The Warp is a strange place. Such concepts as "space-time" often don't apply within the Empyrean as they do in realspace, and it is frequently the case that ships will exit the Warp in a location far-removed from their intended destination, or sooner or later than intended, or occasionally before they even left. Such chaos is rarely helpful to anyone, especially given the horrors that lurk within; yet sometimes, its flukes and whims can lead to galaxy-altering events.
Imagine, if you will, a tiny fragment of a once-great being, as great and powerful as any Chaos God, and perhaps even moreso. This fragment is but a shadow of a splinter of its former self, tossed through the currents of the Warp without end, and wracked with as much pain as any of its fellows, and divided from its brothers in a way that ensures it barely knows what it can remember. It is, in a word, driftwood.
This splinter is the spark of change. In its tossing and turning, it finds itself in the presence of something immense, a mass of souls steadily fusing together, into something immense enough to alter the very fate of the Milky Way. The splinter has come across its past self, thrown back to before it was even born. Even in its state, it realises the implications of such an event. It realises how influential it could be, even at the risk of altering history itself.
It throws itself into the forming soul of souls. It becomes a part of the New Man, severing its connection with its prior owner. Though its direct effect on his psyche will be minimal, it finds itself in a position to twist his biology to more suitable ends, and in doing so, to perhaps change the events of its original self's doom before they have a chance to come to fruition.
It is the dawn of the 31st Millennium. The Grim Crusade is in full swing, and vast swathes of the galaxy have fallen under the control of the relatively fresh Imperium of Man, led by the Emperor of Mankind to bring the Imperial Truth to all and sundry. The Imperium is a society that denies all forms of religion or deity, and has been engineered to be massively xenophobic by its very leader. For him, nothing less than the absolute dominion of humanity over all else is acceptable.
To achieve this goal, the Emperor has used his knowledge of genetics and their modification to craft various superhuman soldiers over time - the legendary Thunder Warriors, the Legio Custodes, and most recently, the Legiones Astartes, the twenty Legions of Space Marines. These were intended to be led by sons and daughters of the Emperor known as Primarchs, beings hand-crafted on a genetic level to spearhead the forces of the Imperium, and so to ensure absolute conquest over the Milky Way. Alas, the forces of Chaos could not abide this, and so scattered the Primarchs across the galaxy, to be rediscovered in the course of the Grim Crusade over several centuries.
This is where you, the players, come in. Inspired by Bright_Ops' game The Grand Crusade, you will be playing as one of these twenty Primarchs, once scattered, since brought under the wing of the Emperor. How these Primarchs and their Legions are moulded is entirely up to you; to quote the original game:
-Forum rules apply, obviously. Most pressingly out of these, if I've decided on something happening a certain way, then my decision is final unless I'm given good reason to change my mind.
-Do not godmod. That is to say, don't control other player's characters for them without their permission. If you want to make a combined post between two or more players, or have decided between yourselves to allow a certain interaction to occur in a certain way, that's perfectly fine, but don't do stuff to other people's characters without their say-so.
-I'm not too concerned about activity levels, so don't feel overly pressured to post as often as possible. However, I do expect you to at least be present; ideally, at least one IC post per week would be appreciated, or an OOC post if making an IC post doesn't happen for some reason. Please tell me if you're outright not going to be able to post for a certain amount of time, and keep in mind that if you're completely inactive for more than two weeks without any warning, then I will reserve the right to hand control of the Legion over to a new player if they ask for it, given that I can't simply kill them off so readily.
-This is an Advanced roleplay. Please write to the appropriate level of quality - two or three significant paragraphs per post with good SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation, And Grammar) should be fine as a minimum, but try to come up with more if you can.
-One character per player. You're playing as a superhuman with command over thousands, or even tens of thousands, of somewhat less superhuman superhumans; one character should be more than enough.
-@agentmanatee is currently the co-GM for this game; unless I actually contradict something he says, his word has as much authority as mine. If anybody else would like to apply as a Co-GM, please say so, and I'll talk to you about it.
You will need to write up sheets for both your Primarch and the Legion they lead. When writing these up, please PM them to me and my co-GMs for approval first, then post them in the Characters tab once I have approved them. The general suggestion here is to be creative: by all means, feel free to use canon's Primarchs and Legions as inspiration for your own, but don't copy them wholesale just because you can't think of anything else. There should be significant differences between your Primarch and the canon Primarchs you use as inspiration, if any. To wit, the order in which character sheets are accepted will be the default order in which the Primarchs were discovered, unless the player specifically requests otherwise.
Most of the setting of this game is based on the state of affairs in the universe of Warhammer 40000 as of roughly the beginning of the 31st Millennium, or M31. For the purposes of this game, most of the information you will need is available on the Warhammer 40000 wiki and the Lexicanum encyclopedia. To a lesser extent, 1d4chan also fulfils this role, but be aware that the website is not necessarily safe for work, nor is the information available necessarily unbiased, and that it contains a plethora of information about subjects totally unrelated to Warhammer 40000 to boot.
That being said, there are a few concepts in The Grim Crusade that differ rather substantially from what is accepted as part of 40K canon beyond the obvious "twenty new Primarchs" concept, primarily due to the Emperor's vastly-altered biology. These are described as follows:
I - The Bloody Host, led by the first Primarch Mon-Kal, the Thorn King @agentmanatee
II -
III -
IV - The Desert Sons, led by the third Primarch Sevrah, the Horned Snake @Roosan
V - The Blazing Sisters, led by the second Primarch Farah Cusatis, Shield of the Imperium @Yennefer
VI -
VII -
VIII -
IX - The Iron Templars, led by the fourth Primarch Ser Berenger the Giant @Lord Coake
X - The Wild Blades, led by the fifth Primarch Erron Khaal, the Great Chief @Savage
XI -
XII -
XIII - The Kindly Ones, led by the sixth Primarch Lydia Magaera, Lady of Victory @Culluket
XIV -
XV - Sons of the Storm, led by the seventh Primarch Fū Xiá, the Tamer of Storms @Jbcool
XVI -
XVII - Paladins Eternal, led by the eighth Primarch Maximus "Caesar" Aurelius @Sophrus
XVIII -
XIX - The Wardens Aegis, led by the ninth Primarch Talvyrn Gallogoth, the High Lord and PriMech @ClocktowerEchos
XX - The Void Stalkers, led by the last Primarch Gorseval the Dark Star @Hank
Sometimes, information just won't fit into this game's purview. To that end, I have created another thread for players to post about, amongst other things, events starring their Legions in both the present and past of the Grim Crusade. If you have something you'd like to post about which doesn't directly concern your Primarchs, or which involves them but occurred before the starting point of this game, or both, then the Chronicles thread is the place to go. Also included here is a timeline of all events in the Grim Crusade, as a shorthand for reading through the posts in the thread (which, naturally, can sometimes get very long indeed), ranging from the Grim Crusade's beginning in 798.M30 to the main game's most current events.
Imagine, if you will, a tiny fragment of a once-great being, as great and powerful as any Chaos God, and perhaps even moreso. This fragment is but a shadow of a splinter of its former self, tossed through the currents of the Warp without end, and wracked with as much pain as any of its fellows, and divided from its brothers in a way that ensures it barely knows what it can remember. It is, in a word, driftwood.
This splinter is the spark of change. In its tossing and turning, it finds itself in the presence of something immense, a mass of souls steadily fusing together, into something immense enough to alter the very fate of the Milky Way. The splinter has come across its past self, thrown back to before it was even born. Even in its state, it realises the implications of such an event. It realises how influential it could be, even at the risk of altering history itself.
It throws itself into the forming soul of souls. It becomes a part of the New Man, severing its connection with its prior owner. Though its direct effect on his psyche will be minimal, it finds itself in a position to twist his biology to more suitable ends, and in doing so, to perhaps change the events of its original self's doom before they have a chance to come to fruition.
"Alone, a Legionary is a formidable foe as far beyond a man as the wolf is beyond the sheep. Together, bound by ties of unshakeable loyalty, a Legion is a force that can extinguish the stars and shake the very heavens."
-Attributed to [DATA NOT FOUND]
-Attributed to [DATA NOT FOUND]
Introduction
It is the dawn of the 31st Millennium. The Grim Crusade is in full swing, and vast swathes of the galaxy have fallen under the control of the relatively fresh Imperium of Man, led by the Emperor of Mankind to bring the Imperial Truth to all and sundry. The Imperium is a society that denies all forms of religion or deity, and has been engineered to be massively xenophobic by its very leader. For him, nothing less than the absolute dominion of humanity over all else is acceptable.
To achieve this goal, the Emperor has used his knowledge of genetics and their modification to craft various superhuman soldiers over time - the legendary Thunder Warriors, the Legio Custodes, and most recently, the Legiones Astartes, the twenty Legions of Space Marines. These were intended to be led by sons and daughters of the Emperor known as Primarchs, beings hand-crafted on a genetic level to spearhead the forces of the Imperium, and so to ensure absolute conquest over the Milky Way. Alas, the forces of Chaos could not abide this, and so scattered the Primarchs across the galaxy, to be rediscovered in the course of the Grim Crusade over several centuries.
This is where you, the players, come in. Inspired by Bright_Ops' game The Grand Crusade, you will be playing as one of these twenty Primarchs, once scattered, since brought under the wing of the Emperor. How these Primarchs and their Legions are moulded is entirely up to you; to quote the original game:
What methods, tactics, philosophy or weapons you choose to employ during your mission to bring planets under the control and protection of the Emperor is your decision and will influence how your legion interacts with the rest.
Rules
-Forum rules apply, obviously. Most pressingly out of these, if I've decided on something happening a certain way, then my decision is final unless I'm given good reason to change my mind.
-Do not godmod. That is to say, don't control other player's characters for them without their permission. If you want to make a combined post between two or more players, or have decided between yourselves to allow a certain interaction to occur in a certain way, that's perfectly fine, but don't do stuff to other people's characters without their say-so.
-I'm not too concerned about activity levels, so don't feel overly pressured to post as often as possible. However, I do expect you to at least be present; ideally, at least one IC post per week would be appreciated, or an OOC post if making an IC post doesn't happen for some reason. Please tell me if you're outright not going to be able to post for a certain amount of time, and keep in mind that if you're completely inactive for more than two weeks without any warning, then I will reserve the right to hand control of the Legion over to a new player if they ask for it, given that I can't simply kill them off so readily.
-This is an Advanced roleplay. Please write to the appropriate level of quality - two or three significant paragraphs per post with good SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation, And Grammar) should be fine as a minimum, but try to come up with more if you can.
-One character per player. You're playing as a superhuman with command over thousands, or even tens of thousands, of somewhat less superhuman superhumans; one character should be more than enough.
-@agentmanatee is currently the co-GM for this game; unless I actually contradict something he says, his word has as much authority as mine. If anybody else would like to apply as a Co-GM, please say so, and I'll talk to you about it.
Character Sheets
You will need to write up sheets for both your Primarch and the Legion they lead. When writing these up, please PM them to me and my co-GMs for approval first, then post them in the Characters tab once I have approved them. The general suggestion here is to be creative: by all means, feel free to use canon's Primarchs and Legions as inspiration for your own, but don't copy them wholesale just because you can't think of anything else. There should be significant differences between your Primarch and the canon Primarchs you use as inspiration, if any. To wit, the order in which character sheets are accepted will be the default order in which the Primarchs were discovered, unless the player specifically requests otherwise.
Additional Information
Most of the setting of this game is based on the state of affairs in the universe of Warhammer 40000 as of roughly the beginning of the 31st Millennium, or M31. For the purposes of this game, most of the information you will need is available on the Warhammer 40000 wiki and the Lexicanum encyclopedia. To a lesser extent, 1d4chan also fulfils this role, but be aware that the website is not necessarily safe for work, nor is the information available necessarily unbiased, and that it contains a plethora of information about subjects totally unrelated to Warhammer 40000 to boot.
That being said, there are a few concepts in The Grim Crusade that differ rather substantially from what is accepted as part of 40K canon beyond the obvious "twenty new Primarchs" concept, primarily due to the Emperor's vastly-altered biology. These are described as follows:
The Astartes Legions
I - The Bloody Host, led by the first Primarch Mon-Kal, the Thorn King @agentmanatee
II -
III -
IV - The Desert Sons, led by the third Primarch Sevrah, the Horned Snake @Roosan
V - The Blazing Sisters, led by the second Primarch Farah Cusatis, Shield of the Imperium @Yennefer
VI -
VII -
VIII -
IX - The Iron Templars, led by the fourth Primarch Ser Berenger the Giant @Lord Coake
X - The Wild Blades, led by the fifth Primarch Erron Khaal, the Great Chief @Savage
XI -
XII -
XIII - The Kindly Ones, led by the sixth Primarch Lydia Magaera, Lady of Victory @Culluket
XIV -
XV - Sons of the Storm, led by the seventh Primarch Fū Xiá, the Tamer of Storms @Jbcool
XVI -
XVII - Paladins Eternal, led by the eighth Primarch Maximus "Caesar" Aurelius @Sophrus
XVIII -
XIX - The Wardens Aegis, led by the ninth Primarch Talvyrn Gallogoth, the High Lord and PriMech @ClocktowerEchos
XX - The Void Stalkers, led by the last Primarch Gorseval the Dark Star @Hank
Sometimes, information just won't fit into this game's purview. To that end, I have created another thread for players to post about, amongst other things, events starring their Legions in both the present and past of the Grim Crusade. If you have something you'd like to post about which doesn't directly concern your Primarchs, or which involves them but occurred before the starting point of this game, or both, then the Chronicles thread is the place to go. Also included here is a timeline of all events in the Grim Crusade, as a shorthand for reading through the posts in the thread (which, naturally, can sometimes get very long indeed), ranging from the Grim Crusade's beginning in 798.M30 to the main game's most current events.
