Kabal

The Kabals of the Dark Eldar race are autonomous organisations somewhere between criminal cartels, pirate fraternities and noble households. Though forever set at each other's throats, the Kabals form the primary military strength of the Dark City of Commorragh, and are largely responsible for the constant flow of slaves upon which the Dark City feeds. The Kabals occupy the upper tiers of Commorragh's power structure, defining the martial aspect of the Dark Eldar and maintaining a stranglehold on all aspects of the Dark City. Even the most minor Kabals consist of hundreds of Dark Eldar, though their territories may be confined to hidden locations and scattered hideouts. The largest Kabals comprise millions of skilled Warriors. The baleful influence of these monstrous coalitions stretches from one side of the galaxy to the other, plaguing lesser civilizations and inferior races with slave raids and acts of blood-soaked piracy.

History

Genesis of the Kabals

Dark Eldar society once revolved around a small number of noble houses. The scions of these aristocratic institutions plumbed the depths of hedonism that led to the Fall. The Commorrite nobility jealously guarded their positions, seeking out and killing any who threatened them or questioned their primacy. The central mass of Commorragh –- a mind-boggling metropolis of skyscrapers, archshrines, palatial spires and pleasure temples –- was the province of the noble houses alone. Entry could be gained only by birthright, and elitism was a way of life. So it was for several millennia after the Fall of the Eldar. The society of Commorragh remained as stagnant and corrupt as its ancient masters. In all likelihood it would have continued to do so indefinitely, had it not been for a young warrior-slave by the name of Asdrubael Vect, who brought the old order of the nobility crashing down. Vect's own warrior-clique -– or "Kabal" -– had prepared for their founder's ascension, seeding their agents into every aspect of Dark Eldar civilisation throughout Commorragh and beyond.

In the wake of Vect's uprising, the fickle Dark Eldar adopted the Kabalite system with an enthusiasm born of self-preservation. Sensing which way the wind was blowing, even the surviving noble houses reinvented themselves as Kabals in their own right, though in their hearts they still covet the notion of their inherent superiority. Yet none can deny that the Kabalite system has gone from strength to strength. Power is no longer inherited in Commorragh, it must be fought for and taken by force. The authors of the Dark City's fate are those who wield the sharpest minds and blades alike, the precarious nature of their position ensuring complacency can never take root.

Order from Anarchy

In a society as treacherous as that of the Dark Eldar, a single power-hungry individual soon makes enemies. It is never long before the loner finds a dagger at his throat or feels nerve-searing poison flowing through his veins. Only those affiliated to larger organisations enjoy any degree of security; there is safety in numbers, they say, and even in the shadow-haunted twilight realms of the Dark City this remains true. To kill a Kabalite is to commit a hostile action against an entire Kabal. Regardless of status, sect or species, few Commorrites are prepared to make such an influential enemy without good reason, and those who do must ensure they have powerful friends of their own to protect them against the inevitable vicious retribution.

Competition for Kabalite membership is beyond fierce, despite the varied and often violent initiation rites that must be undergone. The constant supply of fresh aspirants means that the Kabals themselves enjoy a kind of loose immortality. Each has the might to make its displeasure keenly felt should it be threatened or slighted. It is unusual for an entire Kabal to be wiped out altogether. Only the Supreme Overlord Asdrubael Vect can visit such a fate upon his enemies without triggering city-wide outrage or inviting punitive violence on a massive scale. Yet Vect ensures that Commorragh is eternally riven by gang warfare, and not a single night goes past in the Dark City without the streets echoing to running battles between Kabalite factions – the Archons of the Kabals do not care for the notion of peers.

The Kabals at War

Though all Kabals offer a measure of sanctuary -– from outside influences, at least –- the true prize for the established Kabalite is to take part in a realspace raid. The war with the material dimension is a never-ending campaign of extreme violence against every other sentient race in the galaxy. A successful raid offers the victors not only the twin bounties of slaves and a feast of pain, but will also do much for the political standing of those who planned and executed it. As such, successful realspace raids are one of the most straightforward ways in which a Dark Eldar Kabal can rise to prominence over its rivals. The largest and most well-respected Kabals launch raids on an almost constant basis, their sleek attack-craft descending upon one hapless world after another to plunder and enslave. It is extremely rare for an Archon to commit the warriors of his Kabal to a battle he has not already meticulously planned. Kabals employ countless spies, mercenaries and informers whose task it is to scout out potential raiding sites in exhaustive detail. Further, the Covens of the Haemonculi can be prevailed upon to provide stranger means of surveillance, be it whisperglass mirrors, flocks of invisible familiars or parasitically invested abductees. These services always come at a price, of course, yet a successful realspace raid will normally justify the cost of such bargains tenfold.

Once a raid is launched, Kabalite forces will work to keep the foe on the back foot at all times, using superior technology and local knowledge torn from the minds of captives to stay one step ahead of the enemy. Stand-up fights are never entered into voluntarily, for the warriors of the Kabals view concepts such as valour or honour as weaknesses to be exploited. Their raiding parties will strike hard and fast where the foe is at its most vulnerable, aiming to cripple command and control structures, undermine logistics and spread terror and confusion. Should an organised response coalesce, the Kabalites will simply fade away and attack elsewhere, aiming above all else to avoid being pinned down in a war of attrition. Ambush, trickery, the turning of foes against one another, and the bloody quest for personal glory –- such are the hallmarks of a Kabalite hunt.

Many Kabals will have a bias towards particular methods of warfare, most often the product of their Archon's personal conceits or origins. Some, such as the spaceborne Kabal of the Severed, favour great wings of attack craft that shatter and scatter the strength of their victims before a single Dark Eldar foot touches alien soil. Others –- such as the Kabal of the Storm's Spite or the Kabal of the Bloody Scream –- favour the deployment of overwhelming firepower, fielding whole squadrons of Ravager Gunships and murderous flocks of Scourge mercenaries who pick the foe apart from a distance. Conversely, a great many Kabals prefer to get in close, fighting where they can feel every hot splash of blood and hear every last rattling breath. Kabals such as the Shuddering Blade and the Silver Fang are especially well known for orchestrating such bloodbaths, and competition is fierce to accompany them to the field of battle. Perhaps the strangest of all are the Kabal of the Thirteenth Whisper, whose members keep their faces shrouded at all times and who are reputed to traffic heavily with the Mandrakes of Aelindrach. Raids by this Kabal are nightmarish affairs, tides of shadow proceeding their advance while chill-eyed horrors stalk the darkness with blades in hand.

Notable Kabals

Kabal of the Black Heart icon

• Kabal of the Black Heart - The Kabal of the Black Heart is the oldest and greatest of its kind. It is a vast and sprawling organisation, able to support numerous rival Archons within its hierarchical structure. Each Archon controls a separate faction within the Black Heart, and each vies fiercely with his rivals for the patronage of Supreme Overlord Vect. None brave outright murder, however, for only a fool would blunt one of Asdrubael Vect's favourite tools. So complete is Vect's stranglehold upon Commorragh that none of these highly placed subordinate Archons dare challenge the Overlord's supremacy in anything but the most private dreams or fantasies. Even then, they do so with caution, for it is said that Vect knows well the scent of treachery, and reads the minds of lesser mortals like an open book. This Kabal's military strength is virtually unassailable. Countless thousands of Kabalite Warriors, Commorrite mercenaries and lethal gunships stand ready to exterminate their foes at the slightest crook of Vect's corpse-white finger. A cast iron bond with the Wych Cult of Strife puts yet more might at the Supreme Overlord's fingertips, providing him with the closest thing the Dark City has seen to genuine allies. Coupled with the impossibly intricate web of spies, informers and agents that Vect has scattered through every stratum of Commorragh, the Kabal of the Black Heart holds more power than several of their largest rivals combined.

Kabal of the Last Hatred icon

• Kabal of the Last Hatred - The Kabalites of the Last Hatred have a morbid interest in the forbidden arts. Though they outwardly seek to master the transition between life and death, their aims are far grander than those of petty necromancers. Some say the Last Hatred seek to transcend mortality entirely, others that they wish to exterminate the Eldar race and enslave whatever entity is born from the ashes. Madness this may seem, but any who have looked into their eyes will never truly dismiss their ambition. So it is that they prosecute their kin-strife against the craftworld Eldar and their Exodite cousins with unmatched fury. Originally famous for their pain-farms and a talent for keeping their wretched captives alive indefinitely, the quest to drain every last drop of suffering from their "clients" has led them into infamy. In recent years, the Kabal have mastered the technique of permanently binding a soul to the cadaver from which it would usually depart at the moment of death. Yet the carnival of corpses that accompanies them to war is merely a distraction to draw attention from something far more sinister, for down in the pits under their stronghold, the Kabal practises ever more complex rites. Here the Kabalites unpick the tapestry of life, studying the postponement of entropy in gardens hung with wax-skinned undead arranged in artful but unnatural poses. Should they ever succeed in their quest, the lines between life and death may be irrevocably blurred.

Kabal of the Obsidian Rose icon

• Kabal of the Obsidian Rose - The Kabal of the Obsidian Rose control the greatest swathe of weapons shops in the Dark City. Through the inventive genius of their Archon, Aestra Khromys, they maintain a deathgrip on the Commorrite arms trade. Khromys is an exceptionally skilled artisan in the field of weapons manufacture, and a blade or pistol bearing her signature mark will sell for a huge price in slaves and souls. Yet she was not always the Kabal's leader. Indeed, having failed to bend the knee to the Obsidian Rose's previous master, Archon Vhloriac, Khromys was flung into the Kabal's vast weapons shops to suffer death by ennui. Yet Aestra worked tirelessly to produce perfect weapons until eventually she and her fellow weaponsmiths were called upon to present their work as tribute to Vhloriac himself. The coup that followed was executed with exceptionally crafted hidden weapons, Khromys and her retinue gunning down the Archon and his guards when their own firearms mysteriously failed to fire. These days, the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose has a flawless reputation for its firearms and blades. Its perfectionist Archon does not tolerate any lapse of quality in her weapon shops' produce, and will personally descend into the bowels of Commorragh to make an example of those accused of imperfect workmanship. These punishments are invariably horrific, administered as they are by Khromys' personal Pain Engine, "The Overseer." The Archon spends much of the rest of her time leading slave raids against realspace, for only Eldar slaves –- be they Commorrite, craftworlder or Exodite –- have the requisite dexterity to satisfy the Archon of the Obsidian Rose, and she prefers to select them herself.

Kabal of the Dying Sun icon

• Kabal of the Dying Sun - Those who fight under the sigil of the Dying Sun belong to one of the oldest Kabals, renowned for their overweening pride and disdain for anything that has not endured for millennia. They prefer to raid at sunset, for their leader, Archon Vorl-Xoelanth, is obsessed with the transition from light and hope to darkness and despair. The Kabal's wild claims that they retain the ability to extinguish stars are infamous, though their rivals have never quite managed to explain the deterioration of the sun Echillos during the Aleuthan Persecution. The truth is that the Kabal of the Dying Sun possess ancient fragments of forbidden arcana, heirlooms from the days of the Eldar Empire of old. Their stronghold -– the Pinnacle of Disdain –- is an impenetrable mountain of elegant, buttressed armour and echoing chambers, within which the Kabal hide their darkest secrets. These timeless artefacts, hidden away in shadowy vaults, possess the power to kill stars, suck the life-force from worlds and exterminate whole races of sentient beings. However, they are ill-understood and, in many cases, charged with psychic potential. This, in turn, makes them as lethal to their owners as they are to their victims, not least because it would attract the violent displeasure of the Dark City at large should their existence become known. Thus they are used very sparingly, deployed by the Trueborn elite of the Kabal only as a last resort.

Kabal of the Flayed Skull icon

• Kabal of the Flayed Skull - The Kabalites of the Flayed Skull are instantly recognisable by the stylised bloodstreaks that they sport upon their snarling faces, echoing the sinister design of their Kabal's symbol. In terms of sheer military force they are second only to Asdrubael Vect's Kabal of the Black Heart. The Flayed Skull's Archon, Lord Vraesque, began his long and dishonourable career as a Reaver, and has since become a master of airborne attacks. As such the Kabal boasts a great many Reavers, Razorwing Jetfighters and Voidraven Bombers, and competition is fierce to claim the first blood spilt in any raid. The Flayed Skull once famously conquered the world of Thrandium without a single Kabalite setting foot upon the ground.

Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue icon

• Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue - The Kabalites of the Poisoned Tongue are universally sharp of wit, with a flair for duplicity so pronounced that they can tie their rivals in knots and dissect them with words alone. They have carved their own niche in the Dark City through constantly misleading and wrong-footing their rivals, and ensuring their "allies" bear the brunt of the fighting during realspace raids whilst they plunge the knife into the foe's delicate underbelly. They even use failure and mischance as weapons, elegantly scapegoating and framing others whenever their plans turn sour. Nobody trusts the forked tongues of this infamously sly Kabal, but seeing as no Dark Eldar trusts another in any case, this isn't much of a handicap. Led by the intellectual she-devil known as Lady Malys, the Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue enjoys a position right at the forefront of Commorrite society. Their number includes many Trueborn –- the closest to nobility in the Dark Eldar society that Vect's mercilessly enforced Kabalite system will allow. The whispersmiths have it that the Lady has her own mysterious patron, for those bold or foolish enough to eavesdrop on her personal chambers have reported two distinct voices when only one lifesign registers within. Few such spies survive long, for Lady Malys has her little ways, and she is invariably several steps ahead of the competition. The only being Malys has thus far proven incapable of second-guessing is her ex-lover, Asdrubael Vect -– though in recent years, even that is beginning to change.

The Broken Sigil icon

• The Broken Sigil - The Kabal of the Broken Sigil takes its icon from the ancient Eldar glyph Drethuchii, loosely translated as "the Shattering of Harmony." Like its namesake, the Kabal is synonymous with acts of discord. Wherever order and prosperity abound, the Broken Sigil will strike with overwhelming force, bringing confusion and despair to the most idyllic planets in the galaxy. Terror tactics are much beloved by the Kabalites of this sect, so much so that the Broken Sigil's Archon, Lord Xerathis, is looked down upon by his rivals for the predictability of his strategies. True enough, his Kabalites are not above sky-writing, blanket-bombing with hallucinogenic gas or hijacking communications channels to ensure their victims are frightened half to death before the invasion starts in earnest. Yet the Kabalites of the Broken Sigil maintain that the price they pay in forewarning the enemy is far outweighed by the rich feast of fear that awaits them when the onslaught begins. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Broken Sigil are amongst the most feared and infamous of the Kabals, especially amongst the worlds of the Imperium. Entire conclaves of Ordo Xenos Inquisitors seek their demise, and on multiple occasions Lord Xerathis has found himself the personal quarry of Deathwatch Kill Teams. If this concerns the toweringly arrogant fearmonger, he conceals it well. Instead, Xerathis boasts of the fine slaves such post-human warriors make, and insinuates knowingly that, with the correct persuasion, even Space Marines can be made to cower in fear.

The Lords of Iron Thorn icon

• The Lords of Iron Thorn - Masters of the sub-realm of Pandaimon, embittered remnants of a long-gone aristocracy, the Lords of Iron Thorn are Commorragh’s pre-eminent weapons crafters. Prowling squadrons of Ravager Gunships and sleek-sailed Raiders fill the skies of Pandaimon, sweeping between its spires in great numbers. Long ago, this proud and ancient Kabal were brought to their knees after an ill-fated rebellion against Asdrubael Vect by their then-master, Archon Qu. However, in the centuries since, they have rebuilt their power through ensuring the Kabal of the Black Heart remains well supplied with Iron Thorn war machines. This Kabal's weapon factories and grav-docks are so sprawling they would cover the surface of a small moon, and they ring night and day with the hellish clangour of slave-driven industry. It is said that the mark of the Iron Thorn upon a Raider's hull is akin to Aestra Khromys' brand upon the stock of a gun –- a mark of quality that is second to none. The Lords of Iron Thorn are highly active in the raids upon realspace, not least because every successful attack proves afresh the power of their airborne armada. They believe in the application of overwhelming firepower, and delight in proving the superiority of their finely crafted gunboats over the lumbering war engines of the lesser races.

The Severed sigil

• The Severed - The Severed are a spacebound Kabal that left the Dark City hundreds of years ago. They are more than familiar to the Imperium, as the Severed have plagued the systems of the Ghoroid Strip since time immemorial. Their Archon, S'aronai Ariensis, once botched a coup that cost him his place in the Dark City and most of his left hand. He defiantly refuses to regenerate his wound, and his warriors are often mutilated in the same manner, their left hands reduced to talons or replaced by augmetic claws. It is testament to Archon Ariensis' utter ruthlessness that, having lost such face before his followers, he managed to retain the reins of power. Indeed, in the days following his and his Kabal's exile from the Dark City, Ariensis faced challenges to his authority almost daily. Each was answered with sudden, shocking violence, the Archon making such hideous examples of his rivals that those who remained soon lost all desire to attempt coups of their own. Now the Severed are a force to be reckoned with once again. With his authority beyond dispute, Archon Ariensis has fought a centuries-long campaign against all who cross his path. His Kabal's pirate fleet -– once a ragtag collection of battle-damaged craft –- has become a sleek flotilla of hundreds. They strike at will, navigating the broader sections of the Webway with peerless skill to strike against worlds across the galaxy and even, on rare occasions, Commorragh itself.

Sources

• Codex: Dark Eldar (7th Edition), pp. 23-40, 90-91, 158-160
• Codex: Dark Eldar (5th Edition), pp. 5, 26, 62, 89
• Codex: Dark Eldar (3rd Edition), pg. 10