OK so after a very long hiatus I recovered, revised and expanded the background relating to the Craftworld my Eldar forces hail from. As Lorizael suggested in the opening post, I followed the guidelines exposed in the excellent article by Guttstikk to flesh out the Craftworld (
http://www.40konline.com/index.php?action=articles;sa=view;article=950, and will post the resulting report both on Craftworld society and its translation as a fighting force in the game. In the meanwhile, let me share with you the introduction to
Craftworld Angaur, and do not forget to throw opinions on it:
Not long before the Fall,
Angaur was being made, in its beginning, as just the prototype of a new massive weapon, one that was not only able to bring about destruction in an almost unheard of scale, but also it was capable of transporting itself to everywhere it should be. Its main goal was that of conducting neverending search and destroy missions against the strongholds of the dormant Yngir, the Eldar name for Necrons, to avoid their eventual rising. The Eldar developed what they considered as the last step in the growth of Distortion weaponry. The result was to be a truly colossal cannon, more than a hundred miles long. This cannon, powered by enormous batteries their size that of a hive city, had been developed to make orbital bombardments which were capable of vanishing whole armies off, wherever they may hide. Around this cannon a dedicated spaceship was designed, one which could house not jus the gun and its supporting batteries, not just the crew to man such a weapon and the whole ship and its own armaments, but also a vast army and its corresponding vehicles and installations.
This new kind of ship was baptised as the
Angaur class, for the Eldar word for "destiny", as it was thought by the Eldar as the true bringer of the ultimate fate which their enemies could expect. Each of these ships would be the center of a huge fleet which would give cover to the Angaur ships and ensure that they would get into a position from which to bombard the planetary surfaces, wiping out any trace of the enemies of the Eldar. Also, it was a weapon capable of fully destroying a whole planet, if need be, by repeatedly bombarding it. Finally, the possibility of using it when fighting other fleets in space could ensure no one would bring capital ships to confront them.
The resulting ships would house several wings of attack fighters, bombers and assault craft, and would have external docks to afford for a whole fleet to be docked. Support was carried for several such fleets in addition to its own craft, military personnel and machinery. The crew and troops transported could amount to several millions of people. Huge engines would propel the beasts along their journeys, even giving them warp travel capability (to trip out of the galaxy if need be). They had a good many warp portals for their own maintenance and to give them an assault craft performance; the sheer number of troops carried allowed to launch planetary assaults. Their defensive systems were more than enough to repel any spaceborne menace, as their shielding capacity and sheer mass gave them an uncompared survivability, with vital areas buried deep inside the structure, under kilometers of intermediate levels. If need arose, an own stern portal, the size of which rivals the ones to be seen in actual Craftworlds, could give access to spaceships of capital size.
As it was considered a matter of the highest importance, accesses to the system where the
Angaur prototype was being constructed, along its neighboring areas, had been long ago interdicted, as had been leaving from within. This interdicted area was called by its leaders as the
Sercamvaul, the web of Vaul, for the Eldar smith god (the Eldar war machines are called engines of Vaul). Nevertheless, news still got getting into, and the depravity which had been pervading the whole Eldar civilisation from ages ago had already got a hold there. Some even dare to say it was a factor in the birth of the design for the
Angaur. Those in charge of the project were however worried with its development, and considered the increasing degeneration and licentiousness to be not just a nuance but a real danger in their own. They could not allow the project to go astray, so a campaign was conducted to get rid of such organisations, and reeducation programs were carried out to ensure the
Angaur development would suffer no delay. A side effect was that the individuals in charge saw the need to keep watch on outside events and processes, and when they colected enough information, they became very concerned. Their beloved civilization was spiralling into decadence with increasing speed; it was not any longer a matter of particular deviations, but degeneracy had become a general trend.
When successive exploratory missions returned not only confirming these impressions but even strengthening them, those in charge felt their fears deepening. They at last resolved to hold a meeting to decide on the future of the project they were responsible for. That meeting stretched on for days and days until an agreement was made. The Eldar civilization was disintegrating, their rulers no more reliable, not to start with their subordinates, who were becoming more of a perverted courtisan lot than the respectable thoughtful leaders they were supposed to be. Already gigantic ships known as Craftworlds were being made out of the merchant and exploratory juggernaut like ships that Eldar had been using to reach up to the edges of the galaxy, for those groups which had decided to leave such a degenerating society and start anew far away where the degeneracy had not set its hands on. So the
Sercamvaul leaders organised themselves into a Seer Council, to guide their fellows into a journey to find a new home and start anew. For the journey, the
Angaur prototype was chosen as both their home and means of transportation.
That fateful decision was to change their lives forever after, as they had chosen to depart. Such a weapon as the one they were completing was not one to let fall in the wrong hands, or those of degenerates who would not mind to use it arbitrarily, or even on their own breed. That was not an option. To remain was to risk such a chance. To remain was, too, to risk their fellows' depravation catch with them and slowly but surely infect their ranks. Their flight was not to be a hasty one; a large task was awaiting them, as they had to rethink the Angaur design to make the ship able to house the people and their environment, and the large natural areas they were willing to save and take with them to the stars. Eldar civilisation was to be preserved, along with a patch, if more could not be saved, of their homes. Also, they somehow had to find something with which to strengthen their minds, to make them more able to resist the call of the vices which were already bringing down their whole civilisation.
The answer to this last issue was to develope a philosophic trend of their own, one which enforced a sense of balance, discipline and self control and which gave its practitioners some measure of strength to resist the degeneration which, as it was suspected, would eventually get through the interdiction and reach into the Sercamvaul. This philosophy was called
Istaubelah, the quiet path, and became something of an auxiliary path for the
Angaurii, guiding them through their lives and ultimately defining them facing other Eldar.
The
Istaubelah worked and bought the necessary time to reform the
Angaur project into crafworlds on their own, even if somehow small ones. Slowly but steadily the
Sercamvaul was being penetrated and the pleasure cults were spreading into the interdicted zone. The leaders of the
Sercamvaul were certain that it would in the end consume them too. It came a time, finally, when the
Angaur Craftworld was wholly completed, and with no loss of time the people were evacuated to the immense ship. Their factories had been working from long ago, and enough machinery had come out to flesh out the
Angaurii army and navy. Conflict almost erupted when the reality of departure sank on the
Sercamvaul, because a good many of its denizens now contemplated the
Angaur as the first of a series of vessels which could give them the upper hand over their neighbours; the so long anticipated treachery and rivalry between Eldars had set into the
Sercamvaul. The
Angaurii, this last sign of depravity showing itself, did not lose time in discussions, nor even prepared for conflict. They simply left. While the abandoned
Sercamvaul inhabitants put up a fleet to pursue the escaping
Angaur, it just could but scratch the gargantuan ship, while the return fire was of such a magnitude that any trace of pursuit was quicky abandoned.
The
Angaur made good their escape by putting its rebuilt and augmented engines to test. They worked every bit as fine as they had been planned to do, and so the newborn Craftworld ran a stretch of space so big as to be almost out of reach when the cataclysm which marked the end of the Fall occurred. Its psychic concussion wave still reached the Craftworld and was felt as a tide of sickness and horror which affected almost everyone on board. Nobody had perished in the main ships, but when the remnant of a rearguard patrolling fleet reached the Craftworld, the consequences of the catastrophic event appeared all the crude they were. Most of the ships had been lost, with all hands on board, their corpses being recovered by the surviving vessels, which themselves were badly undercrewed. Hundreds of corpses were aligned in the hangars, to the Craftworld inhabitants horror, staring blankly, with terrified faces, at which the Seers, who had been able to see beyond the mere psychic pain into it which had just been born into the Warp. told their fellows was the worst mayhem ever dreamed of. The following times, nightmares haunted each and every Angaur inhabitant, until the tireless effort by the Seers brought calm to their fellows. Since then to this day, the
Angaur has ploughed its way through space, ever in search of ancient enemies, ever vigilant and ever cautious.