“We are the jailers of the impossible and the mad, that which seek to devour the stars themselves. We are the final bulwark against the nameless things in the dark, so that the galaxy can thrive. We are SHEOL.”
-Inscription upon the Acheron Gate at Site-01 of SHEOL.
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Long, long ago, the galaxy was at peace once. That equilibrium was shattered when the greatest war of them all was waged across the cosmos. Ever since then, the echo of disharmony was forever seared into creation, the Warp turned muddy and cancerous. Cruel gods that knew nothing of mercy played their mad games, as Empyrean horrors were born by the trillions.
But not all monsters come from the Warp, and some of them are far more insidious than the Three could ever hope to be. When humanity rose to dominance in the form of the Federation, it encountered abominations, some made by Mankind’s own hand, others whose existence stretched back to the dawn of time. Most were slain by the endless armies of the Iron Minds, but there were those that had transcended petty concepts like mortality, or were too valuable to be killed, for the secrets they held could further Mankind’s ascendence.
And so out of necessity, SHEOL was born. An organization even more secretive than the Psykana Militant, it is the keeper of the damned, the gaoler that locks away the malevolent unknown.
But what do they keep locked away? What lies in the prison moons, that the Federation with all its vaunted technology fears?
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The Black Star
The last defiant cry of a god long dead, the phenomenon known as the Tyrant Star has haunted the Calixis Sector long before the birth of humanity. Also known as Komus, it possesses celestial bodies such as moons and stars, bathing everything around it in madness-inducing radiation while emitting black flames. Entire colonies were lost to its dark influence, before SHEOL stepped in. By terraforming the planets of an uninhabited star system into massive symbols of warding, SHEOL baited and trapped the entity within, and under their watch, its malice shall never threaten the Federation again. Even now it still burns with infernal light, struggling to escape its prison.
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The Communion
During the Age of Conquest, great and terrible deeds were done by man in the name of science. Such were the origins of AKIRA, a creature borne out of endless ambition. A cabal of tech-lords who had abandoned all morality in their quest for evolution conjured a terrible scheme. Using their near-limitless resources they spirited children born with psychic gifts away from their homes. Using forbidden techno-arcana and a toome of darkest lore stolen from the Black Library of the Aeldari, they cut and mutilated and warped their flesh, fusing them together into something… other. The mountain-sized abomination’s birth was accompanied by a telepathic scream that killed all of its creators, and it went on a rampage that saw an entire Sector awash in hellfire, with the fleets sent to destroy it flung into the Warp forever. In the end, a team of Pariah mercenaries managed to journey to its location, fighting through the Empyreal maelstrom and the thousands of thralls surrounding it, before injecting it with a custom-made psychic sedative that sent it into a brief coma, long enough for an alliance of human nations to put it into containment.
Transferred into the custody of SHEOL, the Alpha-Plus psychic entity known as AKIRA now sleeps, constantly being pumped full of neuro-tranquilizer so that it may remain dormant. No attempt has been made to terminate it; although tentative psychometry by the Psykana Militant indicates that it craves its own death, predictions point out that the telepathic feedback from its euthanization would likely destroy all life within the multiple Sectors surrounding it. And yet in recent times its brain activity has become more active, seemingly in response to someone, or something...
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The Sword
It was found at the farthest reaches of space, deep within the Veiled Region. Shortly after the formation of the Federation, a fleet of human colonizers ventured deep into the then-unexplored space. On a barren world they found an alien temple long abandoned, and at its center was a black blade, pulsing with hellish purple light and marked with a eight-pointed star at the hilt. Seized with the desire to wield it, one of the colonizers grasped the sword, and the daemon within took over the new host. The colonizers rapidly fell under its thrall, and it was not long before the entire fleet was under its control, even the AI enslaved to its monstrous will. Its wielder was transformed into a blind Daemonhost, a puppet to do its bidding.
The enthralled fleet began to sail to Terra. It was hypothesized that the monster within the blade wanted to seize the Astronomicon and gorge on its power, enabling its ascension. No less than three battlefleets sent to intercept it were lost, their numbers added to the Blade’s army. In the end, the Federation Warsphere Gulagann was deployed, and with the terrible power of its Shaper Matrix the corrupted ships were utterly destroyed, the blade itself retrieved by specialists to be imprisoned on the prison moon of Jalkor.
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Encased within multiple layers of concentric spherical wards, the daemonblade constantly tempts its jailers with promises of unimaginable power and immortality. In spite of the corruptive nonsense that it spits out, in its words crumbs of knowledge can be found; indeed, it was a scrap of sorcerous lore from the Blade of Antwyr that enabled the development of Vortex weaponry.
As SHEOL delved into its origins, they discovered its true name; the Blade of Antwyr, an ancient relic from ages past. Strangely, the reclusive alien race known as the Kinebrach seem to know of it, and they refer to it as the Malahsho, roughly translated as ‘Remnant of Ten’.
For now, it is contained; and yet all the Blade needs is someone to wield it again, and then the evil within shall ravage the galaxy once more...
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Ancestral Sin
All things are remembered by the Warp, no matter how large and small. As humanity grew in power and influence, so did its dark shadow.
At the beginning, when humans were still covered in fur and were only slightly different from apes, a man killed his brother. Not out of survival, not out of hunger, not in self-defense, but in hatred. And from that very act, the first murder in human history, the End of Empires was born. Every human murder fueled its power, and in the past millennia it became a Daemon King, only one step before becoming a Warp God. Gorged on the atrocities of Mankind, it ultimately emerged in realspace directly after the end of the Second Galactic War, killing and masquerading as the leader of the Etosian Dominion, one of the five remaining human nations then, and would have instigated a new conflict between the human survivors(and prevent any chance of the Federation forming).
The exact details of what happened next is unknown; The capital planet of the Etosian Dominion was completely obliterated in the aftermath, SHEOL having deployed three Vindicator-Class ships that bombarded the daemon with Singularity Cannons to neutralize it. To this day, the highest echelons of SHEOL remain tight-lipped on what or who exactly informed them of this threat. Instead of killing it, which may cause another to take its place, SHEOL has trapped it in realspace, where the daemon's influence on humanity is greatly weakened- no longer can it participate in the Great Game. Now the monster rages within the hyperdimensional fortress that serves as its prison, waiting for a chance to strike back at those who humiliated it.
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Mars. Ancient Mars, the first planet that humanity ever colonized. In a display of human technological power, it had been terraformed such that the air was breathable, the ice caps long evaporated, with so many cities that the planet looked like a gleaming orb of silver from afar. Orbiting it is the Sanoakan Forge, a ring of shipyards whose manufactorums churned out thousands of ships each day, and perhaps the Federation’s greatest production asset.
If Luna was the heart of gene-science, then Mars was the technological nexus of the Federation. Scientists and Artificial Intelligences worked together to develop new machines, while deep underneath the crust, an entire backup of human knowledge was stored in vast databases. One did not need vehicles to move between cities; teleportation arrays scattered throughout the planet could transport people across continents in a matter of seconds.
And yet, beneath those shining pillars of civilization, deep beneath the bedrock of Mars, behind layers of stasis fields and adamantium walls, behind the Acheron Gate, the first prisoner of SHEOL awaits. Bound by chains with each link as big as a warship and surrounded by Warp conduits to dampen its power, it is deceptively still, with its eyes closed. It apes the shape of a dragon, with building-sized scales and a wingspan measured in cities, but even that belies what it really is. In the center of its forehead a spear is lodged within, the wooden hilt lit within with golden light, and on its flank is a grievous wound out of which liquid silver slowly drips. It is the reason why SHEOL exists, the prisoner that they must confine above all else, for it is the sword hanging over the heart of humanity, suspended only by a thin thread.
Though it slumbers, it has been watching humanity, ever since it was imprisoned by the Golden One. Although limited by its bindings, through the years it has watched the bipedal race that it once feasted on grow into a mighty empire, and somewhere in its labyrinthine mind it is surprised that they reached such heights, despite who they are. The two-legged ones fascinate it; their struggles and triumphs are amusing. Sometimes it has even guided them, generously bestowing a hint of an idea borne of divine intellect on some unsuspecting scientist. The open scar on its side still hurts, the wound from the Talismans of Vaul never given the opportunity to heal.
But that is only that, a fascination; to one such as it, this imprisonment is only a fleeting moment in its long life, and when it inevitably breaks free, then the cosmos will shudder before its roar. Their machine minds will serve as fine heralds, and the galaxy shall tremble before the might of Mag’ladroth. It can see the coming storm, and the opportunity it contains.
And so the Void Dragon slept, with a smile on its face.