House Joolan
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Hope you liked the article on warhammer community ! Here are more pictures for you first :
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Now look at this beauty !!
Thanks to the talented illustrator Orniris I was able to add a crest to the Joolan army. All the other artwork of this pages are also from this awesome artist who based on my model and concept was able to gave once again life to the house Joolan :
Looking good isnt it ? :p
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NOW to the background !! Ive spend a lot of time on this but it is still in the process of editing as english is not my birth langage and because the warhammer community is a little early on the planning :p so my deepest apologie for my english (it is nontheless rather understandable I hope x) )
(Thanks a lot to John from the community team for the editing work he is doing and for behing an awesome fella)
All of your constructives criticisme, comments and suggestions are really apreciated as I spent more time writting this than painting the models themeself ^^ .
Fasten your seatbelt and here we go ...
House Joolan :
Title : The feared hunters of house Joolan
Household grade : Secondus
Patent : Warrent of Imperial Immediacy issued by Imperial court in 975.M30 at the request of Commander Salevian Tevh of the XIXth legion, Commander of the 376th expeditionary fleet and Keltas Vorl Archmagos of the Ordo reductor Covenant "Sigma-Devastation". Litterae patent duly recorded by the Officio Militaris College of Arms.
Warren domain : Cayor.
(Priam sector, western fringe of the Segmentum Obscurus. Opuscalus Noctis system.)
Cognomen : The Seytan Sakaar (autochthonic housold proto-language)
Allied Legions/Forge worlds :
Sworn oath to the Ordo reductor.
Reciprocal ties established with the forge world of StigyeVIII.
Bounding oath of loyalty exchanged with the XIXth (Raven guard) legion.
Allegiance : Fidelitas constantus
Homeworld :
Cayor
Placed in the Opuscalus Noctis system, in the western border of the segmentum Obscurus, Cayor is discovered during humanity golden age, by a colonial fleet made of Northafrikan Noble colonist and Martian explorators.
Due to the abnormaly riche amount of mineral ressources detected deep into the planet crust, Cayor was selected for mining exploitation and human colonisation.
Cayor surface named "the Kasamansa" or "ghost land" by the Cayorian is a vegetal kingdom of jungles and mangroves ruled by a mega-fauna as riche as deadly. Those forests are riven by vast clouds of fungal spores that obscure the light of the sun and left the planete in perpetual gloom. Furthermore those spores clouds reaveled to be hightly dangerous to human life, eating through the skin like acide.
*History :
Unsuccessefull in getting ride of the spores cloud and mainly interested in the rich vain of mineral ressources of Cayor, the colonist decided to creat vast underground settlements from where they would be able to dig deeper in the red heart of the planet. Thanks to the colonist technological prowess Cayor was soon covert with a gigantic underground realms. Martian colonist creating vast Forges and extracting large amount of adamantium and other rare and unknown material to experiment with such as the strange ebon stone called Noctilith. Knight suits pilots and automata protected of the Kasamansa lethal clouds soon proved invaluable to arvest food supplies from the plentyfull but dangerous surface jungle.. This is an era of progress where the Cayoran society grow and evolve in a golden age.
The long night :
The warp storms breaks through the galaxy, making impossible all contact between Cayor and the closest planetes of her wide star system. The Cayorian during all this time of isolation ended up regressing. The total isolation of Cayor caused the importation to be shutted down .. The society turned entirely toward the Knight Pilotes and the Forges masters Automatas for food supplies. As the time passed and bloody rebellions caused by famines tore the Subteranean realms apart, those two orders rose to power and the once inlighted society shatered in a tribal and superstitious culture linked with the unforgiving green realm that rule their life. A cult of the Machine spread as the Forge Masters automata and the Knight pilotes became the gardians and rulers of the different rival tribes-settlements, but as time passed it quickly grow indivisible of forest spirits, animism and mystical rituals..
Necessity was now the primary ruler of Cayor.
Wars for ressources, rivarlry and endless struggle with the forest dangers wrecked the planet for many years. Knight battling one another in the mortal jungle mists, cannibale tribes preying on the weaks and Forge master tyrant enslaving thousand for fell experiments lasted for decades..Until an alliance for survival was made beetween the major knight legacies and the most powerfull forge masters...
From that alliance two Casts emerged :
First, the Joolan Cast was to reassemble all the knight pilots of Cayor within the same warrior lodge.
The lodge will be led by a concil of the most respected and skilled Knights. The Hight king of the house will in turn be selected by ritual combat among the members of the concil.
Then the forge masters were also united in the same way and formed the Grios Cast.
Both order was vital to each other and an equilibrium of power was reached beetween the High King and the High Grios. The Grios was attending the Joolan suits and ruled over the forges and subternean realms, as the Knight was oath bound to protect the poeple of the planet and rules over the Kasamansa... Of course Some Knights and forge master resisted to the new ways but were crush under the unforgiving might of the High king and High Grios.
Order was restored and peace was achieved, for a time..
But those warp storms that isolate Cayor were just heralding darker time .. because then came the Khrave.
The Khraves wars :
The Khraves. Those xenos praying upon mankind with their incredibly powerfull psychic capacities were rampaging the Obscurus sector with an assault of a scale never witnessed before. Inslaving world after world, they finaly came for Cayor.
The attack was suden and violent.
The Khraves was usualy known for their capacity to subtely corupt their victimes from afar befor attacking, but this was not the case for Cayor.. It would only be known much latter that the great amount of Blackstone on this world reduced the Khraves psychic capacity and forced them to wage war in an unconventional way.
Even with less capacity the war against the Khrave was shattering.
The ennemies strange weaponery was the bane of Joolan Knight and Grios automata and by besieging the surface hunger became once again an issues for the Cayorian populations.
Nontheless the proud Joolan knights fight on.
During six Terran years they hold the underground realms against the xenos onslaught. Using the forest and their deadly skills as skirmisher to launch punishing counter attacks and cunning ambush on the far outnumbering enemy.
Using everything at their disposal. Battle automata from the forge fan were even equiped of the stolen Khraves weaponery and turned it against the xenos with great effects.
Unfortunatly the Knight were loosing this war and wouldn't have stood much longer without the arrival of the Deliverers.
Delivrance : (970.M30)
That was there, when all seems lost, that a small Astartes forces allied with a large warfleet of the Ordo reductor arrived on Cayor. This force was lead by the captain Salevian Tevh of the Raven guard and was dispatched from the 378th expeditionary fleet to hunt down the remaning of the xenos threat of the area befor a push of the crusade in the outer void.
Tevh was a Terran veteran. One of the few to cast down what he was in order to be remodeled by the shadowed teaching of Corax. In his centurys of wars for the Great Crusade, Tevh had fight on several succesfull campaign against the Khraves.
First the Raven Guard used their skills as infiltrator to made contact with the local resistance on the ground.
Well versed in the Raven lord tactics, Tevh coordinate with ruthless efficiency the brutality of Terran terminator assault on key targets, the implacable logic of the Sigma-Devastation Covenant at his disposal and the remaning Knights to push back and finaly exterminate the Khrave.
A new era :
It is well known that the sol prescence of the Khraves induce with time a physical and mental coruption..
A lot of world saved from the xenos depredation saw the totality of their population purged. Juged too corupted to live in the imperium. It was unfortunatly the case for countless other planets touched by the fool xenos taint..as for Indra-sul.
But in a surprising manner the Cayorian shown no sign of coruption due to Khraves exposition and even the Covenant's magos biology of the ordo reductor failed to shed light on this phenomena. However due to the importance of the military asset represented by a Knight world and no evidence of coruption founded the Cayorian were deemed trustworthy.
When the war was over further exchange were made beetween the imperial emissaries and Cayorian ones. With the profits of both partis in mind
an understanding was finaly negociated :
In order to honor the dept Cayor owed to their liberators, the Hight king and Hight Grio would join the Imperium and swear feality to the Emperor. But the Cayorians asked to paid there due in the fire of battle along their saviors and to be specificly added to Ordo Reductors military forces . In the same way several knight lance would also be dispatched under Salevian Tevh command to honor the XIXth legions warriors.
Reciprocal agreement of supply and allegeance was negociated with the Sigma-Devastation Covenant and Cayor was officialy added to the Imperium shart as one of the few Ordo reductor supply outpost. Finaly, several magos reductor and tech priest would join the Grios Cast and act as permanent emissaries of the Ordo reductor on Cayors.
To seal the Knights allegeance and represent their bounding oath to the order of the Blessed ruines, the broken tower sigil was added to the house Joolan heraldry.
After those events, despite minor conflicts created by Mars emmissaries, the Joolan knights took quickly an active part in the late stage of the Great Crusade.
Waging war for almost three decade along different Ordo reductors Covenants and Legion Astartes forces. mainly on high threat xenocide action on the extern fringes of the imperial space.
The house renown grew quickly and despite a reputation of taciturn and secret warriors the Joolan knights won many honors on the battlefields. The exchange between Cayor and the closer Forge Worlds of Lucius and StigyeVIII permited to replenish quickly the forces of the knight house. The underground forge bastion producing more and more new suits of armour for the scion of the house Joolan and thallaxii for the Covenants.
The Horus heresy :
In their eagerness to repaid the dept of honor they owe to the imperium for saving them from near extinction, The Joolan knights shuned no call for wars. In consequence the bulk of the house Joolan was vastly spread across different Ordo reductor fleets and fronts of the Great crusade at the outbreak of the Horus heresy. Also, Cayor isolation and the incresingly tumultuous nature of the aether traped the knight world far from the depredation of the civil war that burned through the galaxy.
A lot of the house History during this trouble time is hard to know. Fragmentary records and apochryphal tales place the scion of the house Joolan fighting on the two side of the war during several minor engagements. But if the veracity of such story cannot be confirmed, pics footage and battle reports from multiple sources would attest that several Joolan knights suit had been involved in the liberation of Numinal in 009.M31.
Mutch later, it would be known that Cayor itself haven't been spared by the war. Several occurrence of demonic incursions took place as the Ruinstorms rages through the void. Cayor was far from defensless though. Some of the High kings most trusted and experimented Warriors were still there to defend the world. Those were supported by the Ordo reductor cohorts and battle automatas of the Sub fanes.
All the incursion where succesfully pushed back , but the Cayorian forces paid in blood and metal for every victory.
The Dark imperium :
Their spears and blades never put to rest in the defense of the imperium since the time of the Great scouring, the scions of house Joolan strived in the eternal state of war of the 41 millenium. If xenos threats from the outer dark was held at bay, the position of Cayor in regard of the Eye of terror saw the House Joolan engaging knights in many of the guarding dispositive around the Eye borders. As a result the house played an important role in the defense of imperial strongholds against several chaos incursions over the ages.
However since the destruction of Cadia and the events that leaded to the opening of the Great rift, all contact have been lost with Cayor..
In those difficult times only the emperor know what is the fate faced by the Joolan Hunters.
Recruitement :
Each child of Cayor must undergone a series of trials as he became an adult.
The trials to selection and prepare the futur Joolan scion and Grios are hightly ritualysed. They took place at the heart of the Kasamansa forest.
The young that pass the Grios tests are taken down to the forge fane deep beneath Cayor surface and start they study in this techno-mystical cast.
The ones that pass the warriors rituals would be put to further trials and will ascent to the rank of knight if they are worthy and strong enaugh. The young scion will then leave his last name behind and become a member of the house Joolan. Swearing to give his heart for Cayor, his spear to the High king and his feality to The Ordo reductor.
Meanwhile, the vast majority...those who fail to both trials will work in the forge fane, or be used as materials for the taalhax cohorts.
Material :
The House Joolan is composed for the most part of Cerastus classe knights. Among those the Lancer and surprisingly the balefull Archeron variante are the most favored.
The Questoris classe is the second most represented, with a lot of Errant variant used by the scion who displays the most bellicose minds.
The Knight of Arminger classe are exclusively used by pilote too injured or old to continue to serve the house in their streeds. They are then bound within arminger class knight by ancient and crude techno-arcana to became thralls who still serves the House. Maindless automata until wars call and lost protocoles reanimate the subject within in a numb reflection of life. "The shadowed" as they are called are the one who could get the best out of those armours while still bringing strategic support to the youngest and impetuous scions with their knowledge.
In the House Joolan, Arminger are see with an equal mesure of respect and dread because they represente the wiseness of the older as mutch as the fate that might await for every pilot of the house, from the yougest scion to the High king himself.
The heavyer classes are extremly rares in the House Joolan witch possesse only two Dominus classe knights castigators. They are affected as gardian of the Kasamança and will only leave Cayor in time of absolute necessity.
The Joolan arsenal also include two knight Porphyron and an handfull of rare other exotic suits created for the house by the Ordo reductor to suit specific purposes.
In matter of weaponery, the endless jungle of Cayor explain the important use of thermal weapon in the House.
More importantly, in his quality of soldier of the Ordo reductor the House Joolan benefit from the strange and terrible weponery of the Blessed Ruine brotherhood. However rumors and rare reports on warzone involving the House talks about unsanctioned weapons developed from xenotech. Wether this rumors are true or false, the house Joolan never took the time to deny nor listen to those accusations.
Colors : Pale green, black and gold
House Heraldry :
A Cayoran sabertooth skull on two crossed spears. Black on a pale green field.
Personal heraldry and battle honors :
The marks that adorn the knights of the house Joolan are really complexe and their meaning is almost unreadable for outsiders, however some shapes and symbols could be identified on forgotten archives on the Knight houses heraldry of the Great Crusade.
The suits who have take part in the Khraves war are wearing a black raven skull in the Raven Guard honors.
All suits are also adorn with the Ordo reductor broken tower.
Arminger wear an almost totaly black livery as two red stripes on a black field are the mark of the Freeblade. those can't no longuer wear the house crest and can only display the battle honors won after the freeblade oath is taken.
House Motto :
"Death hunt with us"
Of the Cayorian Forge-fanes :
The forges of Cayor could be concidered as a minor forge wolrd of his own right in therms of production capacity. Apart from the secret research conducted in the deepest vaults, the Forges-fanes are known for there valued cyber-implants, sub dermic augmentations and Thallaxii production among other things.
If a lot of servitor and tech adept of Cayor forges look unmodified on the outside as the human form is still revered in Cayorian culturs, all of them are still greatly gifted with bionics and other modifications, if not always visible ones..
Notable character :
* Seyniba Ndongo Joolan :
Current Hight King of the knight house Joolan. First spear of Cayor. "Death from the mist". Ruller of the Kasamansa strongholds.
* Sael Elenkin :
Ordo reductor. Genetor Extremis of the Sigma-Devastation Covenant and current High Grios of the house Joolan.
Sael Elenkin is a really secretive individual gifted with a brilliant but balefull mind. Rumors as it that he made use of clones and a crude form of soul-merge technologie to assume his fonction of ruller of Cayor Forges and frontliner Master of the Covenant. His strong ties with the xanites of Stygie VIII only worsening an already hill reputation.
