Expanding the world of the Crows: 40k Beastmen(ish)!

They trade sometimes, with the Elk-men. Fellow nomads, meandering through this icy plane.

Oh nothing of real value. Mainly scavenged tech and weapons, food supplies, little handmade trinkets. That sort of thing. Sometimes the Elk-men barter passage to other systems.

The elk-folk wander around in bands of five or six usually, plus a pack animal or two. People say they used to congregate in massive numbers, but not any more.

There were millions of them once. Great warherds, stretching as far as the eye could see. Not seen them in any sort of numbers for a couple of centuries now.

So that's the first of the Elk-men :) I've been wanting to expand a bit of the world around the Crows for a while, and these guys are hopefully just the start :) I'm picturing worlds on the wild fringes of the Imperium, far from the crowded hives, deafening forges and incense-ridden cathedrals (although hopefully lacking none of its weird anachronistic techno-feudalism feel).

If regular 40k is techno-late-medieval era with its vast unwieldy Ecclesiarchy and crusading chapters of Space-Knights, my aim for these guys is techno-early-middle-ages :) been reading a lot about Saxons and Franks and Gauls and Vikings anyway ;)

This post is also a bit of two rolled into one so here's the next guy!

Over there, I spy two big stags. White Hands by the looks of it. I know little of their braying tongue, but enough to barter us supplies. Perhaps enough to procure a guide to our destination.

Looks like they're on their way to the herdstone. Meeting places for the horned folk. You can find them scattered all through the twelve systems, and a little beyond. Monuments to the Old Gods...

They're also an opportunity for me to have a crack at 40k Beastmen :) they're one of my favourite factions in the Old World, and I've seen them ported across a couple of times. I thought it would be an interesting slant if they weren't so much mutants, but their more animalistic features were actually artefacts of technology.

The horns are bonafide mutations mind ;)

Hope you like them!