VEYRBORN

To outsiders, they are Ash Waste Nomads, to themselves, they are simply Veyrborn.

No one remembers when the Veyrborn first came to the wastes, perhaps not even the Veyrborn themselves.
For generations beyond counting, their people have wandered the vast emptiness of the Veyr Expanse.
They follow no permanent road and build no cities. Their settlements are temporary things, shelters raised against the ash storms,
camps hidden among the rocks and scavenged structures occupied only until it is time to move again.

To outsiders, they are Ash Waste Nomads, to themselves, they are simply Veyrborn.
The wastes provide almost everything they possess.
They strip abandoned machinery for parts, search the ruins of forgotten industrial sites and pick through the remains of wrecked transports.
Metal is reforged, cloth is patched until little of the original fabric remains. Weapons pass from one generation to the next,
repaired countless times with whatever components can be found.

Nothing useful is wasted. Even the dead machines of the Veyr still have something left to give.
Most of the time, the Veyrborn keep their distance from the people who cross their lands. Convoys are watched from the ridges,
prospectors sometimes glimpse distant figures before they disappear into the dust.
Travellers who leave them alone are usually allowed to continue on their way.

The Veyrborn have little interest in the affairs of Cinerax or Kharveth, but they know the Veyr better than either city ever will…
They know where water gathers beneath the stone, which valleys become death traps when the ash storms arrive. They know the forgotten paths
between ruins, the places where old machines still lie beneath the sand and they remember places that do not appear on any Imperial map.

For centuries, the cities have pushed farther into the wastes.
New mining sites appeared, new roads crossed the desert. Convoys became larger, machines dug deeper…
The Veyrborn watched it happen, they rarely interfered.

To the people of Cinerax, the Veyr is an empty wasteland separating the Hive from the resources it needs.
To Kharveth, it is territory to cross, survey and exploit, the Veyrborn see things differently.
They do not claim the Veyr because an Imperial charter granted it to them. They do not mark its borders on maps or build walls around it.
They claim it because their ancestors walked these wastes before the present roads existed.
Because generations of their dead lie beneath its sand. Because when the storms come and the machines of the cities fall silent, the Veyrborn remain.

The Veyr is not where they live… The Veyr is theirs.
And lately, there have been more strangers in the wastes than usual…