Demiurg

The Demiurg are a stocky, subterranean-dwelling xenos species who long ago abandoned any fixed homeworld to become a wandering people of the void. They travel the galaxy aboard immense stronghold-vessels called Bastions, colossal ships that are at once mobile fortress, factory, and mine. Broad, heavy-set, and bearded in aspect, the Demiurg live and die within these iron leviathans, roaming from system to system in search of ore.

Above all else the Demiurg are miners and traders, delving into asteroids and dead worlds to extract the minerals their culture prizes. They deal warily with other species, including the T'au Empire, which counts them among its more distant and independent associates rather than true subjects. The Demiurg give little away of themselves, preferring commerce to conquest and the quiet accumulation of resources to open war.

Much about the Demiurg remains obscure, including their origins and the true scale of their scattered fleets. Their Bastion-ships mount powerful mining apparatus that doubles as devastating weaponry, and few pirates are foolish enough to test one twice. Reclusive, resourceful, and enduring, the Demiurg drift through the darkness of the 41st Millennium as a people apart: neither conquerors nor victims, but patient prospectors in an age of endless war.