Army Briefing: The Umbral Stalkers Cabal

The

Umbral Stalker

Cabal

By Chief Scrivener Hannan

Silencia System, .M41

In the darkness of the most dread reach in the Mardannon sector lurks a terrible menace to the Imperium, the Alpha Legion initiative known as the Umbral Stalker Cabal. With a hidden base of titanic proportion amongst the icy recesses of this frozen planetoid, the Cabal has orchestrated most of the wars across the sector over the last several hundred years. The facility is a huge shipyard and armory, and has acted as a staging point for almost all of the Chaos incursions of the Black Crusade.

The area is a known safe haven for the servants of Chaos, and the Alpha Legion commanders here cultivate favor with the other lords of Chaos in the sector. At any one time, several other Chaos warbands might have ships in the system, usually working with the Cabal towards some nefarious end. Some Chaos commanders have commented that while undoubtedly useful, the Cabal may have been a little too helpful at times with equipment, logistics or personnel. This has led many to speculate that the Cabal might have an ulterior motive that has not been deduced yet, and the Chaos commanders of Mardannon are yet wary of that motive.

The Cabal

Composed entirely of Alpha Legionaries, the Umbral Stalkers Cabal has a unique position in the Mardannon sector. Safely entrenched at Silencia Minoris in their fortress they call the Night Spire, the Cabal has sowed the seeds of rebellion and anarchy across the entirety of the sector. Guided by sorcerers known as Umbral Masters, the Captains of the Alpha Legion direct a clandestine web of traitors and malcontents who may or may not know whom they serve. The Cabal moves munitions, information, slaves, and whatever it can get its claws in to serve its purpose – which seems to be the systematic disassembly of the Administratum.

The Cabal’s flagship, the Warp Stalker, is feared throughout Battlefleet Mardannon for the curious ability to cloak itself from sensors. It is unknown how this ship achieves this feat, and the Stalkers aren’t saying. There are only a few ships sighted in the sector that actually bear Alpha Legion colors and the Warp Stalker is the most infamous.

Silent Siege

Directing the massive amount of Chaos worshippers throughout the sector requires a vast network of spies and a logistics program of equal proportion. The Cabal has consolidated their grip on the sector and seems to have this all covered, and it is suspected that they are the power behind the massive number of uprisings in recent years. It has even been whispered that these Chaos Space Marines may have influenced orks to attack Carpithica. The list of crimes suspected by the Imperial authorities who have been investigating the Cabal’s influence is vast, and also includes providing weapons to heretic militant groups such as the Khorne worshipping mutants on New Waco, the daemonic incursion at Silencia Majoris, and the rebellion of the Imperial Navy at the 1^st Battle of Partisan Imperious.

Thousands of operative cells exist across the sector. They are all tasked with myriad jobs, and their cooperation is alternately influenced, coerced and paid for by Cabal interests. Not every criminal knows they are being utilized as Chaos pawns, but many are willing participants. The Umbral Masters offer some the path to Chaos sorcery, and actively scribe daemonic texts to liberally disseminate amongst the Imperial populace to encourage large scale heresy.

Some operative cells favored by the Cabal develop cults, or organized crime rings. As these smaller organizations grow in size and usefulness, they in turn receive more attention from the Cabal – for good or ill. There are a great many syndicates across the sector who have no idea exactly who they are allied with, for the Cabal will frequently use human emissaries to interact with those whom they wish to conceal their nature from.

The Umbral Stalkers are the top action item for the Black Templars’ Mardannon Crusade. The hidden base at Silencia has not been uncovered by the Imperium at large, though undoubtedly certain individual within the Inquisition may suspect such doings. In the mean time, the Alpha Legion has diverted as massive amount of resources to bear in engaging the Imperial Space Marines, whom they view as the true opponent. Recently, a massive battle at Ordavis in the Carpithica system greatly damaged the Imperial crusade, left the planet in shambles and crawling with orks. This was the first time the Cabal ever openly declared war, and they did it with the rumbling of siege tanks.

Now, the stage is set for a cataclysmic battle in the depths of daemon-haunted space between two sects of Adeptus Astartes. The Umbral Stalkers and the Mardannon Crusade will hunt one another, and woe betide whatever encounters these two forces in the mean time!