The History of Vilomaxus Cruentu Quodpipax
The Beginnings
Vilomaxus Cruentu started its life in the ruins of the Lambda Forge, after two Plague dragons, Nythrel the Conqueror and Krutost the Merciless, brought a disease into a small Fire clan. The disease killed most of the clan members, and the minds of those who survived became twisted with the desire to seek out the Plaguebringer’s glory.
The newly formed clan traveled through the Wandering Contagion and across the Abiding Boneyard, growing ever bigger and stronger as long-lost wanderers, outcasts and pilgrims joined them on their journey. They scaled the mountains of the Rotrock Rim and finally settled in the inner circle. Having reached their destination, they built a temple with the bones of those who have not survived the journey.
Straggon-Cultist War
For some time, the clan lived in relative peace, only ever interrupted by an occasional beastclan attack. Until one day, a young imperial named Insect went scavenging, and found an abandoned, rusted metal building, half buried in the sands. In his curiosity, he entered the building and reawakened an ancient Lightning construct, a sentient computer core that called itself the Makron. The construct promised the weak Insect never-ending glory and cybernetic enhancements, under the promise that he will fulfill its plans. Insect agreed, but the core betrayed him, for after it enhanced him with cybernetics, it wormed its way into the imperial’s mind and took over his body. Helpless, Insect watched through his own eyes as the Makron declared war on Vilomaxus Cruentu.
The Makron set out to capture dragons, converting them into cyborgs and uniting them through a digital hivemind, controlled by the computer core that once hosted the Makron himself. He formed the mighty Straggon Army and attacked Vilomaxus Cruentu, and thus the Straggon-Cultist war began.
Throughout the war, most of the members of the clan were reduced into Straggons, including the leader, Nythrel the Conqueror. A mirror named Anashril the Screamer was appointed as the new leader, but not even her reign could stop the conquest of the Straggons. She quickly fell, and Wrack the Overgrown took her place. In the end however, even Wrack succumbed to the Straggon curse, and the fate of Vilomaxus Cruentu seemed hopeless.
But when all seemed lost, an unknown, unseen scourge passed through the lands, and the Straggon Army finally fell as the hivemind core met its destruction. Most of the Straggons were found dead, slain and brutalized by the scourge, and those who survived had escaped far away. Except for a select few: the Makron himself and three of his followers, loyal to him despite the hivemind’s destruction. The four survivors retreated into an abandoned mine, and the Makron began devising plans to rebuild the army.
Meanwhile, Vilomaxus Cruentu mourned the losses suffered throughout the war. Krutost the Merciless was appointed leader, and under his reign the clan slowly began to thrive again.
The Merge
A long time passed, and the war seemed to be over for good. However, the Makron had reclaimed some technology from his former base and formed an alliance with a relatively new Lightning clan, the Mech Morphix Industries. He agreed to mine materials for the clan in exchange for resources needed for the creation of a new hivemind core. The Mech Morphix Industries had no knowledge of his plans.
Once the new hivemind core was finished and activated, the Makron and his minions rebelled against the Mech Morphix Industries, attacking the transporter who had come to collect the mined materials. The clan quickly retaliated by sending a hacker to shut the Makron down for good and retrieve the new core for the clan’s own purposes. Although the hacker managed to wipe the Makron’s processes from the imperial host’s mind, he failed to find and retrieve the core.
Having finally been released from the Makron’s reign over his body, Insect began to undo the damage the parasitic AI caused in his name. He surrendered to Vilomaxus Cruentu and offered them the hivemind core, with an additional request: to join the mindless Straggon forces, preventing himself from ever attacking the clan again. And so the Vilomaxus Cruentu Quodpipax and the Straggons merged, and the clan was at peace yet again.
The Scourge
A few months later, the clan received an alliance request from the Delta Grove, a fellow ally of the Mech Morphix Industries. Accompanied by a few guards, Krutost the Merciless himself traveled to the Delta Grove in order to negotiate the alliance. However, his group was intercepted at night by an unknown force, and most of the group ended up dead, ripped and torn apart and completely drained of blood. The only survivor was Deimora, a young mirror warrior. Devastated, she took the severed remains of the leader back to the clan. Unfortunately she was misunderstood and blamed for Krutost’s death, and in their outrage, the clan sent her to the straggonificator.
With Krutost the Merciless dead, the clan found itself leaderless, and so a blood priest named Cheogh the Hideous offered to take up the position. Despite not being part of the clan for as long, he proved himself to be a good ruler, and the clan accepted him as the new leader.
Soon after the death of Krutost the Merciless, another scourge swept through the clan, much like during the Straggon-Cultist war. The casualties were immense, and the clan was reduced to a mere shadow of its previous glory. Not a dragon saw the cause of the scourge and lived, except for Torthaesus the All-Seeing; she noted the silhouette of a guardian-like warrior, glowing with the crimson red of Plague magic, ripping and tearing apart the bodies of weak priests and powerful Straggons alike without mercy and drinking their blood. She had managed to avoid his wrath and tell the remaining survivors what she saw, and the leader swore to destroy this attacker should he ever return.
Freeing the Straggons
[big wip don’t read this yet]
something something, a NME neurocybersurgeon criticizes the current straggon system, especially the core. cheogh, despite being upset with the lightning clan dragon challenging him, thinks about it real hard.
he comes to the conclusion that the process of trapping unwilling dergs in their own bodies and controlling them around with the nexus, a nasty leftover from makron’s pure evil, is inherently flawed and bad, like what if the hivemind core was stolen and all straggons turned against the clan? the nme derg suggests some kind of substance that would change the unwilling subjects’ mind, so they would act, well, not entirely on their own accord, but not directly against their own will.
the clan’s historian brings up the origins of the clan, noting that there was a disease that made the infected dragons super loyal to the plaguebringer and subsequently the clan. that disease has died out since then, but the employee says everything can be synthesized. and so cheogh gives them the permission to synthesize it. they are ultimately successful, reinventing the disease in the form of a chemical that, when distributed into the brain, makes the subject love plegmomma (and the clan) unconditionally. they call it neurachem *cough* *cough* yep i went there lmao
anyway, they proceed to administer it to all the straggons, and once that’s done, the clan turns off the hivemind core. the process is successful and the (hostile before their initial straggonification) straggons display unending loyalty to the clan even after the core deactivation, along with an expected re-gain of their control over their bodies and a resurfacing of their personalities. the straggon nexus hivemind system is therefore officially retired and dismantled, its control chamber repurposed for the manufacturing of more neurachem because it needs to be constantly administered for its effects to last. cheogh offers the employee/neurachem inventor to stay with the clan and supervise the production. they gladly accept the offer.