Splinter Rifle

The splinter rifle is the common armament of the Drukhari warrior, a weapon that kills not with force but with poison. Using a shard-magnetic pulse, it accelerates slivers of crystalline toxin to lethal speed, peppering a target with countless envenomed needles that carry agonising death into the bloodstream.

Against armoured vehicles splinter weapons do little, for the fragile shards shatter on hardened plate. Against living flesh, however, they are horrifically effective; even a single scratch may deliver a killing dose, and a body struck by a full burst dies in a spasm of agony. The toxins are brewed by the sadist-artisans of the dark city, tuned with cruel precision to inflict as much suffering as their masters' appetites demand.

A single crystal core furnishes a storm of shards, so a squad of raiders can loose a hissing cloud of poison in an eyeblink and never want for ammunition. This suits the Drukhari way of war, for they hunt the peoples of the galaxy not merely to kill but to harvest slaves and playthings for the arenas of Commorragh. The splinter rifle, which fells its prey while leaving the body whole and the mind conscious, is the perfect tool for taking captives, and its gentle hiss is a sound the enslaved learn to dread. To the kabals it is the ideal instrument of the hunt, sparing the flesh while stealing the strength from it, and the raiders who carry it think of their victims not as enemies to be beaten but as livestock to be gathered.