TEXT: 96
  A
  liachemoranthrashe’ill,
  broadly translating as
  ‘the swift and final twist of
  the crescent blade’, was born
  on Craftworld Biel-tan eight
  hundred standard years ago.
  The youngest of two siblings,
  his father Morecthias was an
  incredibly accomplished Dire
  Avenger Exarch, as was his
  father before him. Millennia
  ago, Alanthrasil’s ancestors
  had pioneered the martial
  discipline of Imaluan, hinted
  at in the teachings of
  Asuryan. These learned
  warriors taught their many
  disciples the virtue of total
  grace and economy of
  movement. When the masters
  of the art performed the
  complex dance of war, not a
  single iota of energy was
  wasted. Every action and
  reaction was perfectly
  executed, every cut and parry
  timed to precision, achieving
  an almost supernatural state
  of grace. 
  It was thought by some that
  the true masters of Imaluan
  could achieve a
  transcendental state, their
  quicksilver dance so fast that
  their opponents seemed to
  move as if underwater.
  Alanthrasil and his sister
  Eminielle had progressed far
  toward this level of mastery
  when their father Morecthias
  was granted the single
  highest honour the Farseers
  of Biel-Tan could bestow; to
  be crowned as the Young
  King. 
  Given the war-like nature of
  Craftworld Biel-Tan, it was
  not long until the Swordwind
  marched to war once more.
  Alanthrasil, watched as his
  father and mentor was led to
  the ritual sacrifice that would
  awaken the Craftworld’s war
  god. The Eldar consider it a
  great honour to be a Young
  King, consumed by the
  Avatar, becoming one with
  the raging furnace that was
  its soul. But no matter how
  many times Alanthrasil told
  himself this, it did not
  comfort him. Alanthrasil
  could take no joy in anything
  other than the savage thrill of
  killing, mercilessly and
  without pause, in the fiery
  shadow of what had once
  been his father.
  Years later, when the scars of
  bereavement had begun to
  heal, he and his sister finally
  achieved perfection in their
  discipline. Their relationship
  was a complex interaction of
  dark passion and purest
  commitment, with Alanthrasil
  the darkness tinged with light
  and his sister the light tainted
  by darkness. They would duel
  from dawn till dusk in the
  Forest of Silence, their
  movements blurring as the
  consummate swordsmanship
  taught to them by their father
  weaved a dance in which
  neither could truly triumph.
  Only the harmony of their
  kinship prevented them from
  descending the solitary path
  of the Exarch, locked forever
  into the Path of the Warrior,
  held in awe and fear in equal
  measure by their fellow Eldar. 
  When the tendrils of Hive
  Fleet Leviathan curled toward
  Craftworld Biel-Tan,
  Alanthrasil and his sister were
  at the forefront of the fight
  against the Tyranids.
  Although each attack was
  planned with surgical
  precision, the Eldar lost
  thousands of warriors,
  Eminielle among them. The
  chittering swarm that pulled
  Eminielle down and gorged
  on her flesh were too
  numerous for Alanthrasil to
  defeat. Only by leaping onto
  the vane of a swooping Vyper
  jetbike did he escape at all,
  scores of razor-sharp bites
  shredding his armour and
  disfiguring his face.
  But the Tyranid infestation
  was ultimately surpressed by
  the Eldar counter-strikes.
  Whilst the rest of the Biel-Tan
  army returned to their
  Craftworld, Alanthrasil spent
  long days trawling through
  the detritus of battle, flitting
  like a ghost from corpse to
  corpse. When he eventually
  found the site of Eminielle’s
  death, everything other than
  the impenetrable psycho-
  crystal of her spirit stone had
  been consumed by the
  ravenous swarm that had
  pulled her down. Alanthrasil
  took it back to his ship, and
  forged it into the hilt of his
  sword, that he could fight
  alongside his sister until the
  time of his own death. 
  It did not take long for
  Alanthrasil’s lonely flight
  away from the battlezone to
  run into hostile space. A fleet
  of Eldar Pirates held
  dominion over the territories
  into which Alanthrasil flew,
  and welcomed the possibility
  of adding a new craft to their
  armada. The Pirate Lord
  Hiriaq ordered the fighter to
  be taken intact, and it was
  not long before Alanthrasil
  was surrounded with no
  hope of escape. Alanthrasil
  knew to fight was a pointless
  exercise as the pirates would
  Sample
  Characters
  Alanthrasil Swiftblade
  By Phil Kelly
  
  Sample
  Characters
  97
  not hesitate to destroy him if
  he made any real show of
  resistance. A looming frigate
  bore down on his fighter, the
  docking bay opening to
  swallow the fighter craft like
  some vast aquatic predator.
  Once within its massive hull,
  he was led from his craft, by a
  group of heavily armed Eldar
  pirates. 
  Alanthrasil remained silent as
  he was led before Lord
  Hiriaq, and did not respond
  to their questions or their
  cruel taunts. Even when they
  goaded him forward with
  sharp blades the warrior
  remained impassive, his
  scarred features betraying no
  sign of emotion. It was only
  when the pirates reached to
  take the sword Eminielle
  from her scabbard that
  Alanthrasil acted. Making a
  cutting gesture with his hand
  toward his foe, his sword
  appeared in his hand a split
  second before the motion’s
  conclusion. Two pirates fell,
  bisected cleanly across the
  torso. The streams of
  shuriken fire from the other
  pirates did not find their
  mark, for Alanthrasil was
  already above them, stepping
  lightly up the falling bodies
  of his victims and vaulting
  backward in a graceful arc.
  His body seemed to occupy
  only the space in which the
  streams did not pass, the
  diresword Eminielle
  flickering down to take one,
  two, three heads from the
  necks of his assailants. Time
  seemed to slow for
  Alanthrasil as more pirates
  rushed to bar his advance
  toward Hiriaq. He slid and
  darted through the oncoming
  fire, anticipating every
  movement of his enemy and
  positioning himself for a
  perfect counterstrike, flinging
  the diresword forward in an
  underarm throw that passed
  through the chest of one
  pirate and into the neck of
  another before smoothly
  reversing direction and
  returning hilt-first to his
  outstretched hand. His
  sinuous, complex dance was
  unstoppable, a roll under
  enemy fire culminating in an
  outstretched sword to the
  heart, a rising pirouette that
  seemed an evasive
  manoeuvre leaving the two
  nearest assailants cloven from
  hip to shoulder. Hiriaq
  backed away, assuming the
  classic guarding position with
  his curved power weapon,
  but the ornate sword fell
  from his outstretched hand,
  as did the fingers holding it.
  Alanthrasil was face to face
  with the pirate lord, calm
  expression unchanged, the
  diresword Eminielle resting
  on his throat with a touch as
  light as silk. His breath was
  cool on the pirate lord’s
  sweating brow. Hiriaq,
  understandably
  impressed, ordered his
  men to stand down.
  Alanthrasil served as
  the bodyguard of Lord
  Hiriaq for many
  decades, absorbing
  everything the
  infamous rogue
  could teach him
  about starcraft
  and piracy in
  return for
  tutelage in the
  ways of Imaluan.
  Hiriaq had his
  crippled hand
  replaced by the
  finest of gilt bionics, just as
  Alanthrasil’s damaged face
  was covered by the most
  advanced of augmetic
  replacements. The two
  became close, and over time
  the warrior began to regard
  the pirate lord as a mentor
  and friend. But the dark
  curse that seemed to be
  following Alanthrasil
  eventually struck once more.
  During a period of dissent
  within the ranks of the pirate
  fleet, Alanthrasil returned to
  the flagship to find the
  cooling corpse of Hiriaq
  slumped across his antique
  dining table, a thin trickle of
  blood-flecked drool
  testament to the manner of
  his death. Alanthrasil hunted
  down the culprit and his
  coterie of mutinous traitors,
  one by one.
  Assuming command of the
  pirate fleet, Alanthrasil began
  a set of raids on
  Imperial space
  of such
  punishing
  and
  
  Sample
  Characters
  98
  WS
  BS
  S
  T
  I
  Wp
  Sg
  Nv
  Ld
  Alanthrasil
  133
  88
  54
  58
  141
  92
  73
  88
  71
  Alanthrasil Swiftblade, Eldar Pirate Prince 
  Equipment: Advanced bionic right eye, Eldar Long Rifle with built-in rangefinder and
  motion predictor, 1 Haywire Grenade, antique duelling pistol, Runic Talisman (counts as
  pentagrammatic wards), the Diresword Eminielle.
  Special Abilities: Acrobatic, Ambidextrous, Catfall, Dodge, Feint, First Strike, Force of Will,
  Furious Assault, Lightning Reflexes, Nerves of Steel.
  The Diresword Eminielle: Eminielle is a power sword. It counts as having the Daemonic
  properties Bound and Deflection. When a character takes more unsaved damage from
  Eminielle than their System Shock value from any one wound, they must pass a Wp test or
  add a further D10 damage to their Injury total. 
  Jinx: Even as Alanthrasil flaunts death in battle, it strikes down those around him, ending the
  lives of those he is close to in violent or painful ways. If Alanthrasil is allied to any other
  models on the battlefield, ie, those of his warrior group, they must add +10 to every roll
  made on their Hit Location chart. 
  unparalled aggression that
  the overstretched Imperial
  forces in the region soon
  changed their views on the
  pirate fleet from a regrettably
  tolerable parasite to a priority
  target. Alanthrasil earnt his
  infamy in a remarkably short
  time due to his insistence
  that he lead every boarding
  action, and soon came to the
  attention of the Inquisition. It
  did not take long for one of
  their number to learn about
  the behaviour of the pirate
  prince Alanthrasil, and
  arrange the detour of
  Battlegroup Gravis, bound for
  Biel-Tan, toward the territory
  of the pirate fleet. 
  Although Alanthrasil was well-
  skilled in the arts of piracy,
  the Inquisitor had studied the
  patterns of his raids well and
  set up a trap, using a
  seemingly crippled frigate as
  bait. The pirate prince
  descended upon the ship,
  only to find that a far larger
  fleet of Ork pirates was
  following the same frigate.
  The Orks, upon the arrival of
  the Eldar Pirates, changed
  their priorities immediately
  and engaged Alanthrasil’s
  pirates in a series of
  aggressive attacks. Even with
  the his evasive skills there
  was no escape, for he was
  badly outnumbered and not
  the equal of his former
  mentor. After a comparatively
  short engagement, his fleet
  was all but destroyed, and
  the stellar sails of his flagship
  irrevocably damaged. 
  The pirate prince was fully
  expecting to be obliterated,
  and watched open-mouthed
  as the Imperial Fleet smashed
  into the Ork pirates. The
  resultant display of raw
  military power was no doubt
  intended for him, the
  Imperial attack decimating
  the Orks and scattering the
  remainder in a few short
  hours.
  In the resultant parley,
  Alanthrasil’s unlikely saviour
  revealed himself to be one
  Inquisitor Lichtenstein, a
  noted figure within the ranks
  of Imperial society. 
  Alanthrasil suspected he had
  a hand in setting the trap that
  has cost him his fleet and a
  great many trusted friends
  and advisors. Nevertheless,
  he stayed his blade, for
  Imaluan taught that should a
  warrior save another
  warrior’s life, be he rival,
  enemy or friend, a debt was
  owed to him up to the point
  at which the deed could be
  repaid in kind. As the human
  droned on and on in his
  condescending monotone,
  Alanthrasil felt his father’s
  eyes upon him, and felt his
  sister’s spirit-stone grow hot
  within the hilt of his sword.
  The human had saved his life,
  therefore he was beholden to
  him. The matter was simple,
  to dishonour it was to
  dishonour the code of his
  forefathers. Before him, the
  human was insisting the debt
  was equal to a year’s
  servitude.
  For the time being at least, he
  had no choice but to comply. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Warhammer/40k/Inquisitor Skirmish/SG_site_files/Alanthrasil.pdf