The Kardwen: What We Know (artifact)
This report was written by Legan Cromus Rex on his encounters with the strange Kardwen. Previously thought just fabrications of the superstitous Sjalvolki, this report was the first official acknowledgement of the people by any form of Imperial Authority. It starts by describing the arrival of a strange man to the Aversarian camp, wearing a cloak made from the sewn together wings of crows and using the antler of an elk as a walking stick. He then from his hilt lifted the severed head of a soldier who had dissapeared only a week beforehand. Seeing it as somekind of threat Cromus strucked the man dead where he stood. This was infact a mere gesture of reconciliation, Kardwen often exchange the heads of the fallen so that their spirits may enter the afterlife. This act, would unleash the wrath of the previously unknown Kardwen and result in the disastrous defeat of Legio XXIII.
Sent to the emperor during the height of this conflict Cromus depicts harrowing scenes on the frontier, bodies gnawed to the bone hanging from every tree, men simply vanishing as they slept and most unsettling of all the very tongue of the Kardwen themselves, resembling the wind blowing through the trees and never raising above that of a whisper even when pleading for mercy.