Flayed Claw

Drachos Balicor is the oldest and most accomplished member of the Flayed Claw, and possesses the distinguished title of “The Ossificator”. An Astartes who was accomplished during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, he was well respected by his fellow Night Lords. Following much of the Legion’s turning away from the Imperium, Drachos’s warband were one of the few who readily embraced the grasp of the Chaos Gods, and turned on him due to his impressive prescience abilities and distaste of the Chaos Gods, his warband sought to remove him as a threat to their power. Following his gauntlets being painted in Sinner’s Red, Drachos had defected to the Red Corsairs before he could be deployed in a suicide raid, and now seeks to rise in the ranks of the Corsairs. Due to his impressive track record, extremely potent foresight, and leadership experience, he has become the sergeant or “Visionary” of the Flayed Claw.

Tavion Zaharal is perhaps the most pragmatic member of the Flayed Claw. While still a transhuman monster who revels in torture, Tavion is considerably less physically aggressive than his fellow Night Lords. He prefers a more “hands off” approach to his torture, relying on his hallucinogenic poisons in place of more conventional Night Lords methods. He does this through injuring his victims with poisoned daggers, explosives, or even assets and terrain the enemy attempts to use in the field. Once poisoned, they will often begin to feel weakened, eventually struggling to stand as it slowly overtakes their bodies. Tavion will often chuckle and taunt the horrified victim as they attempt to run and crawl while their bodies begin to shut down, and during their slow deaths they begin to hallucinate the most terrifying monsters surrounding them; often by this point, the Flayed Claw itself. The warband Tavion hailed from had grown suspicious of his distant approach to combat, and marked him in Sinner’s Red when he had poisoned and killed a fellow astartes of his warband when he had been accused of stealing his equipment. This was the perfect excuse to rid themselves of Tavion. Assuming the worst for himself, Tavion changed allegiances, and joined the Red Corsairs during a refuelling run to Hell’s Iris. Now, in the Flayed Claw, he uses his impressive skill with the bolt pistol to act as a long ranged specialist, while also specializing in both retrieving and denying assets of importance through his poisons.

Xoros Naevan is easily the most skilled duelist of the Flayed Claw, and is also the most “honourable” (as much as Night Lords can be honourable) member of their group. Unlike his peers, who had all grown up extremely poor in Nostramo, Xoros actually came from a powerful and aristocratic crime family, and had learned much in the way of not only gang violence, but also the codes of honour that had bound him. While many of the other members of Flayed Claw were fond of the Night Lords’ twisted sense of justice, Xoros believed in it to an extreme, and carries a Chainglaive called “Executioner” that he had used to torment and execute populations into obedience during the Great Crusade. Due to his impressive skill, he was highly respected in his old warband, the leader of which had seen him as a great threat to his power. Eventually, becoming so paranoid of Xoros, the warband’s leader had attempted to assassinate him, only for Xoros to kill him in his defence, which had divided the rest of his warband. Painting his own gauntlets in Sinner’s Red, he had self imposed an exile on himself for what he considers an unjust murder. He joined up with the Flayed Claw in shame, but takes some pride in serving alongside fellow Night Lords, acting as the kill team’s front line melee specialist and bodyguard.

Vaedas Shadom is the most quiet and stoic member of the Flayed Claw, but perhaps relishes the most in the hunt compared to his battle brothers. Vaedas had grown up as an orphan back on Nostramo, and had learned at a very young age how to survive on his own; memories he takes very much to heart as an Astartes. Unlike Xoros, who is a skilled duelist, Vaedas is essentially an animalistic predator. He often scouts ahead of the rest of his squad and stalks his prey silently, often jumping out of the darkness screeching and finally slaughtering his terrified prey; only to return to the shadows to hunt his next victim. In his original Night Lords warband, Vaedas had often struggled to keep his violent impulses under control, and had earned himself the Sinner’s Gauntlets after murdering one of his fellow Astartes’s slaves for perceived disobedience. Eventually joining the Red Corsairs, he was noted for being silent most of the time, only speaking when he is spoken to, and screeching at his victims when he jumps out of the shadows. Within the Flayed Claw, Vaedas serves as the kill team’s scout and assassin, often stalking singling out targets before wounding and murdering them with his Lightning Claws, to his disturbing and silent glee.

Arkan Valzathos is the only member of the Flayed Claw who is a definitive worshipper of the Chaos Gods. Arkan in particular specializes in a very strange kind of fear, even compared to the likes of Tavion. Arkan carries with him a strange Chaos icon of a dead Loyalist Space Marine, and uses the Marine’s Omophagea for horrifying sorcerery. In specific, he will often use the corpse to mimic enemy commanders and trick combatants into walking into his hands before slaughtering them and taking gruesome trophies. Unlike his battle brothers, who had all joined the Red Corsairs due to being marked with the Sinner’s Gauntlets, Arkan had sought out a warband that would properly sate his dark devotion, rather than the more atheist beliefs of his Night Lords battle brothers. However, despite his change to the Red Corsairs, he still works alongside atheistic Night Lords in the Flayed Claw, but finds the Chaos taint of their base in Hell’s Iris to be truly blessed ground. In the Flayed Claw, he acts as a Psyker specialist who uses his disturbed icon to deceive and frighten lesser beings.

Malax Khravor is perhaps the most direct member of the Flayed Claw. He tends to not rely on the more complex fear tactics his brothers use, and instead often uses his status as a hulking chaos space marine to frighten his enemies. This is not to say he doesn’t attempt to scare his targets through stealth or subterfuge, but rather he only relies upon these as often as he needs to. Perhaps best exemplifying this is his use of a Meltagun, which he often puts towards destroying enemy armour and targets of importance to decimate enemy cohesion and cause terrified chaos. Malax’s warband had a particularly shaky hierarchy that was constantly shifting due to betrayals and backstabbing, which would earn him the Sinner’s Red gauntlets while he was deployed alongside his claw. His claw was a special weapons team who had a disastrous mission against a forge world lead to him being the sole survivor. His fellow astartes assuming the worst, his warband leader had given him the Sinner’s Red and had intended to leave him to die at the hands of his fellow astartes. However, he was able to escape this fate by escaping planetside through a drop pod, and later being found by the Red Corsairs, who he would join. In the Flayed Claw, he serves as a special weapons expert, with the Meltagun being his weapon of choice.