Dark Covenant

"I reap a bloody conquest for my Dark Gods, crushing armies, destroying empires in Their blessed names. For Them and Them alone a shall lead my great host in our most holy of tasks; to punish the unbeliever, to obliterate the unfaithful, to fight, die, and kill until our hellish hate scars the galaxy itself. We shall not stop, we shall not falter, until the gates of Terra are thrown open once more, and the Corpse Emperor ripped from his throne of lies. That is my vow, that is my promise, and I shall see it fulfilled."

- Xaphuris, Lord of the Dark Covenant

Made up of the most fearsome followers of Chaos Undivided, the Dark Covenant is no simple warband of Chaos Space Marines, it is a Crusade in the name of the Primordial Truth. Each of the myraid forces under it's command have proven themselves to be amongst the most formidable of their kin, all fighting under the same banner, albeit for different reasons. Together this collection of fanatics, monsters, and heretics have scoured thousands of world of life all in the name of the Dark Gods, destroying any who dare try and halt their advances.

The Darksworn
The chosen warriors of the the Coryphaus Errant himself, the Darksworn are amongst the foremost of the Dark Covenant's forces, being made up of the first to defect from the Word Bearers to follow Xaphuris. Now they serve mainly as elite commanders and shock troops driven by dark devotion to the Gods of the Warp, taking the field alongside the master of the Covenant when the final blow is to be struck, much to the despair of the enemy.

The Blessed Ones
Led by the the warp-touched Mutilator Chalid the Cat Crown, the Blessed Ones are a horde of the most crazed and twisted of the of the Dark Covenant's forces. More of a pack of predators than an actual Warband, the Blessed Ones are not only made up of the Cultists and Chaos Space Marines that have succumbed to insanity, but also count warp-infected Obliterators, fleshmetal Mutilators, all manner of Possessed, and even daemonic Furies amongst their ranks, making them a literal menagerie of Chaotic madness. For this very reason, they are primarily used as shock and terror troops by the Covenant, rampaging across the battlefield until nothing remains but death and ruin.

The Igneous Contour
(MORE TO COME)

The Creed of the Discarded
(MORE TO COME)

The Research Eternal
(MORE TO COME)

The Unbidden
Virtually everything about this little-known cell of Alpha Legionaries is shrouded in mystery and speculation, from their reasons for joining the Dark Covenant to their very identities. Even the true name of the cell in unknown, the name "Unbidden" only given to them due to the fact that no one, not even Xaphuris himself, calls the Legionaries to the battlefield, they merely appear when they wish to. Yet despite their almost infuriating enigma that surrounds them, none can deny that the Unbidden are exceptional infiltrators and saboteurs, their twisted schemes crippling the enemy before the Dark Covenant even arrives to conquer and desecrate.

The 565th "Turncoats"
Formerly the 565th Cadian Mechanized Infantry, under the command of the self-styled "Duke" Richi Deslardo these brave servants of the Imperium were transformed into a traitorous, if highly disciplined, regiment of Chaos-worshiping Guardsmen. The provider of most if not all of the Dark Covenant's heavy support vehicles, the Turncoats serve as the Warband's unofficial "armored division", combining their skill in the arts of armored warfare with the various "advantages" their allegiance to the Ruinous Powers gives them in order to make them all the more effective in combat.

Xaphuris
The Coryphaus Errant, the Arbiter of Chaos, the Unholy Crusader, the Foul Preacher, the Invoker of Dread; the Chaos Lord Xaphuris is known by all these titles and more, and he has earned each and every one of them. Formerly of the Word Bearers Legion, Xaphuris forsook his fellow sons of Lorgar to found his own vision of what the forces of Chaos Undivided should truly be, and thus founding the Warband that would eventually become the Dark Covenant.

A fanatical warrior and master tactician, Xaphuris is perhaps amongst the most pragmatic of Chaos Devotees, showing his devotion to the Dark Gods not through mindless slaughter and zealotry but through calculated conquests formulated to gain the favor of the Ruinous Powers. Wherever he goes, worlds burn and thousands of innocents are sacrificed upon altars of dark devotion, from which Xaphuris merely moves on to the next planet, and the next site of his inevitable victory.

Chalid the Cat Crown
A Mutilator of unspeakable power, Chalid is considered is a monster even amongst the most bestial of Chaos Undivided's servants, such is the dark majesty of this Obliterator-infected abomination. Little is known of the Cat-Crowned's past, Chalid having long since lost his mind through sheer exposure to the Warp, and thus he can only recall scattered fragments of what he once was, though these so-called "memories" could very well just be the incoherent ramblings of a madman.

One of Chalid's more interesting traits is that he seems to react almost euphorically to sound of Xaphuris' daemonic Cochisian dialect, and thus is utterly devoted to the Coryphaus Errant if only because of the soothing effect his words have. This if anything has only increased Xaphuris' formidable reputation, for if he can gain the loyalty of a monster like Chalid with nothing but the power of his voice, what else might he be able to accomplish...

Alasdair Erasmos
The horrifyingly mutated Sorcerer-Lord of the Igneous Contour Warband, Alasdair is better known as The Amalgamate, for he is not Astartes but rather an unholy fusion of mortal and Chaos Space Marine. Once he was only Alasdair, a mere human Sorcerer of some little infamy, until his own body began to rapidly deteriorate from the sheer psychic power he wielded. Desperate to save his own life, Alasdair enacted a foul ritual that supplanted his own soul within to body of the Chaos Lord Erasmos, thus becoming a literal Amalgamate as the two souls are forced to share one body.

Cowardly, treacherous, and incredibly ambitious, Alasdair serves the Dark Covenant behind a facade of religious devotion, while he secretly plots to take over the Covenant from within. The only problem is that Xaphuris has recently become aware of the Amalgamate's "condition", and thus has his eye on the Sorcerer, waiting for him to take just one step out of line. Thus Alasdair remains the servant, furthering the goals of the warband through his prestigious knowledge of sorcery and warp-craft, all while his hatred for the Coryphaus Errant festers inside of him.

Warpsmith Amenhov
(MORE TO COME)

"Weeper"
(MORE TO COME)

Duke Deslardo
Formerly a seasoned General within the famed Cadian Regiments of the Imperial Guard, Richi Deslardo was censured for extensive casualties within the regiments under his command and thus was eventually demoted by Segmentum Command, placed in charge of a local PDF as a punishment. Already feeling as though his talents were being squandered, Deslardo would jump at the chance to see real action once again, only to be sent spiraling into the depths of the Eye of Terror when a freak Warp Drive accident stranded both him and his regiment within the Warp Rift. Years later, the regiment would re-emerge from the Eye as a fell warband of traitorous Guardsmen, with the self-proclaimed "Duke" Deslardo at their head.

An exceptional commander with a gift for tactics and strategy second only to Xaphuris himself, Deslardo is a proud man, but not an overly ambitious one. He is content to serve under the Coryphaus Errant so long as he and his Turncoats have the chance to strike back at Imperium that "abandoned" them, though he does have a tendency to ignore orders if he believes he is in the right, much to Xaphuris' ire.