The planet Yautja Prime orbited a violent sun, its environment as brutal as its inhabitants. A wild and inhospitable world, composed of lush jungles where invisible predators lurked, desert zones scourged by cutting sandstorms, and rivers of incandescent lava that lit the nights with a hellish glow. This extreme climate had forged an enduring species, adapted for survival and hunting in the worst conditions imaginable.
In the heart of the densest jungle, where the air was thick and the cries of beasts echoed like challenges, stood the temple of the Patriarchs. Built from stones polished black by time and adorned with ancestral trophies, it was the nerve center of Yautja society.
Inside, in a gloom barely pierced by braziers spewing fragrant smoke, stood the seven Patriarchs, the most ancient and venerable of the hunters. Their armor, covered in scars and hunting symbols, spoke of millennia of the hunt. They stood before a massive statue of black stone that dominated the hall.
This statue depicted not a Yautja, but the Elder King, Julius Braveheart. It showed him in a warrior's stance, clad in the black Yautja plate armor he had worn at their first meeting. At its feet, arranged in a perfect circle, were the heads of the beasts most dreaded by the Yautja. It was the mark of his legend: proof that he knew how to hunt, that he understood their code. Even more impressive, a freshly severed head, carefully placed in the foreground: that of a Drukhari Archon, one of the "Shadows" he had ordered them to hunt.
This offering had sealed his status among them. According to Yautja tradition, one who succeeded in killing a powerful beast could hunt alone. One who slew an enemy warlord, an "Archon," could found their own clan. But one who vanquished a Grand Archon… that one deserved to wear the Black Armor of the Patriarchs and wield a lance of black beskar, the indestructible metal Julius had given them.
Today was a day of ceremony. The end of the training for the new hunters. Twenty young Yautjas, impatient and proud, stood lined up before the Patriarchs. Their bodies were covered with the ritual scars of their coming of age, and their masks, though new, already bore the first scratches from the jungles of Yautja Prime.
The eldest of the Patriarchs, the one whose dreadlocks were almost entirely gray, stepped forward. In one hand, he held his lance of black beskar, its tip absorbing the light.
"Young bloods!" he growled, his modulated voice carrying through the temple. "You have learned to hunt the Fire-Under-The-Mountain and to skin the Prowler-In-The-Mists. You are strong. But strength alone does not make a hunter. Honor guides the blade."
He pointed his lance toward the statue of Julius.
"The Elder King has given us the greatest of hunts! The Shadows! Those swift, cruel beings whose blood is cold and whose cries are shrill. They have become our favored prey! Hunting them demands cunning, patience, and unyielding strength. They will test you. Some of you will not return."
A collective shiver of excitement ran through the ranks of the young hunters. To die hunting worthy prey was an honorable end.
"But if you return," the Patriarch continued, "if you bring back a trophy from a Shadow… then your name will be sung in this temple. Your honor will be whole. And perhaps one day, one of you will be strong enough to deserve this."
With a sharp movement, he planted the black beskar lance into the ground before him. The metal did not ring; it absorbed the impact with a dull, heavy thud, a promise of death.
A single cry, unanimous and savage, answered his challenge, echoing off the temple walls and into the jungle depths:
"RUCHIRRRRRR!!!"
The hunt was open. The Shadows would tremble.