It all began, as it often does, with flame...
A young boy orphaned in the never-ending turf-wars in the Underhive of Necromunda, his first clear memory the pyroclastic blossom of promethium engulfing his father and mother.
His second memory being "rescued" by the Candle Man; a strange man covers in robes, his head adorned with candles; the flames of the candles dancing to the same rhythm as the flames still burning on his parents corpses.
In the years to come the youth would make the connection, he would realise his saviour was also the man who condemmed him to a parentless life, but on that first day he was only the Candle Man, preacher of the Redemption, and foster father to dozens of young orphans.
As the youth grew into an adolescent he was taught many things;
He was taught to read and write the scriptures of the God-Emperor
He was taught how to scavenge trinkets of divine power from the waste piles and refuse stacks of other houses
He was taught how to speak and how to spread the God-Emperor's message
He was taught how to repair a rad suit to better allow him to venture into the rad-soaked Ash Wastes for trinkets
He was taught how to shoot a gun to bring punishment to the heretics
He was taught how to hold a knife to better cut the tongue from a heretic's mouth
He was taught how to deal with the hunger pains and dehydration after scavenging for hours on end without rest
He was taught how to lead his fellow Gangers into the tunnels of the Underhive to fight for the glory of the Thane of Cawdor
He was taught his life was worth only what the God-Emperor deemed of him, and the suffering and death of he and his fellow Gangers was simply the will of the God-Emperor
He was taught how to feel pain in the name of his God, how to bleed for his God, how to burn for his God
How to bleed and burn and suffer again and again and again all for his beautiful, merciful, divine protector
He was taught to suffer and starve under the lash of the preacher while his tireless toiling kept the Thane fat and comfortable
But most importantly he was taught the power of the flame.
Fire was hypnotic, powerful and dangerous. The youth-turned-adolescent suffered many a beating for losing his focus and watching, simply watching, the flame dancing in the candles and oil-burners that adorned the chapels and cloisters of the Redemption.
Sometimes, although he admitted it to no-one, he could almost hear whispers in the flames, half-heard sibilant words in a strange exotic tongue. The older he grew the more intoxicated he became; the flickering of fire would quicken his heart, his pulse would thunder behind his eyes to the rhythm of the dancing flame, and half-formed words hissed through his tight lips as he lost himself to the flickering light.
As adolescence gave way to adulthood the man left formal schooling behind and began to learn for himself the truths he was never taught as a boy.
He learned how to hide his dark secret, masquerading his twisted obsession with flame as a appreciation of it's power to purify in His name.
He learned to see the myriad colours hidden within the flame; blues, pinks, purples and greens that only he could see.
He learned to understand the voices in the flame, to piece the sibilant syllables together into names and phrases.
He learned of the hypocrisy of Redemption; the disproportionate spread of wealth and influence between the flocking faithful and their masters.
He learned to hate; not a misguided, diluted hatred as taught by Redemption but a pure, deep, cold hatred for everything and everyone but the Flame
He learned to wield fire as a weapon, the reclaimed Flamer his trusted weapon and only true friend
He learned to love to kill; not the clean kills of bullet and blade but the all consuming desolation his true-friend could bring
He brought the blessing of the flame to the enemies of Redemption
He slew men and women with his true-friend
He saw children, as young as he had been, who's parents had met their death at the hands of his true-friend, and saw in them a reflection of his past.
And in that moment he learned the truth of the Candle-man....
And learned his purpose - the cold, pure hatred he had borne for all but the flame focused into a burning arrow pointing at the Candle Man
He found the Candle Man
He used his teachings to cripple the Candle Man with bullet and blade
He used his teachings to cut the tongue from the Candle Man to stop him screaming
He used his teachings to make the Candle man suffer under blade and flame
He spoke to the flame in the sibilant tongue he had learned
and the flame spoke back...
He took the candles from the Candle Man; the man had no right to bare the flame.
He took the eyes of the Candle Man; the man had no right to see the flame.
He took the eyes, tongue and candles and mixed them with his own blood, blood chosen by the flame, and made candles of pure black.
He built a pyre from the lies and falsehoods of Redemption, and sat the whimpering, mute and blind former-Candle Man in it's heart
He sat the Black Candles at eight-points around the pyre
He emptied his true-friend's fuel onto the pyre - he wouldn't need it's help anymore
He lit the Black Candles and the eight-pointed star was summoned in black flame
He laughed, a bitter, mirthless laugh, when the flock of Redemption burst into his newly anointed chapel
He spoke words in that hissing tongue and the black flame obeyed his command
The black flames leapt to the walls, burning the eight-pointed star over and over again
The black flames leapt onto the faithful and engulfed the believers in the corpse-god in their purifying tough
The black flames leapt onto the former-Candle Man, and he screamed. Not from his mouth but from his soul, a terrifying primordial scream that echoed through the minds of everyone present
The black flames leapt to the Man at it's centre, and he felt the comforting warmth of it spread across him.
The mans robes turned soot black
The mans golden mask of redemption turned blood red
The black flame of the pyre burst into kaleidoscopic colours revealing an face - an avian face with amusement within it's eyes.
The flames rose and engulfed the Man and then guttered out with a crack...
The former-Candle Man was no longer a man at all - a spluttering, spewing mutant sat in it's place; tentacles, feathers, blind-eyes and mouths jibbering in the ash of the pyre.
The flock of Redemption touched by the black flame had suffered the same fate, fleshy growths sprouting from wherever the black flame touched.
The flock of Redemption not touched by the black flame reeled in horror before turning on their formed comrades.
Flame sprayed, bullets flew, blades slashed, blood sprayed, and the Church of the Eightfold path was bathed in the blood of mutants and faithful alike.
And as for the boy-turned-man that had started it all? He was no-where to be found.
As a boy he had had no name - just another forgotten child of Necromunda
After his initiation by the Candle Man he became Young Niko - Juve of Redepmtion
As an adolescent he became Brother Niko - Champion of Redemption
As a man he died Traitor Niko - Heretic and Blasphemer
And after his disappearance at the Church of the Eightfold Path he became Father Niko, The Black Phoenix, Keeper of the Sacred Flame.
And his story was far from over.
The face in the flame show him many things
It showed him the suffering on Necromunda
It showed him those who would be receptive to his new creed
It showed him how to find those who would follow him
It showed him how to win them to him new creed
and it showed them all how to defend themselves against the other Gangs of Necromunda..
No no... the story of the Black Phoenix was far from over.
It was just beginning...
So begins the Tale of my Necromunda Gang, the Sacred Flame. If the disjointed and jarring narrative above wasn't enough of a clue, it's a Chaos Cultist gang based around the narrative of a Cult Witch.
For those not familiar with the Chaos Cultist Gangs, they follow slightly different rules to the conventional Gangs of the Underhive.
Chaos gangs replace Leaders with the Cult Demagogue, Champions with Cult Disciples, Gangers and Helot Cultists, and cannot take Juves. Instead they get access to the Cult Witch, a Psyker which also levels up like a Champion/ Leader (giving you the option to have four strong characters from round one, but sacrificing the use of Juves for the privilege).
Chaos Gangs also lose the ability to sell captive Gangers to the guilders, but instead are able to sacrifice their captives to fuel dark rituals which grant powerful boons in the next battle.
If there are no captives to fuel the ritual then the Chaos Cultists can focus the ritual on one of their own... a risky strategy that can lead to the focus devolving into a mewling Chaos Spawn.
The gang is a work in progress at the moment - a miniature conversion project using a spare Genestealer Cultist Neophyte Acolyte sprue (from Kill Team) as the base of my conversions.
As this is my both my first Necromunda post, and first campaign, I think I'll end this post here. If I can I'll do weekly updates to the Cult posts, showing off the models as they come together and describing my experiences though the twisted Underhive!
Looking forward to following the Eightfold Path, and seeing where it leads me!
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