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Xenos

Cult of Strife

Wych Cult of Commorragh · The Bloodbrides

Cult of Strife — Xenos

XENOS · AELDARI · DRUKHARI · WYCH CULT

Class
Wych Cult · arena gladiators
Seat
Commorragh, the Dark City
Domain
Blood-arena · narcotic combat
Succubus
Lelith Hesperax
Sustenance
Spectacle & inflicted pain

The Arenas of Commorragh

Every Drukhari must drink the suffering of others or feel Slaanesh slowly devour their soul. Where the Kabals harvest agony in torture-chambers and the Haemonculi distil it like wine, the Wych Cults take theirs in the blood-arena — in the roar of the crowd, the perfect kill, the exquisite edge between triumph and death. The Cult of Strife is the largest and oldest of them, and to its Wyches a battle is not slaughter but theatre, and the only sin is to bore the audience.

Lelith Hesperax

The supreme Succubus of the Cult of Strife is the deadliest gladiator the Dark City has ever produced — and she fights almost naked, scorning armour as a confession of weakness. Lelith does not need drugs or blades-by-the-dozen; she dances through the strongest warriors of a hundred races and leaves them in pieces, and the screaming arenas of Commorragh worship her as a living goddess of murder. In ten thousand years she has never been bested.

Combat Drugs and the Wyches

Before the fight the Wyches inject themselves with combat narcotics — hypex for blinding speed, grave-lotus to deaden pain, painbringer to turn every wound into ecstasy. Lightly armoured and acrobatic, they cartwheel through gunfire and gut their prey with a dancer's grace. They are at their most lethal up close, where the crowd can see the blood, and they fight to be watched as much as to win.

Hekatarii and the Bloodbrides

The cult's warriors rise through the Hekatarii ranks toward the elite Bloodbrides, veterans who have survived a thousand arena-deaths. They favour cruel, theatrical weapons — razorflails that whip the air, hydra gauntlets, shardnets and impalers — each chosen as much for the spectacle of the kill as for its efficiency. A Bloodbride's scars are her résumé, and her grace is her currency.

Realspace Raids

The arenas hunger for fresh victims, and so the Wyches ride the Kabals' raiding fleets out through the Webway gates into realspace, seizing captives by the thousand to die screaming for the crowd. A good show buys status, slaves and the favour of the Archons; a poor one buys contempt. To the Cult of Strife, an entire human world is simply a season's worth of performers.

Bound to the Kabals

No Wych Cult can stand alone. The Cults need the Kabals for their fleets and politics, and both need the Haemonculi to drag them back from death when the arena finally claims them — the three-way pact of murder that keeps Commorragh balanced on its knife-edge. The Cult of Strife sells its blades to the highest bidder, fights for the finest spectacle, and trusts no one, least of all its allies.

See also

Sources

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