House Vyronii is from the Knight World of Damaetus III/II, and is one of the most ancient Knight Houses in the Segmentum Obscurus. Unfortunately, during the Age of Strife, they ended up losing so many of their scions that their numbers and resources were perilously depleted by the closing of the Great Crusade and the outbreak of the Horus Heresy.
I'm not going to read out the whole segment from Horus Heresy book 4: Conquest - you can go to Grimdark Narrator's video on House Vyronii for that - so I'll just sum up the important bits (which will still be pretty long, unfortunately).
First, Damaetus III/II - a Knight World, yes, but it actually isn't a planet but a moon floating around a green gas giant. It's a heavily forested world full of swamps and has emerald skies because of the gas giant. This emerald color will be reflected in the paint scheme of their Knight armors later. Fortunately for the scions of House Vyronii, their Knight World of Damaetus III/II is found in a star system at the junction of several minor but stable warp routes. The first colonists made it there during the Long March, and I think their colony ark was transformed into a vast fortress that serves as House Vyronii's home base, which is named Felweather Keep. Like all Knight Houses, the colonists manufactured Knight exo-suits using the Standard Template Constructs at the heart of Felweather Keep to combat the monstrosities dwelling in the forests of the gas giant's moon they landed on. Largely populated by celphalopod-mammal hybrid forms (which basically mean mammals with...tentacles?) of massive sizes that lurked in the swams or nested in colossal trees. So the first Knights of House Vyronii did battle with these chthonic creatures to defend the colonists.
Then the Old Night happened, but fortunately, the Knights of House Vyronii endured, fighting against xenos invaders such as the Orks and Eldar (Dark Eldar, in particular). The most formidable xenos enemy, however, was the Mitu Conglomerate, which had conquered vast swathes of the Coronid Deeps. Probably something I'll visit in the future. Anyway, House Vyronii fended off repeated attacks from the Mitu Conglomerate, with their many keeps built across the surface of Damaetus III/II destroyed and even the mighty Felweather Keep damaged, until they were finally reduced to barely two hundred functional armors. Damn, they used to have six hundred Knight armors, which would put them nearly on par with House Taranis. A thousand curses on the hateful Mitu Conglomerate. Basically, things looked very bleak for our emerald brother scions.
Anyway, one day, instead of the Mitu Conglomerate, the Dark Angels of the Ist Legion showed up. Apparently, while House Vyronii was prepared to die and sell their lives dearly fighting to the end against the Mitu Conglomerate, the Great Crusade had been launched and the Mitu Conglomerate was annihilated by an Expeditionary fleet that included the Dark Angels. Cool. Grateful to the Imperium for wiping out the hateful xenos that had threatened to drive the poor Knights of House Vyronii (and their Knight World of Damaetus III/II) to extinction, the scions pledged allegiance to the Imperium in order to repay this debt of liberation.
House Vyronii joined the Great Crusade and served alongside many different Imperial forces, such as the Dark Angels who found them, the Word Bearers, Imperial Fists and a dozen Excertus Imperialis commands. They also had their Sacristans paint their Knight armors emerald green similar to the light of the gas giant their homeworld moon orbited, and they maintained a respectful distance from the other forces of the Imperium, having been isolated for so long.
The rate of attrition meant that House Vyronii had to ally itself to a Forge World to help them rebuild and restock their Knight armors and resources. Delegations from different Forge Worlds, including Mezoa and the recently founded Cyclothrathine Holdfast, and even the more distant and illustrious Lucius. Unfortunately, the priesthood of the Mechanicum being who they are, they all wanted House Vyronii to swear themselves as feudal subjects, in return for replacing the ancient and often repaired Knight armors with new war machines of more advanced and potent classes.
Worse, they all coveted the ancient crystal datastacks buried within Felweather Keep. Fortunately, Grand Master Jahk of House Vyronii was shrewd enough to recognize their greed and sent them away while pretending to consider their offers. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, the rate of attrition forced his hand, with House Vyronii now reduced to barely a hundred Knight armors by now, most ancient and in dire need of retrofitting. Thus, Grand Master Jahk decided to accept the offer from Cyclothrathe, whose proposal of material aid was the most generous.
...sadly, this turned out to be a terrible idea.
Cyclothrathe had sided with the Warmaster, the Horus Heresy had happened, and the Magi of the Dark Mechanicum set their sights on Damaetus III/II as a target of conquest instead of allies. While they superficially agreed to sign the treaty on Damaestus III/II, the High Magos of Cyclothrathe and his honor guard of House Aerthegn Knights and Traitor Taghmata forces were planning a vile act of treachery. Fortunately, House Vyronii had recalled many of its scions assigned to the Great Crusade and mustered them in the landing zone where the Ist Legion had shown up before.
An hour before the appointed time, however, a heavily damaged Vyronii lander plummeted through the skies and the pilot/passenger stumbled out. He was Gios, the eldest son of Grand Master Jahk, and he had somehow learned of Cyclothrathe's treachery and escaped their wrath to warn his House of their betrayal. The delegation was not an emissary bearing gifts but an invasion force. Thanks to Gios's warning, House Vyronii readied for war, the wall guns of Felweather Keep destroying dozens of Cyclothrathine dropships, but enough landed to muster an invasion force, who massed and marched toward Felweather Keep.
The Knights of House Vyronii marched out to meet them in open battle, led by their Grand Master. They clashed in a dense forested canyon. The Cyclothrathine forces consisted primarily of armor, such as Krios and Karacnos tanks, Taghmata infantry and automata, and the Knights of House Atrax, in thrall to Archmagos Draykavac, the chief military emissary of the Forge World of Cyclothrathe and foremost field commander. He was also the sovereign-prelate of the Knight House of Atrax, who served as his puppet or thrall Knights. Ouch. Oh, and also Corrupted Knights, which is why the whole Exemplary Battles PDF was created in the first place. Basically Knight armors that were experimented upon by the Dark Mechanicum and given Dark Blessings.
The Questoris Knights of House Vyronii marched together in a formation where their overlapping ion shields could form an impenetrable barrier, allowing them to weather the enemy's fire when they charge forward. The Traitor Knights charged to meet them, and even as the titanic exo-suits clashed, Taghmata infantry fell all around them while Cyclothrathine armor were wrecked and melted.
Unfortunately, the Dark Blessings of the Corrupted Knights gave the Traitors a small advantage, but the skill and experience allowed the veteran scions of House Vyronii to match their foes, even as they fragmented, with several of them mired deep within the Taghmata lines while others were locked in deadly combat with Cyclothrathine Knights. Unfortunately, the numbers of the Traitors began to tell, and isolated Loyalist Knights were picked off by swarms of Vorax and Domitar automata, and House Vyronii were pushed back gradually.
Fortunately, House Vyronii's reserves of Cerastus Knights charged from the forest, making use of hidden paths through the forests to strike at the enemy's flank. They smashed aside the Armigers guarding the perimeter and hit the exposed flanks of the Cyclothrathe forces, with Rex-Orfeo, the personal Cerastus Knight Lancer of Grand Master Jahk, leading them. They managed to rout the Taghmata forces, incinerating the infantry and crushing the automata, causing them to flee. The Traitor Knights had more success in wreaking a bloody toll on the defenders, though, despite succumbing to the trap.
Realizing that they had lost, because the Taghmata allies had been routed and the casualties they had suffered were far too great, the Traitor Knights were resigned to fight to the last. Among them was an Aucteller pair of storm-gray Knights, one Questoris and one Cerastus Knight Atrapos, and they aimed for Rex-Orfeo instead. Apparently, the Questoris has a barbed tri-tailed whip instead of a reaper chainsword, by the way, and it helped to distract Grand Master Jahk so that the Atrapos can cut Rex-Orfeo down with his lascutter and slay both the Knight Lancer and the pilot within.
House Vyronii took revenge, destroying both Traitor Knights, but it was far too late, for their beloved Grand Master was already dead. The vengeful scions of House Vyronii hounded the retreating Cyclothrathe Knights and Taghmata back to their dropships, the invaders having failed and being forced to flee Damaetus III/II. Despite their victory, House Vyronii had lost their leader who had guided them into a new age under the Imperium, and they had also lost nearly a quarter of their own forces.
The wounded Gios would take the place of his late father as the new Grand Master of House Vyronii. Unfortunately, despite their outrage, the Imperium stalled any aid, with only the Forge World of Mezoa on their side. Despite their immense need for repairs and new Knight armors, House Vyronii refused to surrender their independence, signing a similar pact with Mezoa for limited re-armament. House Vyronii would remain steadfast Loyalists, fighting against Cyclothrathe and the Warmaster they declared for.
Grand Master Gios himself was gifted a precious Questoris Knight Magaera, Dei-Phagia, an armor whose artificer-wrought systems saved his life - he was mortally wounded, if you recall - but pretty much made him an Imperial Knight version of a Dreadnought.
Though the bulk of House Vyronii Knights were concentrated on Damaetus III/II during the betrayal by Cyclothrathe, there were a few Lances spread throughout the Expeditionary fleets, such as those fighting alongside the Blood Angels on Feron III during the Siege of Sebundapor, or the ones serving with the Death Eagles Millennial of the Emperor's Children Legion, who despite thought lost during the Isstvan III Atrocity, managed to reestablish contact with House Vyronii many years later.
House Vyronii would dispatch their Knights across the galaxy, reinforcing Imperial force concentrations at Lascal, Manachea and Port Maw in the Coronid Deeps, as well as at least a Lance stationed in Mezoa when the Death Guard attacked. About 50 or so scions of Vyronii remained behind to defend Damaetus III/II.
No comments:
Post a Comment