A sigil commonly used to represent the Kin of the Leagues of Votann as a whole.
The Demiurg are a militarised, resource-seeking expedition of the Leagues of Votann known as a Prospect that are allied with the T'au Empire.
The Demiurg were long misidentified by both the T'au and the Imperium as an intelligent, minor xenos race of short, stocky, humanoid miners and traders.
It is from this Kin Prospect that the T'au first acquired Ion Weapons.
History[]
The Demiurg are almost purely space-borne in their massive and majestic commerce vessels. The history of the Kin of this Leagues of Votann Prospect is unconfirmed, as is their league of origin, their intentions and current threat to others. All that is known about them is speculative at best.
The Demiurg are known to have an alliance with the T'au, serving as economic allies of the T'au Empire. They were initially introduced to the T'au through their mutual relations with the Kroot.
The Demiurg reside in the far Eastern Fringe of the Milky Way Galaxy and are also found less often deep in areas like the Ultima Segmentum. They are still an uncommon sight in the Imperium, despite the number of sightings of them having increased over recent centuries.
During the Great Crusade, the Demiurg first came to the attention of the Imperium, who determined only that they are a technologically advanced humanoid race that maintained friendly diplomatic and commercial relations with several xenos species. The Demiurg rarely entered the territory of Humanity but during this early period they maintained a clandestine mining installation at Tenebrae 9-50 the existence of which was not widely known by the Imperium. However, their vessels have begun to appear with increasing frequency in the Segmentum Ultima in the 41st Millennium.
Imperial Navy strategists postulated that the increased Demiurg presence was the result of the expansion of the T'au Empire in the Eastern Fringe. This theory was further strengthened by three sightings of Demiurg among T'au and Kroot fleets around the Damocles Gulf. Some, however, believe that these activities are simply the result of the Demiurg attempting to capitalise on the disruptions caused by the Tyranid hive fleets.
From the Demiurg, and thus the Leagues of Votann, the T'au acquired their knowledge of Ion Weapons technology, which is now used heavily by the T'au in their armies and fleets. However, the Leagues have always kept the finest and most advanced of these weapons for themselves.
Two brotherhoods of Demiurg, the SrrykTok and Thurm, are known to have joined the T'au Empire outright and maintain an important commercial relationship with it.
Society[]
A Demiurg Survey Glass
Currently, it is unknown if the Demiurg are full members of the T'au Empire, allies, or mercenaries in their service. What is known is that they are involved heavily in commercial and economic relations with the T'au.
The Demiurg, like all Kin Prospects, operate far from their home hold or Kindred, or have established them upon their fleet of voidships. They are known to avoid Imperial space unless invited in, making them a very uncommon sight, and are described as defensively hostile and non-militaristic.
The Demiurg are known to be organised into "brotherhoods." However, any further information on the numbers, political structure, economic and military weight of a Demiurg brotherhood is unknown beyond the rumour that one brotherhood is typically present upon a given Bastion-class Commerce Vessel and two to three on a given Stronghold-class Commerce Vessel.
At least two brotherhoods, the SrrykTok and Thurm, are known to have joined the T'au Empire. The Seran-Tok Mercantile Leagues is a league of the Leagues of Votann that has risen to prominence in recent times as the result of a lucrative trading relationship it established with the T'au Empire. It has not yet been clarified whether the SrrykTok Brotherhood is actually a reference to the Serran-Tok Leagues that has been misunderstood by the T'au.
While the Demiurg seem to prefer to live aboard their massive starships, they have colonised worlds rich in strategic minerals, such as those of the Poretta System.
Technology[]
The Demiurg's Stronghold-class and Bastion-class Commerce Vessels, from left to right, respectively.
The Demiurg are a Leagues of Votann Prospect and thus live aboard their fleet of voidships. As Kin, they have a high level of technology invested in their vessels since they are required to perform a number of tasks; Stronghold-class vessels, for instance, are used as factories and processing units, whereas Bastion-class starships are more often configured for use in asteroid mining.
A possible reason for this exodus is that the opportunities for commerce generated by manufacturing items on-location in the starships are very lucrative, although this is entirely speculative.
Larger Demiurg vessels, like all Kin voidships, are primarily automated and use electromagnetic fields to scoop up interstellar hydrogen, which is then compressed inside the vessel and ejected towards the rear, creating a form of nuclear fusion-powered ram-jet engine. The engines of Demiurg starships are relatively slow in comparison to Imperial starship technology; however, the complex shielding the system requires, and the beneficial side-effects of its use are as of yet still unfathomed by the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Aside from developing Ion Weapons, the Demiurg appear to remodel a lot of their weaponry from technology already developed for use in resource gathering and manufacturing. Two examples of this onboard their voidcraft are the Las-Beam Cutter, which appears to have been adapted from high-powered laser devices of the same name but of a far smaller scale used by the Cthonian Mining Guilds of the Leagues of Votann to mine asteroids, and automated mining machines, which, once reconfigured, are launched as attack craft against enemy ships.
A known tool discovered by the Imperium is the Demiurg survey glass which is a visual aid used for mineral detection at depths of up to two kilometres. The Demiurg also make use of a powerful laser known as an energy drill to carry out intensive mining activities. The energy drill is more of a mining tool than a true weapon, though Humans who have encountered the device have found that, at short ranges, these heavy lasers can prove to be devastating antipersonnel weapons.
The Demiurg also operate automated mining machines that are programmed to harvest the rare and precious metals they most covet. These automatons operate using networks of unmanned conveyor stations located in mineral-rich regions of the galaxy. These stations propel resource-rich asteroids covered in the mining machines towards the Demiurg's xenos clients' homeworlds from their prospecting zones using a sublight, electromagnetic propulsion system. This transit towards the asteroids' destination thus takes takes hundreds of Terran years to complete, but has the advantage that by the time the target asteroid approaches the client's world, the Demiurg's automated machines have completely mined and processed the ore shipment for immediate delivery.
Game History[]
The Demiurg have notable traits shared with the typical high fantasy Dwarf stereotype, although they are not explicitly described as being like Dwarfs. For example, they are avid miners, expert traders, more technologically advanced than Humans and apparently bear a particular hatred for Greenskins (which are represented by the Orks in the Warhammer 40,000 universe).
The Demiurg were an attempt by Games Workshop to reintroduce the Abhuman Squat race that was removed from the game for failing to meet the company's standards for a Warhammer 40,000 faction. They were essentially another failed attempt to reintroduce the "Space Dwarf" concept that had not been present in the game after the removal of the Squats in the late 1990s and before their return to the game in 2018. The Squats were then resurrected as a full, retconned faction called the Leagues of Votann in 2022.
In the Leagues of Votann codex for 9th Edition, it was revealed that the Demiurg were actually a Leagues of Votann Prospect that had been misidentified by both the Imperium and the T'au for centuries.
Trivia[]
The term "Demiurg" is derived from the ancient Greek word meaning "artisan" or "craftsman" and is the title given in some belief systems (most notably Gnosticism) to the deity that created the physical universe. It is therefore befitting that such a race would be expert crafters. The name also resonates with the Demiurgs' short stature.
There are clear similarities between the Demiurg and the Bentusi from the Homeworld series of computer games; both races are almost entirely space-bound, with no home planets, and both the Bentusi and Demiurg sell other races Ion Cannon technology.
Furthermore, in the T'au Lexicon, the Demiurg are known as "Bentu'sin", which translates as "wise-gifted ones." This connection may not be surprising, as Homeworld was developed by Relic Entertainment, the developers behind the popular Warhammer 40,000 PC game Dawn of War.
Sources[]
- Battlefleet Gothic - To Unite the Stars: Tau Vessels, pp. 109-111
- Battlefleet Gothic Magazine 19, pg. 9, 28
- Battlefleet Gothic Magazine, "New Threat Alert" by Andy Chambers
- Codex: Leagues of Votann (9th Edition), pp. 6, 31
- Codex: Tyranids (5th Edition), pg. 26
- Necromunda: The Book of Judgement (Specialty Game), pg.106
- Xenology (Background Book)
- The Primarchs (Anthology) edited by Christian Dunn, "The Serpent Beneath" by Rob Sanders, pg. 377
- The Serpent Beneath (Novella) by Rob Sanders
- White Dwarf 286 (UK), pg. 29