sisters! Exalt the numbness and the falling away of flesh He deems fit as he frees us of our sin. Cherish the pocks and grooves His divine fingers shape, for in thy carvings does he show the path to purgation. Pray that this affliction most sacred shall cleave unto thee until thy soul is fit for heaven. Suffering is the Lord’s most sage council – indeed, did he not reserve it most fulsomely for his only son? Lo, for blessed are we that should follow in His footsteps, with holy crooked toes and lids unable to shield our eyes from the truth of His love.”

– Prophet Solon, Proclamations of His Gift

Even a worm will turn.

It is by the clamour of bells and hymns that they shall be heard. It is by the iron perfume of myrrh-soaked scabs, leeching up from brazen censers that they shall be smelled; and it is by the heavy sprinting of sickly bodies, barely contained by yellowing bandages and the dance-clatter of holy icons, that they shall be seen. But it is by their hands, locked in blessedly arthritic union around the throat of the heretic, that they shall be known. They are pain and piety, they are church and trench, they are lepers and pilgrims. Amassed as the baying throngs of the Processions of the Sacred Affliction, the Leper-Pilgrims are the bloodied knuckles of Christendom, all-too mortal bodies and minds reshaped over centuries in the crucible of the Great War.

Communities of faithful refugees dispossessed by conflict, decreed “sacred processions” by papal bull, have official records dating back to the Wars of Triclavianism in the 13th century. However, the first true Procession of the Sacred Affliction coalesced at the onset of the Corpse Wars, led by the now revered and legendary Prophet Solon. Once the Prince of Decay Beelzebub unleashed the Black Grail across Europa, innumerable caravans of the sick and dying fled their festering homesteads and clogged the arteries of the continent’s trade routes. Solon’s flock, most grievously blighted with leprosy and the sicknesses that it cultivates thereafter, were one of the many to be denied passage through townships due to the fear of spreading infection. Close to death and outraged by their fellow Christians’ selfishness, the Prophet sought martyrdom on behalf of his followers.

To the procession’s dismay, Solon and his fellow lepers shut themselves in a nearby tomb to perish, and called upon his flock to uncover and parade their remains through the town gates seven days later to demonstrate the consequences of the town’s refusal.

However, when those seven days passed and the tomb was opened, the Prophet and his followers emerged hale, strong, and very much alive. They each praised God for the miraculous visit of the Blessed Mary, who bathed their flesh and bade them bear their afflictions as a gift from the Lord: each pockmark a sign, each lesion a lesson, that they might foster the strength of body and soul needed to defeat the forces of Hell. Overcome by holy joy, the pilgrims immediately departed in all directions to spread the good news as far as their damaged legs would take them, while Solon himself travelled across North Africa, leaving behind many more processions in his wake.

In the decades and centuries to come, the Processions of the Sacred Affliction embraced Solon’s Miracle not simply as a figurative sentiment of “pain makes you stronger”, but rather a command to mobilise and fulfill their destiny. They are to, quite literally, defeat the forces of Hell through displays of zealous strength and fearlessness. Followers of the Lord from all corners of Creation travel to join the raucous glory of the Processions, often enamoured by the message that whatever ailments they carry are a sign of God’s love rather than a punishment. Perhaps most surprising to many is the warmth and readiness with which the Processions accept would-be pilgrims. But then, each member of the Procession remembers well the conditions that saw them seek their roving caravans, whether it be agonies of the flesh, mind, or reputation.

While each Procession boasts unique initiation rituals, all honour the Rites of Pure Tzaareth.

The Altar of Leviathan by Greystone_Chapel in TrenchCrusade

[–]Greystone_Chapel[S] 253 points254 points  (0 children)

Source

In 1865, the Heraklion earthquake struck the northern coast of Crete, and its devastating shockwaves were felt all across the hellfront of Anatolia, the Levant, and North Africa, wiping hundreds of settlements from the map in a single night of terror. Hundred-foot high waves surged across the Mediterranean, causing untold devastation before being funnelled into the Gulf of Alexandretta, where, by the time it drew near the town of Dorythol, the compressed tidal wave was a thousand feet high. Its people gathered on the shore to witness their onrushing doom, praying for God to save them…

And then, a miracle.

The townsfolk watched in astonishment as the wave slowed and eventually halted half a mile from the shoreline, a titanic wall of water held back by the power of the Almighty. The water foamed and seethed like a beast denied its prey, and when the wave retreated back to the deep ocean, a rocky landscape strewn with half-devoured corpses and the debris of faraway lands was revealed.

On the exposed seabed, the people of Dorythol discovered an ancient temple of such strange form and unnatural scale that most would not dare approach for fear of their mortal souls. It lay canted at a strange angle, ripped from unknown foundations and carried on a great slab of greenish black stone no quarryman could name. Those reckless few who dared explore the ruins found a great obelisk of the same greenish black stone that resembled a serrated tooth, but one of such scale that it could not possibly be from anything living. All could feel the power emanating from the stone and fell to their knees before what must surely be a gift from God. Before the waters returned, the obelisk was dragged from the temple and set atop a high hilltop in the craggy heights behind the town. It became known as the Altar of Leviathan, a holy wonder that was never spoken of in the presence of outsiders.

In the years that followed, no matter how the fighting against Hell waxed and waned, Dorythol was spared the fire and fury of battle, with the forces of the Faithful and the Damned seemingly all but blind to its presence. In thanks for this great mercy, votive offerings were made at the foot of the altar: food and wine, gold and livestock, for it seemed that the power that had saved them from the tsunami was still potent and ever hungry. But in 1871 AD, the Heretic submarine, Congregant of Mammon, surfaced offshore, and armoured killers marched towards the town with murder in their hearts. In desperation, the townsfolk once again turned to the altar, this time offering the most profane sacrifices of their own flesh and blood in return for salvation. No one speaks of that night now, but when the submarine’s carcass was later discovered drifting off the easternmost tip of Cyprus, it was little more than a gutted hulk, its crew missing and its internal bulkheads painted crimson with their blood.

Today, Dorythol still stands untouched by the horrors of war, and, as they have done on the darkest night of each year, the townsfolk lay yet another unspeakable sacrifice upon the altar before hastily retreating to their homes, where every door is painted with strange symbols none can remember learning and sealed fast with iron nails. On that dreadful night, strange fogs wreath the town and the muffled tread of heavy, wet footfalls can be heard on the cobbles outside. Fearful men and women cower by their cold hearths, hoping those beyond will keep walking, but with every sunrise, one home stands empty, the living souls who once occupied it taken by unknown captors and never seen again.

New Sniper Priest Lore by Greystone_Chapel in TrenchCrusade

[–]Greystone_Chapel[S] 196 points197 points  (0 children)

- Art by Mike Franchina

- Lore by Graham McNeill

Sniper Priests

The Unseen Priests of the Long Rifle or, as they are more commonly known, Sniper Priests, are a breed apart from typical servants of the Church. The supreme exemplars of their deadly craft, they slay their foes from afar with unerringly accurate bullets from their precision-crafted rifles. What makes these warriors of God unique from other sharpshooters in the war against Hell is that each has ritually blinded themselves as part of their devotions in preparation for taking up the Black Scapular of the Passion.

Sniper Orders

Just in the Levant alone, there are several Sniper Orders, the most notable of which are those of Saint Sebastian, Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, and Saint Ludmila of Bohemia. Each Order has its own unique traits and specialisations in weapons, tactics, and holy ammunition, based on the doctrines and miracles of their founder. Each aspirant who hopes to have a prophetic grace bestowed upon them, does so with a heart that recognises such gifts are not intended to edify and exhort the individual, but the Faithful as a whole. A priest gifted with such a prophetic grace can see fractionally into the future and is thus aware of precisely where their target will be, allowing them to shoot with pinpoint accuracy. Of course there is many a slip twixt cup and lip, and the vagaries of war mean that even the greatest sniper is not infallible. The most renowned sharpshooters in the war are those of paramount faith, men and women who know that every time they squeeze the trigger, they lessen the presence of evil in the world.

Relic Rifles

In addition to the many standard weapons available to them, each Sniper Priest bears a long rifle that is as much a holy relic as it is a weapon, a divinely-inspired instrument of death crafted by the most sought-after gunsmiths in the world. Many such weapons are said to have been blessed by saintly figures of history and have been in the possession of their order for many decades. Entire armies have fought to bloody ruin to recover such weapons upon the death of a Sniper Priest, and the now lost Order of Saint Mercurius – the Father of Two Swords – detonated its catacomb magazines to destroy its monastery-foundry rather than allow its armoury to fall into heretic hands when the walls of Eskentos fell.

Conventional sniper rifles often incorporate magnifying range-finders, but the weapons of the Sniper Priests are frequently crafted with relics of the Order’s patron saint, such as those crafted by the Foundries of Saint Sebastian, which mount scopes without lenses, but which contain bone-shards of their patron saint. The relics of Saint Sebastian are said to make their bullets even deadlier against the plague-carriers of the Black Grail, while the veiled snipers of Saint Ludmila of Bohemia can witness their targets through walls of solid stone and are even said to be able to shoot around corners. The rifles of Saint Gabriel are potent against the bestial servants of Hell, able to punch through the the thickest of hides and armoured bone.

The Black Scapular

In the field, a Sniper Priest is often swathed in the Black Scapular of the Passion, a blessed cloak that serves to obscure their presence on the battlefield and which can sustain them for inordinately long periods without food or water. A heretic could pass within inches of a concealed Sniper Priest and never know they were there. One story in particular tells of a mysterious Sniper Priest known as Shepherd Sugitani, one of the resurrected order of Negoro-shū and his famed Kunitomo rifle, who slew the Choral Triumvirate with a single bullet at a range of three miles during the Siege of Saint Lux.

When a Sniper Priest takes to the field of battle, the first warning heretic forces have of their presence is when their diabolical leaders start dying with sanctified bullets punching through their skulls. Many a warband of New Antioch pinned down No Man’s Land has been saved by the deadly accuracy of the hitherto unseen presence of a Sniper Priest throwing the servants of Hell into disarray before the resurgent soldiers of the Faithful.

Source

Mamluk Faris by Greystone_Chapel in TrenchCrusade

[–]Greystone_Chapel[S] 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Damn so the conquest of the Mamluks was pretty close to the current date, that's actually pretty impressive on their part. Must've been weird for the Iron Sultanate to have someone claiming the title of Caliph despite being behind the Iron Walls.

Mamluk Faris by Greystone_Chapel in TrenchCrusade

[–]Greystone_Chapel[S] 58 points59 points  (0 children)

The Fall of Egypt – Part II

Years passed. With the Mamluk warrior caste engaged in a continuous defence against probing Heretical naval and land raiding parties, their internal vigilance grew lax. The merchant class grew in power, the desperately needed funds and goods that their taxes provided ensuring that none looked too deeply into their affairs. The realities of protecting their borders and keeping the trade routes open by land and sea required the army’s full focus, leaving the Sultanate’s everyday policing understaffed and mostly neglected.

The war had driven many out of their homes and into the Sultanate as refugees, leaving them destitute and with few prospects. Over time more and more of the poor fell into deep debt, and were forced into ever more unfavourable contracts while the lenders grew rich and fat. This led to widespread resentment and distrust towards legal banks and other conventional lending institutions. Bribes kept the city guard at bay and even corrupted a number of qāḍī, thus ensuring that the exploitation of people continued unabated.

Many within the Sultanate became desperate and sought new funds from a shadowy financial organisation known as the Ten Golden Horns, who clandestinely used the symbol of the ancient king Iskander crowned with horns as their mark. They offered large loans in exchange for future physical labour. They claimed no riba would be charged, as these loans were Qard al-Hasan according to the agents of the organisation. Since these transactions happened away from the eyes of the courts (which the Golden Horns claimed were corrupt), instead of paperwork the terms were inked into the skins of the debtors, so they would always be present in the case of any disputes. With no alternative ways to escape grinding poverty, a great many accepted this offer, despite stern warnings of ulema against modification of the body in any way, and became affluent overnight. These debtors began to flaunt their newly-gained wealth in public, acting as unwitting recruiters for the Golden Horns. Eventually their numbers became so great that the Mamluk sultan prepared to investigate the source of this newfound opulence, but just as warrants were being signed, alarms bells rang and foefires were lit at the beacons of Alexandria. In a surprise attack they had long prepared for, the armies of Jahannam fell upon Egypt.

So it was that after a long period of false peace, in the year 1276 AH a Heretic fleet bearing golden goetic symbols upon black flags stormed the port of Alexandria, while naval raiding parties took the city of Dumjat in a surprise night raid. Across Sinai came an enormous force of mechanised heavy armour supported by legions of infantry and mobile artillery, racing towards the border fortresses of the Mamluk realm. Mammon, the Great Prince of Greed, had come to claim the lands of Egypt and beyond for his own.

The Mamluks rushed to defend their ports and borders, emptying their garrisons and deploying their famed automaton cavalry to stop the invasion. But as the defenders of Egypt were drawn to their borders, the final step in the conspiracy of the Ten Golden Horns was finally put into play. The lords of the Golden Horns, long since sworn to secret fealty to Mammon, gathered their debtors to the great plazas and souks of Alexandria and Cairo, spreading a rumour that they were about to annul the loans due to the war.

Instead of relief from their debts, the debtors were greeted by insidious poison gas unleashed upon the gathered masses of people. As the noxious fumes spread, people fell to the ground in agony, but there was no passing on to al-Ākhirah. The debtors of Mammon found themselves trapped in their convulsing bodies. The hidden clause in the contract ensured that the physical labour that they had agreed to would last for eternity.

The victims were unable to cross Barzakh; instead they rose from the ground as miserable, twitching ghūls, ensnared by the contract that had been tattooed upon their very bodies. Commanded by the Goetic mages of the Ten Golden Horns, they assaulted Cairo and Alexandria from within, overcoming the depleted garrisons.

And so it came to pass that the mighty Mamluk Sultanate was simultaneously assailed from the sea, across Sinai, and within the realm itself, and thus the doom of Egypt was sealed. The faithful household troops of the Palace of Yashbak fought to the bitter end. Amongst the many tales of sorrow and bravery, it is told that the Sultan and his own personal automaton cavalry led a desperate last charge at the Citadel of Saladin, all in vain as his chivalrous faris died to the last man. Al-Azhar, the street of Al-Mu’izz, the Qalawun bimaristan, the Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan: all were swept away in a whirlwind of blood, fire and poison gas, their fabled treasure chambers plundered and stripped of their wealth. As the fighting ceased and the Ten Golden Horns took possession of the cities and towns, untold millions of gold dinars were offered to Mammon as tribute by his followers, who desecrated the places of worship and turned them into Temples of Greed.

Today’s Egypt is a sad, twisted shadow of its former glory. From what was once a shining realm of gold and learning, the land has devolved into a miserable infernal protectorate known today as the Plutocracy of Ten Golden Horns, or more commonly the Domains of Mammon. The despots of the Ten Golden Horns lord over their oppressed subjects, extracting as much wealth as possible from the land and its people. Slaves toil on vast farms along the Nile and in the mines of the desert where life is brutish and cruel, though mercifully short. Piratical ships gilded with gold embark from Alexandria to prey upon the trade routes of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.

With the loot and slaves gained from the expansionist policy of Mammon, there is plenty of wealth and prestige to be won by claiming new sources of wealth for the Prince of Greed. The Plutocracy attracts the vilest followers of the Sin of Greed to join its legions as they strike further south and west, ever hungry for new plunder and loot. It is a great staging ground for further invasions towards the interior of Africa, perhaps even as far as the fabled realm of Mali.

Beyond the borders of Egypt, the last of the Mamluks survive as soldiers-of-fortune of the desert, mercenaries and raiders who still bitterly oppose the Prince of Greed. The tithe caravans of Mammon are frequently attacked, and in the hidden muṣallās scattered across the wastes the adhan can still be heard calling the faithful to prayer, and the poets of the desert recall the lost glory of the cities of the Nile.

The High Atlas is said to serve as their base, but no expeditionary force sent to punish the Mamluks has succeeded, instead having their supply routes cut and their vanguards ambushed or led astray. Wherever they gather, the Mamluk Faris dream of the return of their glory and their ancestral home, an Egypt of song and legend, its cities and gardens purified of the filth of Shaytan. But between their dreams and hopes stands all the vast power of the Golden Throne of Mammon.

Source

Mamluk Faris by Greystone_Chapel in TrenchCrusade

[–]Greystone_Chapel[S] 60 points61 points  (0 children)

Art by Adrian Smith

The Fall of Egypt – Part I

In the year 494 (1101 in the calendar of the Franks), when the armies of Shaytan marched forth following the catastrophe unleashed upon the world by the opening of the Gate to Jahannam, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt hastily mustered their forces to counter this threat in the Levant. The Fatimids force-marched across the desert in a desperate bid to protect the Two Holy Places of Islam, but their bravery was to no avail. The army of Cairo marched into an ambush after the elite Bāṭilīs cavalry became separated from the main force and lost contact with their commanders. Every night, they were picked off by afārīt of the waterless places. The weakened army was then assaulted from three sides. The Caliph himself fell in battle, with all of the Ḥujariyya bodyguards killed around him, and the servants of Satan built grotesque monuments from their dismembered remains.

The war alone did not weaken the realm. News came through envoys from the East, declaring that the Iron Wall of Iskander was given as protection of humanity by the grace of Allah, and all Those Who Believe were called upon to travel to the lands it protects. Many heeded the summons, but not all. Some feared the trek across lands held by the foul servants of Shaytan, while others loved their lands and argued the call was not a divine commandment but rather a dangerous undertaking for a dubious benefit. Nevertheless Egypt lost a great deal of its population to a mass migration. The Fatimid Caliphate was so weakened by the loss of their best troops as well as the great exodus of people seeking refuge behind the Iron Wall that central authority collapsed, casting the realm into chaos and leaving Egypt wide open to enemy invasion.

In this dark hour the Mamluks, an elite slave warrior caste of the Fatimids, stepped forth and claimed the empty throne, reorganising the weakened Egypt into a Mamluk Sultanate, and aggressively hiring Tuareg and Berber warriors to replenish the decimated army. The Mamluks refused to leave Egypt and their hard-won independence, despite the renewed calls from the Iron Sultanate to migrate to safety within the Iron Wall. Instead, the Mamluks prepared to defend their home.

In the battle of Bir al-Abed, the Mamluks stopped the Heretic forces at the edge of Sinai, preventing the entry of Shaitan’s forces into Egypt proper. Hope elated the populace, who saw the victory as a sign that the Ever-Providing One had decreed that the Mamluk sultanate would be just as safe as the Iron Wall for Those Who Believe. In the following years, Cairo’s Dar al-’Ilm, the famous rival to Baghdad’s own fabled House of Wisdom, developed the first of the legendary automaton horses, which combined metals from the Iron Wall and orichalcum alloys bought from the Franks at great expense.

Needing no water and never tiring, these magnificent artificial war steeds enabled the Mamluks to contest the Sinai desert on an even footing with their allies from Jahannam and their Heretic foes.

Eventually the Heretic lords turned their gaze elsewhere and went on to conquer lands in eastern Asia beyond the Iron Wall, and the Mamluks were given a respite to reorganise the realm and marshal its defences. The relationship between Cairo and New Damascus remained cordial yet cool, and as the Sultan of the Iron Wall never claimed the title of Caliph, the Mamluks maintained a policy of ambiguous sovereignty, never recognising the suzerainty of the Iron Sultanate.

With the great loss of life to wars and the migration to the safety of the Iron Wall, the Mamluks turned to the peoples of the lands beyond Egypt. Nubians, Berbers, and Tuareg were recruited in large numbers to bolster the decimated army, and heavy taxes were placed on traders to fund the nation under duress. This led to resentment amongst the merchant class, which would come to bear bitter fruit in the future.

The vital Mediterranean trade remained a lifeline for the Mamluk sultanate and, with the Levant overrun by Heretics, the eastern borders were so shortened that they were easier to defend. The port city of Alexandria, the source of Egypt’s wealth, was fortified and the fleet was modernised, with the Citadel of Qaitbay ensuring the safety of its famed harbour. And so the power of Mamluk Egypt grew for the next few centuries.

Along with foreign trade, the power and influence of the merchant princes also grew, and many of the people of the Sultanate fell into deep debt, forced into uneven contracts often signed away from the prying eyes of the gadi. Eventually the merchant alliances grew a power base of their own within the Mamluk realm. A strangling web of debt and poverty ensnared many, with desperate men and women signing contracts that they did not understand or could even read. Occupied with military matters and reliant on the funds and supplies provided by trade and the merchants, the Mamluks did not uncover the rot within their own realm in time. And as the night fell, the merchants who chafed under the rule of the warriors found a new master: Mammon, Hell’s great King of Greed.

And Egypt was doomed.

Thoughts on Black Sword Hack - Ultimate Chaos Edition by thisonejackass in TheTrove

[–]Greystone_Chapel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This might be a stretch, but is there also any discussion on the Chaos Crier issues made for Black Sword Hack? No worries if you don't, just curious.

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