The Barghest

 Imperial dissidents, abandoned and forlorn, who have fallen to the bloodlust of the Dreadhorde. 

Abandoned by the Empire, outnumbered, and outmanned, the Company of Barghest, commanded by Chiron Aetos, held their failing line with little more than grit and desperation. 

Their only hope lay in the letters Chiron had dispatched to the Wargrounds, pleading for reinforcements and supplies from the warbands of the Order of the Bloody Dawn or the Hounds of Von Ulmer. Days turned to weeks, and hope curdled into disappointment, then into a colder, harder anger. No help ever came. Unbeknownst to Barghest (or to the Bloody Dawn and the Hounds), the letters never reached their intended hands. Every plea for aid was quietly intercepted by agents of the Von Udoroth family, who sought to eliminate Balthazar von Udoroth.  Once heir to his house, Balthazar had been stripped of his birthright and quietly embedded within the Company of Barghest, where the family hoped misfortune or an enemy blade, would finish what politics could not.

When no answers came and their situation worsened, Chiron gathered his most loyal men and marched to the Wargrounds in person. The explanations given were hollow, thin words wrapped in ceremony, reeking of deception. Chiron saw through the polite excuses and half-truths. To him and his veterans, it was clear: the Empire had chosen to let hem die. Those who stood at the Wargrounds that day made a choice of their own. They turned from the Empire, casting off a banner that had shown them nothing but neglect. 

Their new creed was simple and unforgiving: “If we are not given, then we shall take.”That moment marked the birth of Barghest, no longer a mere company but a warband forged from betrayal, spite, and sharpened purpose. Its doctrine diverged sharply from that of the Free Peoples; Barghest held no illusions of honour, unity, or liberation. They embraced brutality as a tool, a language, and a philosophy. It was this brutality that drew the attention of the Dreadhorde, who cared little for allegiance or ideology, only for strength and the promise of a worthy fight. Barghest joined them willingly, finding in the Dreadhorde a place where their rage, skill, and savagery were not condemned but celebrated.

And so Barghest marched into their new future, not as servants of the Empire, but as predators unchained.