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We’d had plenty of time to prepare. We knew they were coming, but it didn’t change anything. Their representative even told us they were coming, that they wanted nothing other than to pit their mettle against ours. We had never seen the likes, a massive host armor with bloody crows perched on these stalks all around it. He claimed that he was a Reaper for the Domus Ad Honorum. Our Librarian translated it to House of Honor. The Reaper told our Warlord that we had three days to prepare.

For his insolence, the Warlord had the Reaper killed, but not before the bloody Crows tore apart his personal guard. Or so the rumors go. The House was put on alert, and actions against the Machine were suspended. Just in case, or so they told us. Everyone knew the truth, the Warlord was scared. Ours wasn’t the first House to hear of them, rumors abounded.

For three days we prepared and dug in. Gardeners creating forward bases and shoring up fortifications. It still wasn’t enough. It was the damn howling that signaled the end. It was like a storm of sound washing from the treeline. By the time we heard the roars, none of our forward bases were answering the bio-comms.

It was a wall of flesh that came out of those trees. Men and women, armed only in what they could carry, moving faster than our Scarecrows, they led the charge, followed by gorehounds the likes of which we have never seen. Three headed beasts gnashing at the heels of the first wave. Our fire was accurate, but little fell before our initial barrage. The treeline and gorehounds erupted. Hundreds of organic missiles were in the air, crashing into our forces just before the line of runners hit us.

We thought them cannon fodder, men and women forced ahead by the wolves. Suicide rush. As they hit our lines, we could see they were different, some sort of bio-tech grafted to their bodies. Not reshaped like Biotics, but changed just the same. They hit our lines and began tearing roughnecks and biotics apart with primitive hand weapons and weapons we have dubbed, Knuckle Busters.

The wolves hit next and then the rest of their forces. Familiar forms, in strange shapes. Like different minds crafting the same thing. Different, yet towards a common goal. The fighting was horrible, and bloody, but we were strong and held our lines. Then the cavalry arrived, massive six legged horses came into our flanks and huge tusked boards slammed into our lines. Softening us up for the greatest abominations of all.

There were only two of them, and from a distance they looked like Host Armor, but as they got closer, you could see they were something very.. wrong about them. They were larger, and more ‘ornate’. One held a massive hammer, crackling with lightning. He threw bolts of power into our lines, crisping and burning our men, our Dreadguard, with single hits.

It’s companion was unmistakably female, this was how we knew there was something horribly wrong with the Host Armor. It carried a massive bow, firing arrows that punched clean through a Grendel, dropping it dead. All around her Birds flocked to her command, the strange Bio-creations of their house Genepools.

It was a massacre.

With the battle done, the Reapers began their grisly task. I had fallen during the early engagements, lying wounded and unable to do anything but watch, the reapers picked over the dead. One of the crazy ones, the ones who had led the charge sat beside me, it’s hand resting on my chest plate. A Reaper came, as if to claim me. A conversation occurred, one that felt of ritual. One I saw repeated around the battlefield that day. Warriors claiming wounded foes as their own. This berserker straddled my armor and leaned close, smiling behind a bushy beard, saying that I would serve the House now. The look in that mad creatures eyes, it is enough to keep my blood cold even to this day.

-----------Testimony spoken to Librarian Verdani by a recently procured Helot, Johnathan Hamur, previously of House Harkonnen, upon his first battle versus the Domus forces.

This.

Very interesting prose to go along with the continuing development of your House. I can't wait to see a fully fleshed out and structured Reaper O.C.C. along with all the other O.C.C.s unique to this House of yours that I'm sure you've been working on. I really wanna know their reasoning behind attacking other Houses, but a rogue House full of new bio-organisms and baddies will make amazing villains in a world that is predominantly villainized by robots and just trying to survive against them. It's something players will not suspect that's for sure, and I hope to see all this in a sourcebook or rifter!

Wanna know their secret? The Machine bores them. Fighting cold steel has no honor behind it, it is a duty one must perform, but it's like taking out the trash. Unsavory. Pitting yourself against another living, breathing, person? That is true battle. The only true way to earn ones place in Valhalla. To be given the gift of finding battle, even in the afterlife. Mwhahhaha.

Ohhhh I see. What do they do with their captured? Make them fight for the House? Clearly they don't kill them all considering the testimony was able to be made by a captured soldier. Have you written any stats for the House leaders? Like the lightning hammer and whatnot? I would love to use these guys in a game.

/Maniacal laughter

Oh the idea we have that intro is just the beginning.

Some of the dead are added to the Gene-pool and the Engineer adds their bio-mass to the next generation of Host Armor and the like via the Reapers. The captured have a chance of being saved by any surviving House soldier, usually a warrior who fought well is given the choice, become a slave of the House, with the potential of earning your freedom, or die now and become fuel for the Gene-pool.

The House leaders are currently getting worked on, as they are a special type of OCC that I'm tweaking on, as are the Ulfhednar, another OCC Unique to them. Think of them as a kind of Juicer from Rifts, but with a twist.

Bio-organic juicer?? Yes please! It makes sense though, like, use engineered plant or animal hormones to enhance the human body, giving it some of that animal toughness and ferocity. I am very excited to see all you have on this House.

Swiper no Swiping.

Great read I hope to hear more about the two elite and the lightning hammer.

Where in Rifts, Juicers are kinda one of the biggest Badasses around, the Bio-organic ones are kind of like cannon fodder for the house. THe harness they are grafted to is easier to produce than a full blown Host Armor and is relatively easy to graft to almost anyone. Point them at an enemy, crank up the Juice, and watch them rampage. These are not the people that the OCC will be for. The Bio-Juice OCC will be for the people with enough willpower and mental fortitude to keep themselves even once the Juice begins to flow. They are the scary ones, and begin grafting weapons to their Juice-boxes and such. It is very much a work in progress though.

I was thinking about this and pondered why have the other Great Houses have not allied to destroy Domus Ad Honorum? Limited fighting (particularly over resources) between houses and raiding is one thing but internecine warfare waged to the point of destruction and enslavement for no reason other then "fighting is fun" seems like it would quickly bring about an alliance to destroy those starting conflicts over no slight or good reason.

A few things,
1) No one knows where the House originates. They strike very fast and violent raids, and then fade away. And there are long lulls between attacks. No house gets hit more than once, at least as far back as they can remember.
2) There is a reason for these fights, and it stems from the Houses history, which will get posted as I get a chance to. Basically the fighting is a way for them to evolve their own Tech. The Machine has stopped being an issue for them currently, so they need to pit themselves against other Houses in order to improve themselves.
3) Provocation was already dealt to the house, again this is part of their history. There is a house out there that got first contact with these guys, and made a very bad impression. They believe that they are helping the houses they attack, by weeding out the weak.
4) They don't deal via subterfuge. They, for the most part, come straight at you, let you know they are in the area and let you have a chance. You beat them? You never see them again. They win? They let you retreat with what forces you can and fade away, leaving oddly barren battlefields behind.

You know I always read the Scarecrow as the Juicer analogue

Yeah, never really read the scarecrow that way, though I can see what you mean with the brain juice. These Ulfhednar, my bio juicers, aren't dependant on the Librarians so much.

Yea have to agree scarecrows are splicers similar to juicers. I can see a house making a different type of juicer.