The Warlord-Sinister

In information given to the Council of Terra by the Ordo Sinister's representative, an officer of the Order styled Prefect Kelner Anahat, it was confirmed with authenticated patents that the organisation of the Ordo Sinister was arranged and provisioned entirely to an exacting order laid out by the writ and dictate of?the Emperor, from which it could not deviate nor innovate upon pain of destruction. It comprised four allied but self-contained fortress crypts— each with their own defences, support staffs menials and techno-arcanists, all in support of a 'Chamber', each comprising five specially modified Warlord Titans. These god-engines, properly classified as Terranic pattern Warlord-Sinister Psi-Titans, were each rebuilt around an Emperor-designed psychic amplification matrix device called the Ciricrux Anima. In place of the standard Titan configuration of mind-impulse units, it was this which controlled and empowered the Warlord-Sinister and in place of the moderatii that would normally crew a battle Titan, the Psi-Titans were instead crewed by what might be considered the damned— bound psykers surgically locked in place and slaved to the will of the Preceptor-Intendant who mastered the god-engine in place of a Princeps. By direct cortical control, the power and spirit of the bound psykers were siphoned off and focused by the arcane technologies of the Ciricrux Anima, the baleful device that truly makes the Psi-Titan what it is. This energy was controlled by a techno-arcane interface quite unlike that of a standard configuration mind impulse unit, while much of the Psi-Titan’s?other functions were slaved to sub-automata systems and machine spirit homunculi. Set at the heart of the storm of these energies, the Preceptor-Intendant sat in a shielded command crucible in the Titan's head. But even this was insufficient to entirely protect them from the psychic forces at play, and so each Titan commander of the Ordo Sinister was a psychic blank, an 'Untouchable', but selected it would seem on entirely different criteria from those who served within the Sisters of Silence or the Culexus Clade, and cybemetically augmented to allow for human-machine interface. Although in his testimony Prefect Kelner Anahat would not be drawn on his or his comrades' recruitment or training, he did state that of the psykers bound within the Warlords-Sinister that "for some, it was a punishment for their crimes, and others, a blessed relief from their torments, and that... a balance was maintained in order that optimum conditions were met". He would also not be drawn on the rate the bound psykers were exhausted by the process.

在惡兆修會(huì)的代表——被稱為長官凱爾納 阿那哈特的修會(huì)軍官呈遞給泰拉議會(huì)的信息中，有一項(xiàng)內(nèi)容得到的確切證明：惡兆修會(huì)的組織（結(jié)構(gòu)）完全是根據(jù)帝皇頒布的嚴(yán)苛命令進(jìn)行安排和提供補(bǔ)給，（任何人都）不得對(duì)此加以偏離和創(chuàng)新，違者將遭受毀滅。修會(huì)由四座彼此結(jié)盟但又保持自給自足的要塞地宮組成，每座地宮都有自己的防御（體系）、后勤仆役和科技秘術(shù)師，這一切都是用于支援某一個(gè)“分會(huì)”，而每個(gè)分會(huì)都由五臺(tái)經(jīng)過特殊改造的戰(zhàn)將泰坦組成。這些神之機(jī)械實(shí)際上被分類為泰拉型戰(zhàn)將—災(zāi)厄靈能泰坦，它們是圍繞帝皇設(shè)計(jì)出的靈能放大矩陣設(shè)備——靈魂圣環(huán)重建而成的。這種設(shè)備替代了標(biāo)準(zhǔn)型號(hào)泰坦中配備的意識(shí)脈沖單元，負(fù)責(zé)控制和驅(qū)動(dòng)戰(zhàn)將—災(zāi)厄型泰坦；而且惡兆修會(huì)也并未使用那些通常負(fù)責(zé)駕駛戰(zhàn)斗泰坦的駕駛員們，相反，駕駛靈能泰坦的是一群被認(rèn)為是受詛咒者的人們——被用外科手術(shù)固定鎖閉在原地的受縛靈能者，他們?cè)馐苤詸C(jī)長身份掌控著神之機(jī)械的督管導(dǎo)師的意識(shí)的奴役。憑借直接的腦皮質(zhì)控制手段，靈魂圣環(huán)的奧秘技術(shù)將受縛靈能者的力量和精神吸走并聚集起來，正是這種惡毒的設(shè)備真正使靈能泰坦成為了神兵利器。這種能量由一個(gè)（用）科技秘術(shù)（制成）的接口進(jìn)行控制，其與（其他泰坦）標(biāo)配的意識(shí)脈沖單元完全不同，同時(shí)靈能泰坦的大部分其他功能都是由半自動(dòng)系統(tǒng)和機(jī)魂精怪們控制。位于這團(tuán)能量風(fēng)暴核心位置的，是坐在泰坦頭部受防護(hù)的指揮艙中的督管導(dǎo)師。但即便如此，也不足以完全保護(hù)他們?cè)谑褂渺`能力量時(shí)免受影響，所以惡兆修會(huì)的每位泰坦指揮官都是靈能空白者——即“不可接觸者”，但挑選靈能泰坦指揮官所遵循的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)似乎與寂靜修女和邱利薩斯神廟的選人標(biāo)準(zhǔn)完全不同，并且指揮官們要為使用人機(jī)接口而進(jìn)行智控強(qiáng)化。凱爾納 阿那哈特并未在自己的證詞中提到自己和同僚們的征召和受訓(xùn)過程，但他確實(shí)提到了那些被束縛在戰(zhàn)將—惡兆型泰坦機(jī)體內(nèi)的靈能者們，“對(duì)他們中的某些人而言，這是對(duì)他們罪行的懲罰；而其他人則是在折磨中得到了幸福的解脫，而且…在樂觀的情況中，平衡會(huì)得到維持”。他也沒有提到該過程中受縛靈能者們被耗盡的速率。

Through the use of the Ciricrux Anima, a Warlord-Sinister is able to project psychic phenomena on a truly gargantuan scale, although without any of the nuance or fine manipulation available to an individual trained psyker. These phenomena include waves of preternatural fear, psychokinetic effects, biomantic leaching of life in the immediate area and even the temporal distortion-based reversion of damage to the Titan itself. But the most devastating use of the psychic potential of the Ciricrux Anima is the focusing of its power through a unique weapon system, the Sinistramanus Tenebrae. This is a hybrid of strange technologies, more akin to a mutilated warp engine in design than a conventional weapon, but it serves to focus the psychic antipathy of the bound psykers into a fracture in reality—a fracture, much like the forced warp-breach inherent in vortex weaponry which is then channelled and released as a projectile of nightmarishly destructive force. Where the projectile ——which manifests as a sphere or bolt of 'darkness'?as it eats the light of whatever medium it passes through before striking dense matter— detonates, it causes complete annihilation in the immediate impact area, as what was there is disassembled and hurled bodily into the Empyrean molecule by molecule until the mercifully brief rupture self-seals. Those in the wider area of the impact are simply struck dead, their bodies left unmarked as if their souls had been sheared from their bodies. While vortex warhead ordnance is both more powerful in its blast and limited in range only by its function, the Sinistramanus Tenebrae psi-cannon has the advantage that it may be fired repeatedly, at least while the strength of those on board lasts to power it.

通過使用靈魂圣環(huán)，一臺(tái)戰(zhàn)將—災(zāi)厄型泰坦就能在一片非常巨大的區(qū)域中生成靈能現(xiàn)象，（其表現(xiàn)）與一個(gè)受過訓(xùn)練的靈能者沒有任何細(xì)微差別。這些現(xiàn)象包括（讓人產(chǎn)生）一陣又一陣的超自然恐懼、念力效應(yīng)和讓附近區(qū)域的生命出現(xiàn)生物過濾現(xiàn)象，甚至是對(duì)泰坦本身造成基于時(shí)間扭曲的傷害逆轉(zhuǎn)。但對(duì)于靈魂圣環(huán)的靈能潛力最具毀滅性的用法是通過一套獨(dú)一無二的武器系統(tǒng)——黯滅之手聚集能量。這套裝備是怪異技術(shù)的混合物，其設(shè)計(jì)更類似損壞的亞空間引擎而非常規(guī)武器。它能將被束縛的靈能者的靈能力量集中起來，在現(xiàn)實(shí)空間形成一道裂縫——這條裂縫非常類似漩渦武器強(qiáng)行制造的亞空間破口，然后被引導(dǎo)并釋放出一種夢魘般的破壞性力量。黯滅之手投射出的物體表現(xiàn)為一團(tuán)“黑暗”的球體或閃電，它在撞擊到致密物體前會(huì)吞噬所有介質(zhì)中的光。當(dāng)被引爆時(shí)，它會(huì)對(duì)周邊的撞擊區(qū)域造成徹底毀滅，原本存在于撞擊區(qū)域中的東西會(huì)被分解，分子都被一個(gè)又一個(gè)地丟進(jìn)至高天，直到這條裂隙自動(dòng)封閉——不幸中的萬幸是，這道裂縫是短暫存在的。那些身處更廣闊撞擊區(qū)域內(nèi)的人們會(huì)直接死亡，尸體上不會(huì)有任何痕跡，就像靈魂被從身上割下來一般。雖然旋渦彈頭的爆炸威力更強(qiáng)大且射程僅受其功能的限制，但黯滅之手靈能炮的優(yōu)點(diǎn)是可以反復(fù)開火——至少在機(jī)體內(nèi)的靈能者們?yōu)槠涑掷m(xù)供能時(shí)是這樣的。