Amid the doomed and fractured race of the Aeldari, the Harlequins stand apart. They belong to no craftworld and bow to no Autarch; they pass freely between the isolationist craftworlds, the piratical Drukhari of Commorragh, and the scattered Exodites, welcomed and feared wherever they appear. They are the followers of Cegorach, the Laughing God, the trickster deity who alone among the Aeldari pantheon escaped the birth of Slaanesh, and in his service they have become something more than warriors. They are players, dancers and keepers of the oldest stories of their kind.
To watch the Harlequins perform is to witness beauty and horror entwined. Their art is the retelling of the great myth-cycles of the Aeldari, the rise and fall of their civilisation and its doom, danced with such skill that audiences weep and despair. Yet the same grace that shapes their performances shapes their killing. In battle a Harlequin troupe moves like a single living thing, a whirl of holo-suits and monomolecular blades, and death follows their steps as surely as it follows the turning of the tale.
Servants of the Laughing God[edit]
Cegorach is the god of misdirection, mischief and defiance, and his servants embody his contradictions. Where the rest of the Aeldari brood upon their fall, the Harlequins laugh in the face of the encroaching dark. They believe that the Great Enemy, Slaanesh, She Who Thirsts, can one day be undone, and that the Laughing God has a hidden plan to see it done. Every performance, every raid, every death in his service is a step in that long and secret design, its full shape known to none but the god himself.
The Masques and the Dance[edit]
The Harlequins are organised into masques, each an independent troupe with its own character, colours and repertoire. A masque may number a mere handful of players or many hundreds, and each guards the traditions of the myth-cycle it performs most often. Central to their art is the Dance Without End, the ceaseless enactment of the Aeldari myths, in which every player takes a role, the Hero, the Fool, the Great Harlequin, and darkest of all, the Solitaire, who alone dares to portray the Great Enemy.
Guardians of the Black Library[edit]
Hidden deep within the webway lies the Black Library, the greatest repository of forbidden lore concerning Chaos in all the galaxy. The Harlequins are its guardians, the only Aeldari trusted to hold such perilous knowledge, and they wage a tireless war against any who would seize it. They range the twisting paths of the webway as its wardens, sealing breaches, hunting daemons and intruders, and striking into realspace wherever the schemes of the Laughing God require. Swift, secretive and utterly lethal, they appear without warning, dance their terrible dance, and vanish once more into the mists of the Hidden Ways, leaving only the dead and the echo of distant laughter.
Units
Death JesterElites · InfantryThe grim marksman of the masque, a Player who has taken the role of death, wielding the shrieker cannon to shred targets apart and sow terror through the enemy ranks.
Great HarlequinHQ · InfantryThe supreme leader of a Harlequin Masque, keeper of its secrets and master of the Dance Without End.
Masque of the Dreaming ShadowRenowned Masque · Harlequin MasqueA secretive Masque of stealth and misdirection that fights from the shadows of the webway.
Masque of the Soaring SpiteRenowned Masque · Harlequin MasqueAn aggressive Masque that strikes like a stooping hawk, all speed, spite and sudden violence.
Masque of the Veiled PathRenowned Masque · Harlequin MasqueGuardians of the webway's hidden roads, a Masque that wars to keep the secret ways of the Aeldari inviolate.
ShadowseerElites · InfantryThe mystic of the masque, a psyker who weaves illusion and terror, cloaking the troupe behind curtains of unreality and drowning the enemy's mind in nightmares.
SkyweaversFast Attack · VehicleThe jetbike cavalry of the masques, pairs of Players upon graceful grav-machines who race across the battlefield loosing star bolas, zephyrglaives and haywire cannons.
SolitaireElites · InfantryThe most singular and terrifying of the Harlequins, a Player who dances the role of the Great Enemy and moves faster than sight, a whirlwind of the caress and the kiss.
StarweaverDedicated Transport · VehicleA swift and elegant anti-grav transport that carries a Troupe to the perfect moment of attack, protected by flickering holo-fields and sheer, uncatchable speed.
The RillietannRenowned Masque · Harlequin MasqueA legendary Masque whose performances are said to have altered the fate of entire Craftworlds.
TroupeBattleline · InfantryThe beating heart of any masque, a company of Players clad in dazzling holo-suits who dance the enemy to death with the harlequin's kiss, the embrace and the flashing blade.
Troupe MasterHQ · InfantryThe lead dancer and war-leader of a Harlequin Troupe, a blur of blades who choreographs slaughter as though it were art.
Characters
CegorachThe Laughing GodThe trickster deity of the Aeldari and the last of their gods to walk free, who fled the birth of Slaanesh laughing and has plotted the downfall of the Great Enemy ever since.
Sylandri VeilwalkerThe VeilwalkerA Shadowseer of uncommon power whose true masque none can name, walking the Hidden Ways as an emissary of Cegorach to nudge the schemes of lesser beings toward his ends.
The SolitaireWho Plays the Great EnemyLess a person than a fate, the loneliest role in the Dance Without End, a damned dancer who portrays She Who Thirsts and is unleashed only when a death nothing living can prevent is required.
Subfactions
Masque of the Frozen StarsA troupe of glacial patience and flawless precision, as cold and remote as the void between suns, whose performances unfold with the inevitability of fate itself.
Masque of the Midnight SorrowOne of the darkest of all Harlequin troupes, a masque that dwells upon the tragedy of the Aeldari fall with a raw and terrible intensity, and hunts the servants of Slaanesh without mercy.
Masque of the Silent ShroudA troupe of mourners and ghosts devoted to the roles of death and grief, performing in eerie stillness and striking like a cold breath from an opened tomb.
Discussion
- No comments yet. Be the first to reply.