ESS said I was not eligible for rehire is there a way to appeal this decision because the incidents they described were either from things that happened before my work there or were misunderstandings with schools districts that I cleared up by just talking to the principal. Any advice from anyone cause this does not seem fair

This is an condensed/adjusted version of a homebrewed successor chapter I’ve been brainstorming and posted about earlier

I’ve been working on an Iron Hands successor called the Frostborn. They’re founded in M42 by Deathwatch veteran Crixus Mogua.
They’re given Aska, an ice-covered death world, as their homeworld. Over time the Chapter develops a culture heavily inspired by Inuit, Sámi, and other circumpolar peoples, particularly their traditions of hunting, navigation, endurance, and surviving through cooperation.
Their specialty is polar and void warfare. They excel at fighting across glaciers, frozen oceans, airless moons, derelict ships, space hulks, and other environments where simply staying alive becomes part of the battle. They favor patient reconnaissance and hunting tactics before bringing in the traditional Iron Hands heavy armor and firepower.

For their sigil I was thinking a mechanical snowflake wrapped in frost covered chain
Color pattern: black and white quartering with frost blue highlights/markings

Let me know your thoughts or elements I could change or add

Here is a shorter more condensed version of my earlier gunstock warclub idea as well a couple other ideas for zanpakutos their shikai and bankai. Please let me know what you think or help me design a soul reaper character around it I'm all ears.

Shikai Name	Bankai name	Release command	Shikai shape	Shikai powers	Bankai  power
Chinmoku no ō	Mugon no ō no maisō	“Be quiet”	Egyptian khopesh	Absorbs all sound and fire it as a sonic weapon. This includes minor sounds like the sound of someone’s heart beating or sound of an insect’s wings	A gigantic mummy emerges from an sarcophagus who uses it’s harder than steal wrappings to ensnare opponents and drag them away to be imprisoned within the sarcophagus The wielder of this Bankai can lock on to the sound of specific individual. Once that individual makes any sound the mummy locks on to that individual and will attack that opponent until it is destroyed
Supirittosukauto	Supirittou~ōbando	“shout your war cry”	Native American Gunstock war club	Can take on various totem animals attributes  Examples: Bear=strength  Hawk= precision Wolf= speed	Six ethereal warriors in native American style take shape around the individual and can be commanded by the wielder to aid them in a variety of ways
Shōshū sa reta kohōto	Inshō-tekina gundan	“Form up”	Roman Gladius &Scutum	Has the power of an ethereal cohort that takes shape similar to Sajin Komamura’s tenken	Has the power of an ethereal legion which takes shapes similar to Sajin Komamura’s Bankai. The wielder is given armor and a Galea which is chipped away as the legion sustains damage. The armor and galea also vanishes over time as more spirit energy is used, similar to ichigo’s bankai.  Once both are gone any damage the legion suffers is inflicted on it’s wielder

I’ve been working on an idea for an original *Bleach* character and wanted to get some feedback on his Zanpakutō.

The main idea is that instead of the usual katana-style weapon, his Shikai transforms into a **gunstock war club**, inspired by traditional Native American weapons.

# Zanpakutō: Mogua

**Shikai Release Command:**
*"Echo through the bones, Mogua!"*

When released, Mogua transforms from its sealed sword form into a large, dark wooden **gunstock war club**. The weapon has the characteristic angled shape of a gunstock club, with a prominent spike projecting from the striking end.

Rather than being an elemental Zanpakutō, Mogua revolves around **impact, vibration, shockwaves, and echoes**.

# Shikai Abilities

**Bone Pulse – Kotsuha (骨波)**

Whenever Mogua is swung, the user can release a concentrated spiritual shockwave.

The attack can either travel forward as a narrow projectile or spread outward in a wider cone. At close range, the vibration from a direct hit can travel through an opponent's body, making even blocked attacks potentially dangerous.

Essentially, Mogua turns the force behind a melee attack into a ranged weapon.

**Echo Fang – Hōkōkiba (咆哮牙)**

The spike on Mogua concentrates its spiritual pressure into a single point.

When the spike strikes something, it releases a violent concussive vibration accompanied by a sound resembling a distant war cry.

It's particularly useful against armor, defensive techniques, and Kidō barriers because the vibration attempts to destabilize the defense rather than simply overpowering it.

**Totem Step**

By striking Mogua against the ground, the wielder creates a powerful spiritual "echo" of their own movement.

For a fraction of a second, an afterimage continues moving in the direction they were originally traveling while the real wielder rapidly changes position.

It's not teleportation and the duplicate isn't actually alive—it's essentially a lingering echo of their spiritual pressure meant to confuse an opponent's senses.

# Fighting Style

I imagine the character fighting very differently from the typical Bleach swordsman.

Mogua is a **brutal close-range weapon**, so the wielder would fight using heavy swings, hooks, thrusts with the spike, and strikes intended to break an opponent's guard.

But because Bone Pulse allows those swings to generate ranged shockwaves, simply backing away doesn't necessarily make you safe.

The overall fighting style would basically be:

**Get close → overwhelm the opponent with physical attacks → use shockwaves to punish them for creating distance.**

# Overall Theme

I wanted Mogua to feel like a Zanpakutō based around the idea that **every action leaves an echo**.

A footstep creates an echo.

A weapon strike creates an echo.

Spiritual pressure creates an echo.

And Mogua allows its wielder to turn those echoes into weapons.

I'm still working on the character himself and eventually his **Bankai**, but I wanted the Shikai to feel relatively simple and versatile rather than immediately giving him some ridiculously complicated reality-warping ability.

For the Bankai, I'm considering taking the "echo" concept much further—possibly allowing previous attacks or movements to essentially **echo through the battlefield and occur again**.

Would this feel like a believable Zanpakutō ability in *Bleach*?

And what direction would you take the Bankai?

I've been working on a homebrew Iron Hands successor chapter called the Frostborn, and I wanted to get some feedback on the concept and how well it fits into 40k lore.

The basic idea is that the Frostborn are essentially the result of Great Crusade/Horus Heresy-era Iron Hands being forced to coexist with their descendants 10,000 years later.

The Shattered Legion

During the Horus Heresy, an Iron Hands officer known as Ice commanded the Iron Hands contingent of a Shattered Legions warband.

Ice had actually been exiled by Ferrus Manus prior to the Heresy following a disastrous campaign during the Great Crusade. Because of this, he wasn't present at Isstvan V.

Following the massacre, however, Ice and his warriors recovered a number of survivors and continued fighting the Traitor Legions as part of a mixed Shattered Legions force.

Eventually, Ice and several dozen surviving Iron Hands disappeared into the Warp.

For them, relatively little time passed.

For the Imperium, 10,000 years did.

Crixus Mogua — The Iron Huntsman

Their rediscovery occurs during the late 41st/early 42nd Millennium and involves another homebrew character of mine: Crixus Mogua.

Crixus comes from one of Medusa's minor clans and originally served as an Iron Hands Scout Sniper Sergeant.

Unlike most of his brothers, however, Crixus never accepted the increasingly extreme interpretation of "The Flesh is Weak."

He isn't anti-augmentation. He has two cybernetic eyes and a cybernetic arm himself.

What he rejects is the idea that emotion, flesh and humanity are inherently weaknesses that must be systematically removed.

His beliefs made him deeply unpopular within the Chapter, and he was eventually sent to the Deathwatch—partly as an honor, partly because certain Iron Fathers were probably happy to have him gone.

Ironically, Crixus flourished there.

He became an exceptional sniper and xenos hunter, eventually earning the nickname "The Iron Huntsman."

The incident that cemented his reputation occurred while hunting a Tyranid Lictor. Crixus' cybernetics were disabled, leaving him without his artificial eyes or the use of his cybernetic arm.

Despite effectively being blind and fighting one-handed, he managed to track and kill the Lictor alone.

His Deathwatch comrades considered this proof of his incredible skill and gave him the title Iron Huntsman.

His detractors among the Iron Hands instead mockingly called him:

"Crixus the Blind."

The insult has two meanings—his literal blindness during the Lictor hunt and their belief that Crixus is "blind" to the weakness of flesh.

The Return to Medusa

Crixus eventually returns to the Iron Hands.

His reception is mixed.

Most of the Chapter still considers his beliefs dangerously sentimental, but there are some extremely important exceptions.

Iron Father Feirros respects his abilities and experience, while Warleader Kardan Stronos considers Crixus' unconventional outlook an asset rather than a weakness.

This becomes incredibly important when Crixus and his squad, while conducting a patrol, encounter an ancient vessel emerging from the Warp.

Aboard it are Ice and the surviving members of his Shattered Legions warband.

Crixus becomes the first Imperial warrior to encounter them in 10,000 years.

From Ice's perspective, the Horus Heresy occurred comparatively recently.

Now he has to comprehend the Imperium of the 42nd Millennium.

The Emperor is enthroned.

Ferrus Manus is a legendary martyr.

The Legions have been divided into Chapters.

The Imperium has become a religious dystopia.

And the Iron Hands have spent 10,000 years transforming Ferrus' teachings into something Ice barely recognizes.

A Problem for the Iron Hands

Bringing several dozen Heresy-era Iron Hands back to Medusa creates an enormous political problem.

These aren't simply ancient artifacts.

They're living Iron Hands who actually knew the Legion before Ferrus Manus died.

Many of them remember Ferrus personally.

And their understanding of "The Flesh is Weak" is very different from the doctrine practiced by much of the modern Chapter.

Some Iron Hands regard them with almost religious reverence.

Others regard them as relics who failed to learn the lesson of Ferrus' death.

And the Shattered Legion veterans aren't exactly impressed by what their Legion has become either.

Rather than allow the disagreement to tear the Chapter apart, Kardan Stronos proposes a solution.

Create another Chapter.

Founding of the Frostborn

The surviving Shattered Legionaries are combined with Crixus' squad to form the nucleus of a new Iron Hands successor:

The Frostborn.

The Chapter is granted Aska, an ice-covered death world located several systems from Medusa, as its homeworld.

Its population consists largely of scattered human communities that survive through hunting, migration and endurance against Aska's brutal environment.

The Frostborn adopt an unusual system of joint leadership.

Ice commands because of his seniority, combat experience and the tremendous loyalty he commands among the ancient Legionaries.

Crixus Mogua commands alongside him because he understands something Ice doesn't:

the modern Imperium.

Crixus understands its institutions, politics, enemies and customs and essentially becomes the bridge between warriors born in the Great Crusade and the nightmare of the 42nd Millennium.

Philosophy — Flesh, Iron and Will

The Frostborn still consider themselves sons of Ferrus Manus.

They don't reject cybernetics.

They reject worshipping cybernetics.

Their interpretation of Ferrus' philosophy is essentially:

Flesh is a tool. Iron is a tool. Neither determines whether the warrior wielding them is strong.

An artificial arm can make a warrior stronger.

So can surviving without one.

The weakness Ferrus wanted his sons to overcome, in their interpretation, wasn't literally having biological tissue.

It was weakness of will.

This naturally puts them at odds with the most dogmatic elements of their parent Chapter.

Crixus' legendary Lictor kill becomes particularly important to their culture. A warrior deprived of the very machinery supposedly responsible for his superiority survived through experience, instinct and determination.

To the Frostborn, that's exactly the point.

Chapter Culture

Aska heavily influences the developing Chapter.

Frostborn recruits are expected to survive its wilderness, hunt its predators and endure its storms.

Their culture consequently combines three traditions:

Ice's Great Crusade-era Iron Hands provide the Chapter's connection to Ferrus Manus and the original Legion.

Crixus' Deathwatch experience contributes an emphasis on adaptability, hunting, reconnaissance and precision warfare.

Aska provides a culture centered around endurance and survival.

Their combat doctrine consequently favors heavy Iron Hands firepower combined with unusually strong reconnaissance elements, Eliminators and carefully prepared ambushes.

They aren't Raven Guard.

They'll happily roll a Land Raider directly into your position.

They just prefer knowing exactly where that Land Raider needs to go before the battle begins.

Relationship with the Iron Hands

The Frostborn maintain an extremely complicated relationship with their parent Chapter.

Kardan Stronos and Feirros remain important allies.

Some younger Iron Hands are fascinated by them.

Other Iron Fathers absolutely despise them.

Particularly uncomfortable is the fact that Ice and the other ancient warriors can occasionally respond to claims about what Ferrus Manus supposedly believed with some variation of:

"I was there."

The Frostborn don't consider themselves superior to the Iron Hands.

But they do believe their cousins have mistaken the trauma caused by Ferrus' death for Ferrus' actual teachings.

And the Iron Hands aren't particularly fond of hearing that.

The Frostborn Creed

The philosophy I've currently settled on is:

"Flesh may fail. Iron may break. Will endures."

The overall idea I want to explore with them is that they're not the "nice Iron Hands."

They're still extremely harsh, pragmatic Space Marines descended from Ferrus Manus.

The difference is that they believe strength comes from mastering weakness rather than amputating everything associated with it.

And at the center of the Chapter are two men displaced in very different ways:

Ice, a warrior who lost 10,000 years.

And Crixus Mogua, an Iron Hand who spent his entire life feeling like he was born into the wrong version of his Chapter.

Together, they're trying to figure out what being a true son of Ferrus Manus actually means.

I'd love to hear what people think—particularly whether the founding circumstances feel plausible within 40k and what kinds of conflicts you think would develop between the Frostborn and the modern Iron Hands.

I've been working on a homebrew Shattered Legions warband for the Horus Heresy and wanted to get some feedback on how well the concept fits the setting.

The basic premise is an unlikely alliance between Iron Hands survivors and Alpha Legionnaires operating in the chaos following Isstvan V.

The working name for the warband is XXX, with their symbol combining the Medusan head of the Iron Hands with the Hydra of the Alpha Legion.

The two central characters are an Iron Hands officer named Ice and an Alpha Legionnaire named Vin.

And neither completely trusts the other.

Ice — The Exiled Son of Medusa

Ice was once an officer of the Iron Hands Legion during the Great Crusade.

Years before the Horus Heresy, his force participated in a disastrous campaign against a xenos civilization possessing an extremely dangerous weapon.

Ice survived.

Many of his warriors did not.

Ferrus Manus held Ice responsible for the defeat and ultimately exiled him from the Legion's main body, leaving Ice with a small contingent of Iron Hands under his command.

It was intended as a punishment.

It accidentally saved their lives.

When Ferrus Manus led the Iron Hands to Isstvan V, Ice and his warriors weren't there.

Then the reports began arriving.

The Drop Site Massacre.

Ferrus Manus was dead.

The Legion was shattered.

Ice had spent years believing that one day he might redeem himself in the eyes of his Primarch.

Now that possibility was gone forever.

Whatever resentment Ice once felt toward Ferrus largely dies with him.

What's left is guilt.

The Survivors

Ice refuses to simply retreat.

His force begins searching for survivors of the massacre.

Among those they recover is an Iron Hands Apothecary who eventually becomes known simply as "Doc."

More survivors follow.

Broken squads.

Wounded Legionaries.

Warriors whose officers and brothers died on Isstvan.

Ice gradually becomes the leader of a force that shouldn't really exist.

He's an exile commanding the remnants of the Legion that exiled him.

The Iron Hands contingent is battered and poorly supplied, with equipment drawn from whatever survived Isstvan or can be salvaged afterward.

Among their most terrifying assets is an ancient Leviathan Siege Dreadnought.

The warband's vessel eventually acquires an appropriately Iron Hands name:

No Weakness Allowed.

Then the Alpha Legion Appears

While Ice is assembling survivors, his force discovers that they are being watched.

The observer is an Alpha Legion officer named Vin.

Vin commands his own small force of Alpha Legionnaires, including elite Terminators whose squads are named after constrictor snakes—one example being the Anaconda squad.

Vin himself wears ancient Saturnine-pattern Terminator armour.

The problem is obvious.

The Alpha Legion betrayed the Loyalists at Isstvan.

Ice has absolutely no reason to trust him.

Vin nevertheless approaches Ice with information.

The xenos weapon responsible for the disastrous campaign that led to Ice's exile has resurfaced.

And the Traitor Legions are searching for it.

The Enemy of My Enemy

Vin proposes an alliance.

Ice's response is essentially:

Why should I believe a single word coming from an Alpha Legionnaire?

Vin doesn't ask him to.

Instead, he gives Ice enough information to verify the threat independently.

Ice eventually discovers that Vin is telling the truth.

The same weapon that destroyed his reputation and cost the lives of his warriors years earlier could now fall into Traitor hands.

Suddenly Ice has something he hasn't had since Ferrus died.

A mission.

Stopping the weapon becomes his chance at redemption—even if the Primarch whose forgiveness he wanted will never live to see it.

And so an extremely uncomfortable Shattered Legions warband is born.

Iron Hands + Alpha Legion

I wanted the two contingents to complement each other tactically.

Ice's Iron Hands provide the hammer:

• Heavy infantry
• Dreadnoughts
• Heavy weapons
• Direct assaults
• Relentless attritional warfare

Vin's Alpha Legion provides the knife:

• Reconnaissance
• Infiltration
• Sabotage
• False intelligence
• Assassination
• Manipulation of enemy forces

A typical operation might involve Vin spending weeks convincing a Traitor commander that an Iron Hands force is somewhere it isn't.

Then Ice drops a Leviathan Dreadnought on the place the enemy thought was safe.

Their methods are completely different.

But they're frighteningly effective together.

Ice and Vin

Their relationship is the part of the idea I find most interesting.

They're not friends.

At least initially.

Ice is blunt, stubborn and direct.

Vin is secretive even when secrecy seemingly serves no purpose.

Ice wants to know the mission.

Vin wants to know everything surrounding the mission.

Ice's philosophy is essentially:

"Tell me where the enemy is."

Vin's is:

"Convince the enemy he knows where we are."

Ice also never forgets that Alpha Legionnaires participated in the betrayal at Isstvan.

Vin, meanwhile, never expects Ice to forget.

The strange thing is that over time they begin developing genuine respect for one another.

Ice realizes that Vin repeatedly has opportunities to betray him and doesn't.

Vin discovers that Ice is considerably more intelligent and adaptable than the blunt Iron Hands stereotype would suggest.

Eventually they reach the point where each trusts the other in battle.

Neither would ever admit it.

The Banner

Their warband eventually adopts an improvised symbol combining:

The Medusan head of the Iron Hands

with

The Hydra of the Alpha Legion.

To outsiders, the image is almost incomprehensible.

A Loyalist symbol joined to that of a Traitor Legion.

But that's essentially what the warband itself is:

something that shouldn't exist.

The Big Secret

There is, of course, a problem.

Vin hasn't told Ice everything.

Vin's presence isn't accidental.

His interest in the xenos weapon isn't simply the decision of an Alpha Legion officer who remained loyal.

He is operating under orders.

Orders from Omegon.

My idea is that Vin belongs to the faction of the Alpha Legion secretly working against Horus from within the Traitor war effort.

His mission is to ensure the xenos weapon never reaches Horus' forces.

But openly destroying it himself would potentially expose Alpha Legion divisions.

Ice provides the perfect solution.

From the Traitors' perspective, an angry group of surviving Iron Hands destroyed the weapon.

Nothing unusual about that.

Nobody needs to know an Alpha Legion operative helped arrange the entire thing.

Including Ice.

At least initially.

The Question of Loyalty

I don't want Vin's Alpha Legionnaires to secretly be straightforward Loyalists.

Their loyalty should remain deliberately complicated.

They follow Omegon.

They oppose Horus.

They may aid Loyalist forces.

But that doesn't necessarily mean they believe in the Imperium in the same way Ice does.

Sometimes they'll save an Imperial world.

Sometimes they'll sacrifice one because doing so serves a larger objective.

That creates one of the major tensions within the warband.

Ice fights because he believes he failed his Legion and refuses to fail it again.

Vin fights because he's participating in a war where almost nobody—including his allies—is allowed to understand what victory actually requires.

Where the Story Eventually Goes

The warband spends the Heresy fighting a shadow campaign to prevent the Traitors from recovering the xenos weapon.

Along the way, Ice's force continues absorbing scattered Iron Hands survivors.

The Alpha Legion contingent likewise becomes increasingly isolated from its parent Legion.

Eventually the distinction between temporary alliance and actual brotherhood becomes increasingly difficult to define.

Then, sometime during the Heresy, something goes catastrophically wrong.

Ice and a number of the surviving Iron Hands disappear into the Warp.

They don't die.

For them, only a comparatively short period passes.

When they finally emerge again, the galaxy they knew is gone.

Ten thousand years have passed.

Ferrus Manus has become a martyr.

The Emperor is a god.

The Iron Hands are a Chapter obsessed with eliminating the weakness of flesh.

And Ice—an Iron Hand who actually lived alongside Ferrus Manus—is about to discover what his Legion became after their father's death.

That eventually leads into another homebrew project of mine, an Iron Hands successor called the Frostborn, but I'm trying to make sure the Heresy-era story works on its own first.

The central idea I want the warband to explore is:

What happens when warriors from two Legions that should hate each other discover they may have more in common with one another than with the brothers they're supposedly fighting for?

And with the Alpha Legion involved, there's always one additional question:

Did this alliance happen by chance—or did someone plan it from the beginning?

I'd love feedback on how well this fits the Shattered Legions period, particularly the Alpha Legion/Omegon angle and whether there are any existing Heresy campaigns that would make a particularly good setting for their hunt for the xenos weapo

I’ve been working on an idea for an original Bleach character and wanted to get some feedback on his Zanpakutō.

The main idea is that instead of the usual katana-style weapon, his Shikai transforms into a gunstock war club, inspired by traditional Native American weapons.

Zanpakutō: Mogua

Shikai Release Command:
"Echo through the bones, Mogua!"

When released, Mogua transforms from its sealed sword form into a large, dark wooden gunstock war club. The weapon has the characteristic angled shape of a gunstock club, with a prominent spike projecting from the striking end.

Rather than being an elemental Zanpakutō, Mogua revolves around impact, vibration, shockwaves, and echoes.

Shikai Abilities

Bone Pulse – Kotsuha (骨波)

Whenever Mogua is swung, the user can release a concentrated spiritual shockwave.

The attack can either travel forward as a narrow projectile or spread outward in a wider cone. At close range, the vibration from a direct hit can travel through an opponent's body, making even blocked attacks potentially dangerous.

Essentially, Mogua turns the force behind a melee attack into a ranged weapon.

Echo Fang – Hōkōkiba (咆哮牙)

The spike on Mogua concentrates its spiritual pressure into a single point.

When the spike strikes something, it releases a violent concussive vibration accompanied by a sound resembling a distant war cry.

It's particularly useful against armor, defensive techniques, and Kidō barriers because the vibration attempts to destabilize the defense rather than simply overpowering it.

Totem Step

By striking Mogua against the ground, the wielder creates a powerful spiritual "echo" of their own movement.

For a fraction of a second, an afterimage continues moving in the direction they were originally traveling while the real wielder rapidly changes position.

It's not teleportation and the duplicate isn't actually alive—it's essentially a lingering echo of their spiritual pressure meant to confuse an opponent's senses.

Fighting Style

I imagine the character fighting very differently from the typical Bleach swordsman.

Mogua is a brutal close-range weapon, so the wielder would fight using heavy swings, hooks, thrusts with the spike, and strikes intended to break an opponent's guard.

But because Bone Pulse allows those swings to generate ranged shockwaves, simply backing away doesn't necessarily make you safe.

The overall fighting style would basically be:

Get close → overwhelm the opponent with physical attacks → use shockwaves to punish them for creating distance.

Overall Theme

I wanted Mogua to feel like a Zanpakutō based around the idea that every action leaves an echo.

A footstep creates an echo.

A weapon strike creates an echo.

Spiritual pressure creates an echo.

And Mogua allows its wielder to turn those echoes into weapons.

I'm still working on the character himself and eventually his Bankai, but I wanted the Shikai to feel relatively simple and versatile rather than immediately giving him some ridiculously complicated reality-warping ability.

For the Bankai, I'm considering taking the "echo" concept much further—possibly allowing previous attacks or movements to essentially echo through the battlefield and occur again.

Would this feel like a believable Zanpakutō ability in Bleach?

And what direction would you take the Bankai?

So my mental health has been taken a downward trajectory lately and a contributing factor has been my YouTube/news intake. Definitely understand Vaush’s perspective and agree with it but it’s hard to dispute that it can feel very doom and gloom. My gf got me into a habit of replacing 1 doom scrolling channel with one she suggests. I chose vaush and replaced him with Neil the seal, a loveable elephant seal from Tasmania and I have to say it is an improvement for my mental health. I hope to come back when shit is alittle more positive in the world

Hi I own a 3bed 2 bath house in Philly suburbs, i am in walking distance to the train station that can easily get you to NYC and Philly. I have 2 dogs 1 cat and live with my GF. We have a bedroom with a queen sized bed for rent for $700 for the month. If interested please pm me

The red ascendency: inspired heavily off the Soviet red army and various communist guerrilla factions they are a founded by escaped wrenched who seek to rid the world of heaven and hell:
They are centered in Russia, Siberia, as well as various locations throughout the new world. They specialize in radiation weapons and have a particular hatered for the cult of the black grail

Key Additions:
Radiation suits layered under military coats
Lead-lined armor plating
Geiger counters integrated into chest rigs
Glowing green fissures in damaged armor
Burn-scarred, partially mutated survivors of Hell
Some veterans still carry Hell-scars:
Extra joints
Burned-out eyes
Metal grafted into bone
They are not proud of it.
They use it.

FACTION MECHANIC:
TOTAL ERASURE PROTOCOL
The Ascendancy doesn’t just kill enemies — they deny environments.
They build toward:
☢️
Contamination Levels
Low: Enemy debuffs
Medium: Terrain becomes hazardous
High: Area denial / unit collapse
Critical: Battlefield becomes uninhabitable (for everyone)
They are the only faction willing to:
Win the battle by destroying the battlefield.

Scene of a red ascendancy infiltrator detonating scide bomb in the middle of Ekron( let me know what you think)

The chains did not rattle.
That was the first thing Sergeant Mikhail Orlov noticed.
Ekron was built on noise —
hooks dragging, iron grinding, voices breaking into something less than human.
Screams were constant. Necessary.
Measured.
Cataloged.
But here, in Processing Vault 17, the rhythm had changed.

They had taken his hands first.
Standard procedure.
The Black Grail overseer — a knight-shaped thing of rusted armor and wet bone — stood over him as the attendants worked.
“Subject intact,” one of them whispered.
“Minimal fracture. Good yield.”
Mikhail said nothing.
He hadn’t spoken since they dragged him from the convoy.
He hadn’t needed to.

His eyes moved instead.
Counting.
Pillars.
Chains.
Distances.
Heat levels.
He could feel it — the way the air moved wrong here.
Not hot. Not cold.
Occupied.

A body screamed nearby.
A real scream.
Good.
That meant the system was still functioning.

The Grail Knight leaned closer, helm splitting slightly along the jawline, something inside shifting.
“You endured longer than most,” it said, voice thick with rot.
“You will serve well.”
Mikhail finally looked at it.
Really looked.
Not at the armor.
Not at the horror beneath.
At the pattern.

“Cycle,” he said quietly.
The Knight paused.
“What?”
Mikhail smiled.
A small, broken thing.
“You repeat.”

The Knight recoiled — not in fear, but confusion.
That was new.
Confusion was not part of the process.

Mikhail shifted his weight.
They hadn’t noticed.
They never did.
The Wretched learned quickly:
Hell was precise.
But it was also predictable.

He coughed.
Blood.
Good.
Still human.
Still functioning.

Deep in his chest, beneath scar tissue and grafted plating, something clicked.
A mechanical rhythm.
Not of Hell.
Of man.

The attendants leaned closer.
“Internal rupture,” one muttered.
“Stabilize—”

Mikhail exhaled slowly.
And for the first time since his capture, he spoke clearly:
“You don’t understand what we brought you.”

The Knight moved.
Too late.

There was no explosion.
Not at first.

The light went wrong.
Not brighter.
Thinner**.**
As if reality itself had been stretched too far.

Sound collapsed.
Screams cut off mid-note.
Chains hung motionless.
The air stopped processing.

Then came the heat.
Not Hell’s heat not the screaming, devouring fire of damnation.
This was different.
Clinical.
Uninterested.

The Grail Knight staggered.
Its armor began to flake — not rot, not decay —
Disintegrate**.**
The thing inside it tried to reform.
It couldn’t.
There was nothing left to work with.

All around the vault:
Bodies failed.
Not dramatically.
Not violently.
They simply… stopped.

No rot.
No transformation.
No rebirth.

Just matter.

The machinery screamed.
Not with voices.
With failure.
Gears seized.
Hooks fell.
The system — the great engine of suffering — lost its inputs.

And for the first time in Ekron’s history…
There were no screams.

In the silence, something new existed.
Not life.
Not death.

Absence**.**

Where Hell had processed souls, there was now only:
ash
inert mass
and a spreading field of nothing that could be used

Deep below, something ancient shifted.
A presence.
Watching.
Learning.

And in that moment, for the first time:
Hell felt something unfamiliar.

Not pain.
Not rage.

Fear**.**