The Kabals of the Dark Eldar. Listed with background and paint schemes for each just might give you a head start on what direction to go with your paint schemes. GW's latest was to provide with just what we needed to get such a head start on exploring eight of the lesser Kabals, their background, deeds and a color scheme for each.
Once the rulers of the pleasure city Aur-Ilithain, the Wraithkind were extremely powerful until their Archon, the Daemon-courting monomaniac Lord Tliensic D'raque, attempted to close his dark paradise off from Commorragh. By destroying the single hyperspatial bridge that led from the heart of the Dark City to the Cyclops Gate of Aur-Ilithain, D'raque announced his intention to secede from Vect's rule. The very next night six secret portals suddenly opened across Aur-Ilithain, and thousands of shadow-creatures spiralled through, chanting in an eldritch tongue. Before the next dawn, Vect's ethereal allies had plunged the pleasure city and its denizens into a half-real state slightly out of phase with the rest of the webway. The Wraithkind were forever altered, changed into night-shrouded fiends that can only feed when they step out of the webway into the material dimension. When they do so, the venting of their frustrations upon the lesser races is shocking to behold.
The Lords of Iron Thorn can trace their origins to the founding of Commorragh itself. One of the greatest noble houses of the old order, the Thornlords are to this day a very powerful force in the Dark City, for they control the last remaining hanging garden of psy-lotus in all of Commorragh. Though they still consider themselves 'of true blood', the Lords of Iron Thorn wisely refrain from discussing their pedigree in front of the Kabal of the Black Heart, for Vect keeps a very close eye on his ancient rivals.
The current wearer of the Ironthorn Crown is the dangerously crazed Marquis Vaulkhere, a towering and bombastic lotus-fiend who spends only a few minutes every cycle in his right mind. The Marquis practically bleeds an aura of faded grandeur, but woe betide any who criticise his leadership, for under his velvet façade of sophistication lurks an unholy terror just waiting for an excuse to maim and kill.
The war between the solar cults and the lunar sects of ancient Commorragh still rages fiercely between two of its oldest and most stubborn Kabals. Across the backdrop of the persecuted Ulia system, the Dark Eldar toy with the fates of lesser mortals in order to master the power of the stars. The Kabal of the Falling Moon, led by the angel-winged helionaut Y'polleon, seek to 'purify' the system by destroying every planet and satellite within it. His twin brother, Archon Vorl-Xoelanth of the Dying Sun, instead seeks to extinguish the star at its heart and colonise the darkness that remains. Either way, the madness of the twin Archons will see the Ulia system torn apart unless the Imperium can bring a system's worth of reinforcements to bear before it is too late.
No one save Archon S'aronai Ariensis himself knows the full story of how the Severed left Commorragh. The fact it cost Archon Ariensis his left hand is well known, however, for to this day his Kabalites mutilate themselves in a peculiar gesture of solidarity, replacing their lost hands with blades, whips and even more lethal prosthetics. Now a fully space-bound Kabal, the Severed have at some point or other brought every world in the Ghoroid Strip to its knees; their brightly painted Raiders and Ravagers are adorned with chains of shrivelled hands taken from Dark Eldar, Space Marine and Imperial Guardsman alike.
Operating out of Viridian Sound, the Bleaksoul Brethren are famous for their shark-like rows of teeth and twisted sense of humour.
The Kabal of the Flayed Skull tattoo stylised bloodstreaks across their faces. Their many aircraft and well-equipped warrior cliques boast so many gore-splattered trophies that the entire Kabal has a reputation for being hi-tech headhunters.
Formerly under the iron control of Archon Cythrax, the Kabal of the Slashed Eye is now little more than a tool for the audacious and resourceful Lord Hellion, Baron Sathonyx. Though Sathonyx prefers to remain behind the scenes, the Slashed Eye – though a relatively small Kabal in terms of Kabalite Warriors – wages war accompanied by dozens of swarming Hellion gangs; numerous enough to blacken the skies, and keen to earn respect in the eyes of their patron.
Archon Tarsidhe of the Fiend Ascendant has become so addicted to the gladiatorial spectacles laid on by his Wych Cult allies that his entire existence has become a cycle of theatrically inspired warfare. His Kabal and their affiliated Wych Cult allies have gouged their way across the Eastern Fringe these last two years, a rolling cavalcade of athletes, Beastmasters, blade-dancers, Harlequins, Medusae and exotic alien monsters that Archon Tarsidhe takes delight in 'showcasing' against whatever the empires of Man and Tau can muster to stop him.