Culluket

The Grim Crusade [Warhammer 30,000 RP]

It'll be like swapping bitchy messages over their cellphones at the dinner table.

The Grim Crusade [Warhammer 30,000 RP]

STEEL REHN

SOME DEEP STRIKE AND XENOS FEEL THE PAIN

The Grim Crusade [Warhammer 30,000 RP]

Lydia Magaera, Lady of Victory

---

Name: Lydia Magaera, Lady of Victory

Gender: Female.

Assignment Level: Beta (Telepath/Telekinetic)

Homeworld:
Lydia was sent to Asphodel, a warm, temperate blue planet at a bronze-age technological level orbiting the white star Ovid IV. It is a world of wide seas and expansive archipelago, with hot summers and winters that are merely rainy and cool, its varied island nations ruled by the same mythology and pantheon but dominated by a different ruler and patronized by a specific virtue and god. Even the gods of agriculture and music were said to be covetous and fractious, however, and the isles were in a constant state of conflict; raids and invasions were commonplace, and many territories changed hands and names.

Appearance:
Lydia's jet-black hair is plaited thickly and bound into a cone at the back of her head, parted into three long braids that hang like ropes to her waist, each tipped with a sharp, heavy metal barb. Her skin is pale for her adopted homeworld, but has taken on the olive hue common to its people, and her eyes are a vibrant aquamarine. Her features are strong, her face dominated by a Greek nose and a firm jaw, beautiful, but hard, like diamond.

The breastplate of her armor is inlaid in gold, engraved with fabulous battle scenes from the mythology of her adopted homeworld. Carven emerald snakes coil around the forearms of her gauntlets, and her armor is draped in lengths of white cloth and leather, hung from her shoulders and waist, concealing her legs. Her helm is a crested, Grecian affair, engraved in the same manner as her breastplate and carven to mimic her own features in lustrous gold; its lips pressed in a mute, gentle smile, its eyes glowing the same aquamarine as her own when powered and equipped. She rarely dons it completely, however, preferring to keep it tilted back against her hair, revealing her true face.

She bears a pennant-draped force spear, Arete, and an oversized storm shield, Aegis, its surface emblazoned with a monstrous yet alluring female visage, some mythic female demon of her homeworld she was said to have slain. She still carries her three-tailed whip, plaited from her own hair and tipped with the same cruel metal barbs.

Personality:
The Primarch of the furies is thoughtful, reserved and perspicacious, preferring tactical maps and a position where she can oversee the battlefield to frontline warfare. Slow to anger, but slower still to forgive, she, like her followers, can nurse a grudge for centuries before repaying in kind. And she is always watching, always observing the others, in silence.

Perhaps most strikingly, Lydia is mute; physically (or perhaps psychologically) unable to speak, except telepathically with other psykers and sensitives, and then only through images and mental impressions. This disability informs the bulk of what others know of her personality, and as such Lydia may sometimes be scorned by other Primarchs as inferior, genetically flawed. Some in their rage may even have called her coward, watching and thinking instead of meeting the enemy in glorious, honorable combat. That these few are frequently forced to eat their words when her legion overcomes through strategy and tenacity a battle that they could not through force does not earn her their love.

And lovelessness does weigh upon her, though she betrays not a bit of it: She is aware of her father's distance from her, and though she seeks constantly to close it through her good works and devotion, the gulf never seems to fade.

Skills:
Lydia is a brilliant strategist. Her tactical excellence brought a world under her feet before the Emperor reclaimed her, and she plans to bring him a thousand more, breaking the backs of those who would defy him. She is also a radiant psyker, her abilities predominantly passive or defensive: She maintains a subconscious telepathic link between herself and her forces, infusing them with her presence and increasing the cohesion and battlefield awareness of her legion a hundredfold when she herself is on the field. This trait is passed on, albeit in a greatly dimmed form, to her chosen captains, who reflect her will as tiny mirrors to her brilliance.

Biography:
The discovery of the infant Lydia was heralded by the astronomers of Esoptron, one of the less assuming isles of the Asphodel archipelago, devoted to the god Orestes, keeper of secrets. The astrologers had observed a brace of wandering stars, not mentioned in any tale or archive, and argument was joined as to whether the omens were good or ill. Regardless, scouting bands were sent, and the Lady was found, a flawless child cradled in a roc's nest, being nurtured and fed meat alongside the great bird's chicks.

She grew, regal in her bearing and breathtaking in form, an unnerving giantess more visibly powerful than even the men of the Esoptric army. In her adolescence she could overpower and strangle the world's equivalent of a bull, breaking its neck in the crook of her arm, and no man could overcome her even amongst the few brazen enough to try.

At first, she was hailed as a demigoddess, a bastard daughter of Ilios, father of the gods, the Sunmaker, he who named the stars. Her lips, some said, had been sealed so that she could not betray her father's secrets. Others claimed the power of her voice would raise the sea against the land, causing the city to crumble and the isle to sink beneath the waves, and she had cut out her tongue as a noble sacrifice to the world.

After turning the tide against one invading force after another, ten men flying with each stroke of her spear, she took command of the city's military simply by walking into the myrmidon's temple and seating herself on its throne. None challenged her. She directed them, giving orders through maps and delegating subordinates to command each individual phalanx. She had the isle of Arborea invaded and enslaved, felling the bulk of its forests and putting its people to work to form a navy unlike any the world had seen. Her strategies were flawless, her presence on the battlefield terrible. As the conquests mounted, the daughter of Ilios was hailed not simply as an immortal, but as a goddess in her own right. Lydia Magaera, the war god, Lady of victory. The temples of Orestes were cast down, the old King's palace demolished, the ruler himself sacrificed as an offering to the goddess, and a temple was erected in its place; a huge artifice of white stone colonnades, built out of the island's cliffs and overlooking the sea. Its floor was inlaid with a huge mosaic depicting the known world, and covered with miniature armies molded in precious metals and jewels, that the Lady might continue her plans and strategems.

Esoptron was renamed to Agonpolis, and eventually all of Asphodel was brought under the reign of the goddess Lydia, beneath the auspices of her father, who would always be king of the gods. Annual games were held, brutal physical trials and blood combat, in which those who attained excellence in all things were permitted entry into the Lady's elite guard, and the city grew and prospered beyond historical precedent.

The Meeting:

I was a young man, when I was first brought to the goddess's service. Bound along with my fellows in leather cords, soaked in water that they might constrict and torture our unworthy flesh, for we had defied her and made war upon her people, determined to resist her unceasing conquest. She paced silently down the line of kneeling, bloodied bodies. One by one, she judged us with a glance, and one by one I saw my former brothers in arms dragged to her altars and flayed to death beneath the whips of her priestesses.

But when she reached me, and I looked up, ready to spit the last of my blood into her face, I was overcome, and my will broke. I could not deny the power of the corded titan before me. The Agonic had spoken true: The war goddess walked amongst them. We had been fools, fools to stand against them. I stared, incapable of words.

She lifted her hand, and my bonds were cut, and I have served her ever since.

Though I speak of it to no one, I would a'times see her on her balcony, gazing up at the stars over the sea, her face pensive and lonely. Though none could know her mind, I felt her longing, as though she pined to return to her father's house, and her true home amongst the milky heavens. For there were none like her in the world, and as her conquest neared completion, I wondered if she felt her purpose fade.

And then, one day, he came.

The astrologers had again seen a clutch of wandering stars, brighter than before. They argued before the Lady's couch as to its import until the skies came alive with fire and noise, and the earth shook beneath us. Golden light spilled into the temple, as he, a gilded and glorious titan, strode through the pillars unchecked, the phalanx who barred the stair scattered like wooden toys against the walls. The horns were sounded as a hundred more men and women drew their spears and made ready to defend the sanctum to the last drop of their blood.

But Lydia rose her hand, and we heard. The myrmidon's weapons were retracted and laid down, and the warriors dropped to their knees before the unstoppable intruder, heads bowed as one. She rose from her couch, her eyes wide, moving slowly then rushing toward him, the sound of her bare feet, that would have been a pattering on any normal woman, like pounding drumbeats against the floor of the temple.

Tears misted her shining eyes and she threw herself to her hands and knees, prostrate before him, gasping silently, this radiant, golden being that could only be the almighty Sunmaker himself. He smiled, pleased, and gestured with armored hands that could have crushed a man's skull as a boy cracks acorns.

"Rise, my daughter," he declared, in a sonorous voice that seemed to tremble in the very foundations of the temple, "And rejoice. For what was lost has been found, and I am come to take you to your true home amongst the stars."

She lifted her head, love, old sorrow and joy all shining in her face. And her lips moved, and her tongue worked against itself, and her breath sang uselessly through her throat. Pathetically trying to form one single word of love and worship. And failing.

I saw it then, and I know she saw it too, though I would tell this to none, yea not admit it even under the most unholy torture the temple knows, and it knows many. I saw it flicker across the god-king's face. Surprise.

Then disappointment.

Nonetheless, his smile returned, if more wan than before, and he offered her his hand, and she rose, and kissed it. Her people hailed and saluted Ilios -- the Emperor -- as one, and all the cities of Asphodel celebrated the coming of the gods and the ascension of Lydia to the heavens. We honored him, and were rewarded with prosperity, knowledge and wonders beyond any astrologer's imaginings. And to most, that is where the story ends.

...It is not known by many that before she departed, divine Lydia summoned me to her balcony.

I knelt, and kissed her foot as custom demanded, waiting until I felt her bid me rise. I did so, and saw she held a book, a great tome bound in nyx-hide. Stunned, I took it, buckling from its unexpected weight, opening its cover and trembling as I saw what lay within. Her words, the words of the silent one. The artifact of a goddess, sacred beyond measure. It was a codex of tactical excellence, of an immortal lifetime of strategizing and war, knowledge beyond the price of any king. She had known this day would come, the day she would leave us and fly to her celestial home. And she had left us, her adopted children, with this. I looked up at her, towering above me, and shook in awe, trying to speak and finding my throat constricted and dry.

She pressed a heavy finger to my lips, and departed.

Yes, she knew this day would come. The symbol of the Sunmaker's empire now hangs over the temple of War as it hangs over every structure in the isles. In the streets his statues tower over hers. Though the Agonian games go on, seeking through blood those worthy to join the goddess's furies amongst the stars, we serve the God-Emperor of mankind, wearing his uniforms and surrendering our goods and warriors to his tinkering bureaucrats. Slowly, ever so slowly they grow arrogant, fat and self-important, in a way our Lady would scourge out amongst her own.

I will not live to see it, but I pass this knowledge on to my sons and daughters and bid them train the faithful ruthlessly, as I have done all these years; for I know in my fading heart that a day is coming when the empire will falter, and these men will turn to their own wickedness for power. And when it does, they will know a reckoning the like of which they cannot conceive. They will know who truly rules Asphodel. We do not forget. We do not forgive. We watch, and we wait, and we prepare.

In secret.

In silence.

Kindly Ones

---

Legion Name: Kindly Ones (Furies)

Legion Number: XIII

Legion Strength: 90,000, divided into three chapters of 30,000, each split into three cohorts of 10,000, with companies then divided as normal.

Armour Appearance:

The Kindly Ones' armor is white, halved with black in a dramatic device reminiscent of Asphodelic theater. Their symbol is their Primarch's barbed, triple-tailed whip, symbolizing both the legion's penchant for tactical superiority, and the swift and agonizing punishment awaiting those who incur their attention.

Warcry:
The Kindly Ones have no warcry, in respect for their Primarch's curse of silence. The chapter motto, however, is scribed onto all their heraldry and embellishment, both a warning and a promise. Noli Obliviscate, ut Ne Ignoscimus: Do Not Forget, for We Do Not Forgive.

Favored Tactics/Battlefield Role:
Lydia demands strategic adaptability, and her furies obey. In the main, they field a balanced, mobile phalanx force, ready to assume any new formation required. The chapter makes heavy use of scout and tactical squads, strategic insertions and transports, teleporters and drop pods, constantly outflanking and advancing, forcing the enemy into positions and formations that will eventually cripple them. Devastator squads, heavy vehicles and stationary emplacements are used as precision instruments, the rocks around which the greater current of battle flows. The legion is also one of the few that will give ground in order to facilitate a stratagem or decisive long-term gain, potentially furthering some other Primarchs' contempt for their mistress.

The Kindly Ones have a reputation for both relentlessness in combat and the savage punishments inflicted upon those deemed guilty by their mistress. Once you have their attention, you will not be rid of them until you are broken or dead.

Legion Characteristics/Ideology:
The Kindly Ones are a highly disciplined, aesthetically Hellenic chapter of conquerors and avengers, protective of the innocent and utterly pitiless to the guilty. From the stars they constantly seek out those worthy of their aid and those worthy of their judgement, and many who plot their own gain in her sector watch the skies uneasily, for the whip is always ready to strike without warning. Wrong the Emperor, they all whisper, and the Kindly Ones will come for you.

And they will. Oh, how they will.

In an effort to attain excellence in all things, those marines not in combat periodically pit themselves against one another in an echo of the Agonian games while their mistress observes, with members of other chapters sometimes allowed or even invited to compete or attend, though some may find the spectacle disturbing; whether it is her bearing or some element of her psychic dominance over her legion, the reverence of the furies for their mistress borders on the fanatical; they seem almost to treat her as much a warrior goddess as her adopted people did. And though they may keep their silence, they forget not one single slight against her.

Not one.

---

Dramatis Personae:

• Legion Flagship -- Threnos, a Gloriana-class battleship. The craft is heavily armored and has exceptional augur capability.
• Tisiphone and Alecto -- Identical Asphodelic twins differentiated by the opposing coloration of their attire and the part of their hair. Both are Epsilon-level telepaths bearing the Crux Terminatus, and are immediately subordinate to the Primarch herself, speaking with her full authority. They are not pretty or sweet.
• Mnemosyne -- First Chief Librarian, keeper of memory. Her enhanced lifespan was slow to take hold, and Mnemosyne appears more advanced in years than her sisters, thin-faced, grey-haired and withered. She is a Librarian in the most classical sense, spending the bulk of her time physically interfaced with Threnos's memory banks, and she is terse, meticulous and fond of silence within her domain. Though as fiercely loyal to her mistress as any of the legion -- perhaps more -- she is perhaps the only one of the Furies willing to challenge or question her, and certainly the only one to do so without sanction.
• Polyhymna -- Second Chief Librarian, keeper of songs. A striking orator and powerful telekinetic, Polyhymna is at this time the only one of the three Chief Librarians who will deploy to the field.
• Sibyline -- Third Chief Librarian. We do not speak of the Third Chief Librarian.

---

Let sleeping dogs lie.

I think we'll be fine. JB is just agonizing over his Space Marine chapter I bet.

{Closed}

Well, thanks for letting us know. Even if it was with an 11 day old copypaste from The Reavers.

No hard feelings, and best wishes; to everyone for that matter.

Beyond Civilisation's Grasp... - A Rogue Trader (WH40K) RP [Seeking Desperate Souls for Adventure!]

Unintentional additions are the best kind.

ALL AHEAD *hic* FULL

The Absent King

I may have subtly suggested in a PM to somebody that Gawain should be the one to go and get the Elves out of pris, because it would be funnier that way.

I may live to regret this.

Beyond Civilisation's Grasp... - A Rogue Trader (WH40K) RP [Seeking Desperate Souls for Adventure!]

May I also just say that I love the idea that our Navigator is going to be a heavy drinker.

Beyond Civilisation's Grasp... - A Rogue Trader (WH40K) RP [Seeking Desperate Souls for Adventure!]

That little one's not worth the effort...

Beyond Civilisation's Grasp... - A Rogue Trader (WH40K) RP [Seeking Desperate Souls for Adventure!]

It was called the Last Chance Saloon, and Jean-Luc didn't like it at all.

The bawdy-house was thick with the scum of a thousand worlds, the air resinous with smoke and the stench of low-grade alcohol. Voices hollered, scowled and swore in a multitude of tongues, from threadbare couches and wooden tables piled with drinks, tarot cards, thirteen different kinds of money and glowing, polyhedral dice. A quick, raucously off-key honky-tonk tune rang through the building from the far wall, where the establishment's illegally modified servitor hung bolted to the piano, a battered top hat fixed to its metal skull.

Malcontents and killers hung over the sticky bartop, bathed in irritating neon blue. Here, a quorum of wasteland thugs took turns throwing knives into a vandalized Wanted poster. There, a lissome young woman wrapped with serpentine tattoos and a squeaking, violet rubber dress was writhing in the lap of a leering local gun runner. And by the far banister, three men at a card table leapt to their feet over a legal dispute, drawing crudely modified guns, their disagreement interrupted by the barman firing a deafening blast from a Volg Scattergun into the roof. Several of the whores screamed, one in apparent delight, wood and plaster raining down from above. The men reluctantly eased back into their seats, eyeing each other bitterly, the guns never leaving their hands. And the tempo of the establishment never wavered.

It was all so monumentally tedious.

Jean-Luc Bauta de la Mare sat alone in a shadowy and isolated corner, sipping a barely-acceptable blend of Cyprian tea and watching with the barest interest. He whiled away his time calculating his chances of getting out of this sector in an acceptable frame of time and finding them grim. Escalon Seven was not a place people went. It was a place people ended up.

The crude wooden doors swung open, dust and bright, shimmering heat blowing into the merry din along with another cadre of disreputables. They looked angry about something. Volatile. Spoiling for a fight. They glowered, looking around the saloon, and the largest, a weathered hulk of a man, pointed to La Mare with a heavy, whining servo arm. They drew near.

"Our table, you long-haired sack of grox shit," barked the apparent leader, "Piss off or die!"

Item one, close quarters, Item two; modified servo arm is lethal but a serious point of weakness, Item three, leader is unarmed, underlings count one concealed stubber one shotgun, pump-action, shotgun obvious first target and well within range.

Amateurs, all of them.

"Very well," sighed the career killer, standing and sipping the last of the barely-adequate tea, "I was largely finished with it in any case."

"You mouthin' off t' me, freak?"

"Not at all," he gestured, half-bowing, deadpan, "Your table, sirs."

"Grox shit knows his place." snickered one of the hangers-on.

"Fethin' right," growled the leader, "Beat it, freak. Crawl back in yer fethin' hole before I change my fethin' mind!"

La Mare bowed again, and left.

---

"Gideon." He signalled the barman, setting the teacup down on the damp wooden surface. The grizzled, hairless old enforcer nodded, shouldering the scattergun and taking down a fresh pot of water. Jean-Luc eased himself into a standing-room gap at the bar.

Someone grabbed his shoulder. A wiry ex-guardsman, one flickering bionic eye glowing in a bristly, gap-toothed face. He thumbed to his companion, a hammer-nosed Ogryn who looked more like a side of beef than a thinking being.

"He doesn't like you." he sneered.

Jean-Luc sighed.

"I don't like you either!" he continued. "You better watch yourself! I have--"

"Must we do this again, LaChance?"

"--I have the terminatus sentence on twelve--"

"Gideon. A round of plox for each of these men, s'il vous plaît."

The drinks were duly served. The pair snickered, LaChance digging a bony finger into La Mare's breastbone. "You get off this time." he said, thickly, "But next time you maybe won't be so lucky."

"Can we please...?"

The two withdrew to the far corner of the bar, the man cackling after him, "Maybe you'll be dead!"

The barman set down the teacup with a clink, regarding Jean-Luc with some scrutiny.

"Don't rightly know why y'all let them boys push y' round like that, drifter." he said at last, nodding, "If'n I read that brand on yer head proper, wouldn't be yer first time seein' a little blood."

"Mn." Jean-Luc lifted the cup, breathing in the aroma, "Well. What's the point?" He sipped, swallowed. "Dilletentes and savages. It would prove nothing, achieve nothing. Only spoil my digestion and ruin this... carefully-cultivated ambience."

"Hn." the barkeep was noncommittal. "Hear the news?"

"I have not."

"Shuttle's a-comin down."

"Mm?"

"Rogue trader." Gideon sniffed, "Name of Drake. Lookin' for crew."

Time froze in La Mare's mind. The saloon was no longer a regrettable waystation. It was now a battlefield. It was a mass grave waiting to happen. Rough voices sounded from along the bar, spreading throughout the revelry.

"Good pickings on a trader's crew, I'm in on that for sure--"

"Needs a point man I hear--"

"Like to be some fierce competition--"

La Mare pushed away from the bar as the rumor spread, his tea untouched and unpaid for, striding purposefully to the padded couches where the arms merchant and his rubber-clad doxy were entwining themselves.

"Markus," he said briskly, "Do you have what I asked for?"

"That I do, pardner." The man chuckled, his grin bright over a trimmed golden beard. He tugged on the woman's charcoal hair, yanking her head back and eliciting a practiced gasp of pleasure. She squirmed out of his lap obediently, draping herself over his shoulder. The gunrunner slid a small black case the size of a shoebox from under the couch, setting it on the glass-piled table. La Mare watched intently as he flipped the lid.

"Gen-you-whine Imperial-issue bolt rounds." grinned the smuggler, "Not easy to get here under the table on ol' number Seven, Johnny boy, not easy at all. Trust you're, ah, ready to deal?"

"I am." He nodded, quickly, firmly.

"Course you are." Markus smirked under his breath. He pointed to Jean-Luc, reaching around the woman's neck with his free hand to give the front of her dress a squeeze, "Well to that, Johnny, I got a kind o' revised offer for you. See my girl here," squeeze, "Says that necklace of yours is real pretty..."

La Mare regarded the girl flatly. She stared back at him with smoldering turquiose eyes and licked her lips.

"How interesting that she can tell." he murmured.

"Women, yeah?" The man chuckled. "And I do like to keep my baby happy, don't I honeysuckle?" He pulled her in for a kiss, and she reciprocated enthusiastically, twisting her hips and moaning like an addict.

Her eyes never left La Mare's, nor his hers. She ran her hand down her hip, deliberately.

"So how about it, John-o?" Markus grinned and wiped his mouth, disengaging, "Can't say that ain't a fair price. One little ol' trinket for a boxful of the Emperor's own special herbs n' spices. Come on, man." the dealer spread his hands with a corrupt, winning smile, "Whad'you say?"

"An interesting arrangement," agreed Jean-Luc, folding his hands behind his back, "However, I have a counteroffer. All the Imperial Scrip I have on my person. And eight seconds in which to leave this place with your lives."

The girl untangled herself, flattening her back against the couch with a faint hiss of breath. The arms dealer slowly lifted his head, regarding Jean-Luc the way a cat regards a mouse.

"Well now," he said with deadly softness, pushing aside a stack of tatty pillows to reveal the muzzle of a fully-powered hellgun, "Didn't have you figured for the suicidal type, Johnny."

"These are extraordinary circumstances." replied La Mare, "Four seconds."

"Boys!" shouted Markus, dragging the hellgun out of its covering, "Looks like we got us another out-of-town hard case!"

The most dangerous men in the Holdout were getting to their feet. Weapons were drawn, everyone glancing from one to another, opportunism glinting in every eye. The heavy-set thug threw aside his table with that massively engineered limb. The Ogryn heaved a spike-encrusted ripper rifle from its sling. Gideon racked the scattergun. The servitor just kept playing. Jean-Luc drew in a breath, thumbing open something in his hand. It was just like coming home.

"C'est la guerre," he said, and dropped the flashbang.

---

From outside, one could see the windows explode outward in a burst of blinding white, a second before the air erupted with a cacophony of gunfire, profanity and breaking wood.