Primeval Abyssian - new sculpts!

I've been incredibly busy the past few months, barely doing anything beyond sculpting. Finally I was able to get someone to take photos for me. So for now, here is the brand new Masters Of Unlife Abyssal Drone and the finished Luuran Eye Of Judgement! Hope you like them.

The Eye Of Judgement is the primary support vehicle for Luuran Forces. It tends to float over the battlefield seeking out the non-believers with it's Illuminator (the eye) and judgement of course is being elliminated.

The Masters Of Unlife forces are mostly made up of a variety of bio-mechanical drones, fueled by Lost Souls that have seeped through cracks in their universe and found their way into the Necroverse where they are enslaved for eternity. The most basic Drone is the Abyssal Drone seen here, and the bulk of your force will consist of these.

Primeval Abyssian : The Second Age

The Second Age (Age Of The Dimension Bomb)

The Preperations Of War :

It was the second age of the White Ether, the dimension that was self-created by the long fallen Adrifell civilization. Burning stone planets of strange abstract shape dominate the white glow of the Ether's space, spires of the long fallen Adrifell float in the abyss for all eternity; the only mark of their existence left embrazened into the walls of the spires forming nebula sized ruins that stretch out into oblivion.

In the early Trituries of the second age one force stands for survival and honour; the mighty Tolathians whose pacts with allied races has ensured them a small but powerful realm. On the Cell World of Tol II, the bright white bodies of Tolathian wisps glide across the sleek black windowless domes that form their floating cities. The Master of the Runes, Lylethen struck its claw into the sky as lightning charged into its body causing a brief flash across the dark world which lit up the image of the marching Wisps; blood stains over their mouths and claws shining fresh as they waited for their next battle.

Lylethen was guiding its soldiers into a huge grey cloud, from which masses of pillars stuck out from. The cloud with its strange floating pillars was a carrier-ship, a slow moving battle-ship intended for deep space travel. While physically weak, the particles of the cloud generate nightmare energies which could propel it through the Ether. This ship was Lylethen's personal war-vessel and it was intended for a destination that would put Lylethen and its army into one of the White Ether's most important events. 

This event would be a new war against an enemy of which the Tolathians and their allies knew nothing, except that this enemy had come from outside the White Ether dimension, from an entirely alien realm where the only information was transcribed from Adrifell artefacts. This enemy was known as the Ylataran Nexus, an alien race who were masters of relative dimensional laws and physics. Lylethen had massed the largest army the Tolathians had ever seen in their entire history to battle against the Nexus. They had no less than ten million Tolathians as well as thousands of supporting armies from their allies, the Chelonions, Iaethlein, Karuthrax and Cobrorians. Meanwhile other races non-allied to the Tolathians prepared to battle the Nexus on their own including the Jequerita Sporenebulas, Lumenenion Ghostworlds and other more damned and lethal realms.

The Nexus' plan was to create a nightmare that could become reality and form. The Nexus wanted to dimensionally compress the White Ether's physical dimensions so they used the White Ether as a dimension-bomb. The release of the compression of the dimension would explode outwards creating a shockwave-rift that could be directed at an enemy dimension. The force of this dimension-rift had nearly wiped the Nexus out themselves. This was the last desperate measure of the Nexus to win an outer-dimensional war.

The Compression Wars :

After the preparations were made, Lylethen's massive war-ship, supported by hundreds of allied alien ships drew closer to the Nexus homeworlds; the dreaded Inverted Moons of Yltau. The Nexus struck first, using dimension-compression beams upon the Chelonion web crusiers. These weapons created micro-dimensions which would compress then explode outwards shattering physical laws, of anything  the beam touched. These brutal weapons permenantly distorted the reality of the White Ether creating hundreds of dimensional shards, entire areas of space that would be distorted for eternity. The Tolathians made it to the Nexus prime world, the Shrunken One, in good time. The legion swept across the inverted landscapes shrugging off the weapons of the Ylataran like they were immortals - Lylethen and his sub-masters had wounds where their material bodies were distorted forever but they raged on, the emotion of pain completely alien to them. 

Sub-master Cortoll was the first to enter the nightmare labyrinth of the dimensionally transcendental realm of the Ylataran. He brought forth an army of seven thousand Gusts, backed by one hundred Thunder-drummers whose electric thumping shook the alien walls to pieces, as if they were weakening the very reality they stood within. The Ylataran however were unable to fire their weapons within this home environment, the result would destroy their own realm forever. This was the last battle, and Cortoll knew it could win. Cortoll raised its hammerlike weapon high into the air and beat it into its drum-skin chest, causing the Nexus Prime to explode in a gush of sickeningly red blood. This marked the end of the first war, but the second would be far worse.

In the third Tritury, the Tolathians and their allies had destroyed much of the Nexus' realm. Shards of reality-compression had destroyed much of the white-ether, but the Nexus had suffered the most. This forced the Nexus to use stronger compression weapons against The Tolathians and so a new breed of Ylataran had been created. Meanwhile, the mysterious Lumenenion had discovered a way to fix the White Ether's broken reality areas by reverse-engineering Nexus compression technology with their own arcane knowledge of the the Ether's very physical laws. The Lumenenion had then gone further and created defensive barriers around the shards of reality that had been fixed, entire areas of space turned into cosmic bunkers from which these alien ghosts would contain the Nexus forever.

The Nexus at this point fell-back, they needed to send for a new Ylataran Prime to lead them. The new Prime was ancient beyond imagining, it had traveled from its own dimension across the outer-planes fresh from the war with its immortal enemy and it knew the importance of the White Ether. For many years this new Prime battled against the forces of the White Ether, but progress was slow. The barrier technology from the Lumenenion had slowed the Nexus down considerably and the barrier would take aeons to break. Their second Prime would be soon destroyed in the final Compression War.

Through The Sporenebulas :

In the years that followed, the forces of Lylethen went further out into the White Ether into largely unexplored or untouched space. The massive fleet had picked up a strange signal which resembled a Ylataran Nexus world, only the second to of been discovered. The only path to this second Nexus world however was through a strange area of space known only as the Sporenebulas. This realm of space was a shock to the Tolathian's of Lylethen - all that could be seen was enourmous plant-spores growing randomly into the distance for untold lightyears. Thousands of stars and planets had been turned into nothing more than enourmous balls of moss and plant matter. Whatever race lay in this area of space did not like animal-life at all.

Lylethen's fleet explored this region of space for over ten years before they met the sporenebulas inhabitants. The first was a small spore which smashed through one of the fleet's smaller ships. The spore quickly grew out of the metal of the ship and the crews own flesh and the war with the Jequerita had begun. The fleet sent hundreds of infantry and lighting-bolts into the plant-invaded ship, but none emerged from its forsaken hull. 

The only way to destroy the Jequerita was to use one of the three stolen compression-bombs which had been taken by Ylataran Nexus husks decades before in the previous Compression War. The explosion of the compression-bomb destroyed the assimilated ships and cut a path through the Sporenebulas for the remaining fleet to escape. 

The Jequerita had not encountered such aggressive animal-life before and chose to not follow the Tolathians, but instead they would rearm and begin a crusade to destroy all animal-life in the name of the plant. The ruined areas of space within their Sporenebulas could never be recovered, and so for some Jequerita it became a act of vengence. The Jequerita crusades were to begin at this time.

Death Of The Last Prime :

Lylethen and the remains of his fleet were under-armed and under-armoured. They had also lost one of the three precious compression-bombs they were to use on the Ylataran Nexus world. With only two bombs it would be impossible to completely destroy the Nexus planet, and eventually in trituries to come it would be able to grow itself back again, using their advanced dimensional construction technology. Lylethen knew this mission would be it and its legions last. Without the third bomb, they would have to send the remaining two directly to the Nexus world, rather than using the third's implosion as a beach-head to launch an all-out attack and breach the core of the world.

The Nexus Prime could sense the coming of the Tolathian fleet. The Prime's shape was that of a rough web of interconnected oganic tendrills with small points where the flesh would be sucked into the strange wall of the throne-room. This was the Prime's material body. The Nexus Prime devised a way to save the world by dimensionally compressing a part of it and changing the physics around the compressed dimension, thus hiding it from the rest of the outside dimension of the White Ether. When the time was right the Prime could safely uncompress the dimension and destroy the barrier so it could grow into a full nexus prime world once again.

The Prime's plan however would never come to pass; Lylethen had used a Cloud Burster vessel to infiltrate the Prime's throne-chamber. Lylethen and eight Thunder-drummers battled with the Nexus Prime and its Ylataran troops until the second team, which consisted of ten Gusts could place and detonate the compression-bombs. This plan suceeded, totally destroying the Nexus world - and with it the surviving ships of the Tolathian fleet. The denizens of the White Ether could rest easily for the moment, knowing the Nexus had been obliterated. The only remains of the Nexus world was a single particle which would grow over the next thousand Trituries until it would become a new Nexus Prime world.

Dimension In Ruins :

With the final Compression war with the Ylataran Nexus over and the Nexus reduced to a minor threat of small isolated pockets of resistance, the Tolathians and their allies began the process of rebuilding. So too did the non-alligned races rebuild, but new threats would appear in the near future such as coming of the Jequerita seeds and the devestating nightmare realms of the Masters of Unlife. The Lumenenion had vanished again, and in Trituries to come they would become legends once more; an army of ghostly aliens who would defend their doomsday technology until their systems would go supernova.

The areas of space where the Nexus battled were completely irrepairable, these were pockets of space where the white-ether reality failed to exist or had become corrupted. Some of these pockets of space became portals for transdimensional races to enter, while others became mutant realms where creatures would spawn that were combinations of various realities and their physical laws.

With the dimension of the White Ether left in ruins, the third age began - the alien civilizations began to focus more on survival than ever before. Wars and battles would be fought across the Ether, a desperate struggle to rise above a reality which was broken.

Primeval Abyssian : The Origins

- In The Beginning -

The Big Bang was imminent; the laws of physics were breaking down and the lifespan of the current universe was coming to its end. Soon everything would be destroyed and reborn at the expense of all current intelligent life within this universe. Some of the beings within did not want this to happen.

One such race were the Adrifell. The Adrifell took to the science of Universal Engineering and dedicated their entire culture and civilization towards the end goal of creating a brand new Universe in which they would live; one free of the problems and corruption of the natural one they currently resided within.

The Adrifell created a Hadron Collider, the likes of which had never been seen before; it was so large that it stretched around the entire circumference of their Stapledon-Sphere, known as the Archetyme. The Adrifell would eventually run experiments on this Hadron Collider. Thier eventual purpose was to create a Higgs Boson type particle, however, they did not want to replicate the events that created their own universe but create a variation of the event that would lead to the creation of a universe that would be perfectly suited to their needs.

After centuries of experimentation and hard research, the Adrifell finalised plans to create an event in the Collider that would generate a new type of particle - the Ether Particle. The Ether Particle would generate a new type of Universe, a variety of other changes from the old and free of expansion and gravity. This "Etherverse" would be a controlled, secure and stable place to create a realm of learning, peace and creativity.

Things, however, don't always go according to plan. While the creation of the Etherverse was successful, the Adrifell had not anticipated the unforseen laws of creation that would occur - the creation of new lifeforms in the Ether. Though the Adrifell Ether-empire was alone for millions of years, new life took root and new civilizations began to slowly appear in the hidden recesses of the Ether. The first of these were named by the Adrifell as The First Evolved; a race that revolved around the Ultimate Element.

The First Evolved called themselves the Karuthrax. They were a cruel race of overwhelmingly powerful amourphous organic tanks with limited capability to shape-shift. In secrecy, they had built their numbers up and eventually, in the period known as the Falling Century, made war with the Adrifell, almost entirely destroying them. The Adrifell, however, were often underestimated and near the end of the Falling Century, both factions were almost extinct. The Adrifell became all but forgotten as the newer Elements grew and created civilizations while the Karuthrax would return to their birthworlds and shroud them with advanced cloaking technology. 

With both races vanishing slowly from the Ether and the rise of the new Elemental races, the second age would begin and great and advanced civilizations such as the Iaethlein, Tolathians and Cascadians would take the lead in protecting the Ether from the more dangerous species like the scourges that are the Jequerita, the zealous Luuran and the cruel Axon Synapse.

Primeval Abyssian - The Faction Breakdown!

Here is a brief Overview of the ten factions that make up my up and coming wargame Primeval Abyssian. It's been a while since I posted any fluff, so hopefully this will give people a stronger idea of what to expect and the variety of the factions!

Races Of The Etherium

Tolathians :

Tolathians are an elemental race based around the elements of thunder, lightning, clouds and storms. They have a society that is a mix of Nomadic and Marxist elements allthough they do have an overlord, the Thane of Tol. They use cloud shaping as a long-range communication method, while their actual mouths work a little like advanced Tesla-coils, with each tooth discharging electrical energy to make a different frequency. Tolathians planets are stormformed - so they have a constant supply of lightning to feed them and keep them charged up. Their bodies look deceptively frail because they are very thin and wirey, but they are one of the toughest races of the Etherium.

Cascadians : 

The Cascadians are a time-manipulating species able to co-exist with millions of their own copies that exist in slightly different time-streams. Governed by the sentient time-vortex itself, the Cascadians are the guardians of time and uphold the laws of defending the Vortex and time-streams from any and all that would dare corrupt it.

Iaethlein :

The Iaethlein are a race of noble energy beings that use hard-holographic technology to defend themselves from the perils of the Ether. Their bodies are permenantly contained within a hard holographic armoured shell to protect their fragile energy bodies. Their realm of space is a collection of stars linked together through holo-roads which make up a larger Circuit. 

Prymarsiam Dominion : 

The Prymarsiam Dominion consists of a triangular area of Etherspace, within this area lives two aquatic species the Pryark and Marsiarm. The Pryark are a leech-like elemental species of Aquamancers able to control water as a weapon - they are the governers of the dominion and order any outsiders that dare to enter the dominion be destroyed. The Marsiam are a bionic jellyfish-like species - low on intelligence but tough and capable in battle. The Marsiam are excellent footsoldiers and police within the Dominion - together the two races form a highly militant force capable of destroying any who enter their boundries.

Jequerita : 

The Jequerita are an aggressive re-foliating plant species that spread through the ether using Ether-seeds. When a Seed reaches a planetary body it will grow into Jequerita plants which detach themselves and spread smaller seeds to spread over the planet. The Jequerita can control native plants and foilage. They are a scourge upon the Ether, however they have a low intelligence and tend to act purely on instinct.

Luuran : 

Lead by the High-Seclorums, the cthulhoid elphantine Luuran are a zealous religious species which wish only to convert the Ethers races under one God, known by outsiders as the All-Seeing-Eye and one unified Realm. The Luuran send out fleets of ships to save neighbour species from invaders - only to take them over themselves under the watchfull eye of the Luuran. Those that join the Luuran are gifted by the Sect-Tome Keepers many secrets and revelations of the Ether - as well as permenent defensive forces to ensure their safety.

Axon Synapse : 

The Axon Synapse are a super-intelligent race of disembodied brain aliens which use mechanical spinal-chord suits to move about freely. While the Synapse are incredibly intelligent, they are also insanely paranoid and obsessed with the pursuit of knowledge to the detriment of other races. The paranoia of the Synapse has also lead to the Axons becoming a highly isolationist species - however given the nature of their pursuit of knowledge, it is not uncommon to see Axon Nerve-Fleets investigating other worlds and civilizations.

Masters Of Unlife :

From the hidden Necroverse, a shadowy graveyard dimension - the Masters Of Unlife seek only to elliminate life in all it's forms. The Masters discovered the Ether by accident, when an alien race opened a rift between the Ether and Necroverse - allowing the Masters of Unlife to continously send their Abyssal Drone hordes into the Etherspace safely. Many wars have occured since they have entered the Ether, and it has taken the combined strengths of many other species to ensure the Masters Of Unlife are kept at bay.

Ylataran Nexus :

An Extra-dimensional threat from beyond. The Nexus are a race of organic aliens who have dimensionally transcendental technology built into everything including themselves. They have in the past destroyed entire universes and dimensions - and now they have discovered the Etherium. The Nexus infilitrate planets easily using drop-pods that contain entire armies inside the larger interiors - they convert the planets into sickly yellow organic globes similar to that of their own forms and technology.

Ekimmu : 

The Ekimmu are a powerful and ancient species of Wind-based entities that live off the lifeforce of others. The Ekimmu rage across Etherspace in powerful fleets, their vampiric war-machines and cruel infantry scouring any civilization they discover. It is said the Ekimmu are the accidently created warriors of the Lumenenion, a deadly race of alien spriits who in their fleshforms once built the mightiest war engines and weapons in the entire Ether - only to be destroyed by that which they created. The relationship between Lumenenion and Ekimmu is unclear but this deadly civilization should be avoided at all costs.

MORE Elder Things? yes please!

Just found these awesome Elder Thing miniatures. They are 15mm which seems to be popular for Azathoth-Mythos games of late. Anyway, what can I say? I love them. It's nice to finally see Mythos models in squad form as opposed to the normal singular blisters. This makes it easier to build armies of them, so if you want to crush that Shoggoth uprising - can't do any better than going here to buy a load :

http://roebeast.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/elder-thing-miniatures-assembly.html

"Here are the first miniatures for my upcoming tabletop wargame Eldritch Empires. This game will focus on great battles that take place in the early history of the planet we now call Earth. Throughout the stories of H.P. Lovecraft he describes conflicts between many of the major races that colonized earth. Since it is highly likely that The Elder Things were the first creatures on Earth and created all of its native life I decided to start with them." 

Sounds pretty much what me and my friends wanted to do ourselves, well this guy shows he can do it better than us, so ill be happy to be a customer in that retard! Can't wait to see what else this guy will unveil. Personally I'd love to see and field a Polyp army.


I shall definitly be keeping an eye on this guy's stuff as it seem's he knows how to do the 'craftian horrors well!

A tolathian on webcam?

It's a rubbish webcam-shot, but here's a photo of the first painted Tolathian Puppet. His eye's glow a rather nice blue - but the webcam didn't pick that up sadly! I'll get better photos once I'm able to borrow someone's camera! I gotta attach string to it next which is going to be extremely tedious - I'll be drilling holes into it's body then attaching thread (glued into small pieces of plasticard tubing) into the holes. 

An introduction to my WIP Cthulhu Mythos skirmish

One of the rulesets I'm currently working on is a cthulhu mythos themed skirmish game between the different races. It was kind of a no brainer since none of the cthulhu games available focus on the monsters (most are rpgs/horror games set in some period of earth normally). I figured it was time to write about this game and see if there is any interest in it or not.

The Factions :


Unlike PA, I've taken a different approach to the armies within. There are three different slots you can take your units from. The first determine the "core" of your force, the second is determined by which god you choose to worship and the third is like an equivilent of mercenaries where you can fill your force up with a few random monsters that have joined you.

There are Six factions to choose from :


Mi-Go
Yithians
Polyps
Shoggoths
Elder Things
Chthonians

Each of these have an HQ, Troops and Elite type choice which forms the core of your force. These are obligatory, so you will need at least one HQ, 2 troops and 1 elite. You cannot mix any of the six factions.

Those We Worship :

The second choice opens up "god specific" type units. E.G. If your Polyps choose to worship Azathoth, then your god specific unit you must take are Pipers of Azathoth, or if your Shoggoths worship Shub-Niggurath then you must take a unit of Dark Young. This allows civil wars and "themed" armies to be more viable, so no two Elder Thing armies should ever be the same since your opponent will likely be themed around a different god, and this can of course be modelled by paint schemes or conversion work.

The list of Gods currently consists of :

Azathoth
Shub-Niggurath
Yog-Sothoth
Nyarlathotep
Hastur
Zhar & Lloigor

Of course there will be many more, there are dozens of Old Ones and Outer Gods afterall. I will likely add as many as I can!

Eldritch Aid!

The third slot is optional, but contains all the non-aligned one-off type beasts and monsters found in the mythos such as Gugs, Hounds of Tindalos, Moonbeasts, Star Vampires ect. This slot being optional allows a little more variety in units, and allows fans of the mythos to have a few of their favourites that don't belong to any specific faction.

Rules-wise, it will be a heavily modified version of the PA engine - but there will be specific rules for Gods and lots of other insanity. The goal of this ruleset will be to allow mythos fans to enact battles between their favourite lovecraftian aliens across the stars, or even act out famous battles such as the war between the Elder Things and Shoggoths, or the conflicts between the Polyps and Great race of Yith.

I'm not particularly sure what else to write about yet, it's still in it's early days but I will keep people notified on it's progress.

Cyclone Masters and Gusts

Now I've gotten the recasts I've been working on the ol' Tolathians again. The workbench currently contains the second Commander figure, and the second troops-choice the Gusts. Once these are done ill have 7 of the 10 units completed for the Tolathians.

I decided recently I'd rather have all three of the first armies complete because id rather release them together rather than make people wait for Second Waves that I would not know when I'd be releasing. From observing the 40k community, it seems like people don't like waiting for 2nd waves of models especially when they do not know when those waves will be released so it seems a better idea to do it this way.

Heres a few rough fluff tidbits for the Gusts and Cyclone Masters :

Gusts -
Gusts are nearly as common as Wisps and act as the Close-Combat footsoldiers in Tolathian Cells. Gusts are those that have slowly lost themselves to war and over time become more bestial and hate-fueled. Before the process of insanity takes over completely, the Tolathian will submit itself to be lobomtomised. It's eyesight at this point will of been almost lost entirely as a cruel side-effect of losing it's mind, so the eyes will be entirely removed. It's Electro-Talons will be removed and replaced by vicious metallic scythes giving it deadly close-combat weapons. It's mouth too will be reformed allowing it to bite and chew on it's enemies with enhanced stronger fangs. Knowing full well that not all enemies the Tolathian Storm-Empire and it's cells face will be honourable warriors - the Gusts are used as berserkers against these kinds of enemies, unleashed upon the ranks as weapons of pure terror and brutality.


Cyclone Master -
The most common military commanders of Tolathian Cells are the Cyclone Masters. These honourable leaders take their Cells from the front-lines, protecting their brethren with hurricane shields and decimating enemy lines with their powerful Wind-Staff's which litterally destroy the ground and change the landscape in front of them. The Cyclone Masters often use this catastrophic ability to rearrange the landscapes to suit their strategies and tactics. These masters of the elements are often feared by their enemies due to the sheer power built up within their cold souls.

Recasts and Glowing Eyes!

Today I got a package from Ed (of Troll Forged) which had a whole load of Tolathian and Luuran resin recasts. This will mean I can finish the remaining units using the recasts as a base.

I also managed to get one of the first casts of the Tolathian puppet (http://outsidetheuniverseitself.blogspot.com/2011/06/so-i-figured-i-should-expand-this-blog.html)

Tommorow I'll start prepping the puppet, it has some flash, mould lines and bubbles to fix - which won't take very long at all (it isnt finecast :P). Next week I'll start painting the damned thing - which will be interesting since I've never painted anything that big before - and I am also excited to try out the blue glow in the dark paint which I'll be using to paint the eyes and Rune on the body.

The web show will likely take years before it see's fruition - I have to make all the set-pieces which will then need to be recast a lot, and I need to get good enough with the camera and then theres post-FX, props that are specific to the stories ect. I'll keep things updated as to the progress though and maybe ill put some test-footage up so you can see the creature with it's glowing eyes!

Happy belated new year!

Well it's a month into the new year, I hope everyone reading this blog is doing well - I have been extremely busy with all kinds of real-life stuff have sadly not had the time to sculpt anything new let alone post on this blog, but as things settle down I'm getting back into the swing of things.

I have an interesting question though! what kind of Cthulhu Mythos monsters plastic kits would you like to see? and do give this some thought, I know many will probably say Deep Ones/Innsmouthites/Cthulhu Spawn so try and be creative ;)