Jeddaven

Wh40k: One Step Beyond - A Rogue Trader Adventure (Closed)

"...Whisper His prayers with devotion, for they will save your soul."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Honour His servants, for they speak in His voice."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Blessed Sister, do you need to-"

Agathe's hand shot up, palm-outward, toward the interruption, as she shook her head. She wanted to verbally admonish the short, stocky man that interrupted her - but she was stopped by the knowledge that he was omly nervous, likely afraid of the whip that attended him whenever he slowed in his work.

"Tremble before His majesty, for we all walk in His immortal shadow."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Nodding with a warm smile, she clapped the thickly-bound prayer book in her hands closed, though her eyes did not move; a Sister, after all, would memorize her prayers.

"The Emperor is with you, as He is with all of us. Your daughter, too," she said, her gaze sliding from the man, to his gangly wife crouching over a small bed, to the tiny, frail little girl sleeping in it, her breathing labored and gasping. "Always remember that. Now-" she said, briefly lowering the visor of his armour, her vision instantly filled with a heads-up-display. A summons direction her to... Ah! The Central Observation Dome.

Lifting the dark gunmetal iron-coloured visor back away from her face, she cleared her throat.

"I must depart on business for now, but I will do what I can to return to minister to you. I promise." She said, briefly squeezing the man's hand before turning to leave.

---

Sister Agathe, punctual as always, was the first to enter the Dome, her iron-coloured armour glinting ever so slightly in its harsh artificial lighting. At one hip she carried her power maul as always, and at the other, her bolt pistol, a Sacrestan's shield fastened to her back-mounted power unit, altogether pushing her somewhat impressive two metres of height just a handful of centimeters higher. She anticipated no combat, of course...

But idleness would beget heresy, and to be unprepared for even the most unlikely eventuality was utterly unacceptable.

"Lord Andamar, Magos." She called out with as much of a bow as her armor would allow, finally approaching the central dais. "I apologize for the delay. I was busy ministering to the ratings - Nyla, the daughter of one of your gunnery ratings, has come down with an illness, and her father requested that I pray for her with him." She continued, stepping onto it with a quiet, relieved sigh as she made the sign of the Aquila across her chest.

Good, she thought, lowering her hands to her sides. I made it. Just on time.

Wh40k: One Step Beyond - A Rogue Trader Adventure (Closed)

Sister Agathe, Battle Sister of the Order of the Iron Veil, Convent Prioris

Agathe, by all rights, should have led a peaceful existence. She was born on Terra to two priests charged with the maintenance of a small and insignificant temple, its sole purpose to attend to the teeming masses of pilgrims that visited mankind's holy homeworld. She was herself raised as a choir girl, taught to sing the God-Emperor's praises as any pious child would, speaking her first word at only four months old, but her peaceful existence was, unfortunately, cut abruptly short.

Days after her first birthday, she remembers her parents, after the morning's services, rushing her into a backroom and pleading with her to stay quiet and hide - they were playing hide-and-seek!

Being the good child she was, Eleannna hid.

The next thing she remembers is the noise of roaring flames, the building collapsing around her, and being rescued by a terrified old pilgrim in ragged robes.

Imperial records of the incident, at least officially, are just as confused as she was. The pilgrims nearby recall seeing the building abruptly erupt in flame, and Imperial records - including an official investigation - reveal nothing, at least publically.

As the child of good, pious folk, it was promptly decided that she'd be shipped off to the Schola Progenium, destined to live out the rest of her life as one of the Sororitas.

Her aptitude for song, as it turned out, was outpaced only for her aptitude for combat, promptly shifting her destiny from the Orders Madriga to the Orders Miliant, quickly picked up by a visiting Canoness of the Order of the Iron Veil, who believed that Agathe's childhood trauma would make her especially resilient against the ravages of the Great Enemy. After all, her piety only seemed to increase after the loss of her parents.

Her first years as a novice, by and large, were spent in training - harsh as the Schola were, the standards of the Iron Veil were even more exacting, require nothing but the most unflinching zeal from their Sisters and the most resilient minds. Many days were spent working herself until collapse over and over, others in meditation while she was assaulted with distractions and noise, all for the purpose of ensuring that nothing, no matter how tempting, could break her iron will, that she could resist the power of the warp with her mind alone.

The next three years of her life were spent preparing for duty as a Sister of Battle with little time for recreation - but her first field assignment, unfortunately, would not go as planned.

What was supposed to be a relatively simple escort assignment for a ministorum priest turned into disaster when her unit arrived at an unassuming station on the Ultramar-side of the Segmentum Ultima. Shortly after boarding the station, the personnel turned on them, coming at them in rabid hordes with every weapon they could possibly carry. Many of the unprotected ministorum attendants were quickly cut down, but the priest survived, the Sisters forming a defensive circle around her as they fought toward the astropathic choir, hoping to reach it in time to send out a distress signal. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of them fell, each successive wave more wretched, more touched by the taint of the Blood God. Mere men became half-mutants, who themselves gave way to monsters that could barely be called men, but reach the Choir they did, Agathe's chainsword drenched in the foul blood of the enemy. The message was sent, and, desperate for shelter, there they held their ground, more sisters falling by the minute.

For what felt like hours, Agathe held her ground along with her sisters, watching them die nobly in the line of duty, even the Palatine in command of their unit.

By the time it was only her, clutching her Palatine's power maul and shield, she thought she would be martyred, and she embraced her fate eagerly, even as the master of the cultists - a towering, red-armored Astartes - emerged, his roaring axes soaked with the blood of those of her Sisters that were left behind.

Letting out a passionate war-cry, she charged headlong at the Berzerker, a prayer on her lips the world seemed to shrink around her as if she were falling into a trance, nothing but the hated enemy visible. She brought up her shield as it clashed with a chainaxe, lifting her maul, fully expecting for her feeble strike to fail.

She felt the bite of a chainblade digging into her knee, cutting through the joint.

Another blow. Another.

The sound of cracking ceramite. A howl. She recalled seeing golden light bleeding out from her maul as it struck, then the sound of the Astartes's body falling to the ground and the sound of lasfire echoing through the station. Had help finally arrived?

Help had, it turned out, arrived in the form of a Rogue Trader and his small fleet - and Agathe completed her mission.

With no direct commanding officer to report to and an ostensibly loyal Rogue Trader she owed a great debt to, Agathe took it upon herself to accompany the trader's fleets, and although she has achieved no high rank in the month and a half since her rescue, she's taken it upon herself to minister to the menials and ratings of Edmund's vessel, additionally offering her skill in close-quarters combat in the event of battle, and, in the absolute worst case, a mind resilient against the ravages of the warp.

Kind and well-spoken, she provides a source of comfort for the crew, whether through simple ministry or hymn and song, and makes efforts to keep herself appraised of her wants and needs. In other ways, though, she is alien and frustrating, wanting for little and asking for even less, partaking in few of the indulgences usually used to bribe and cajole.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Is this a roleplay? I see lots of lore but no explanation of what's going on for players.

Also - considering all the imagery, are the Templars an explicitly Christian organization?

BLOOD & IRON: IMPERIAL AMBITION

Seems like the GM may have abandoned this. Should I start the OOC?

BLOOD & IRON: IMPERIAL AMBITION

Very vague statement of interest.

I have an old idea for an Orc group that I never got to explore.

Large confederation of several Orc tribes. Led by an Orc who is trying to temper some of their wilder instincts. Standing army but also branching more deliberately into mercenary groups. Sending Orkie Boys out to ply their trade and bring some of their earnings home to support the clan.

Internal issues with a relation who sees this taming as an affront to what makes them them. Warns that trying to be like da humies will only make them weak, frail, and scared like da humies is.

Looking for a mountainous area for them to inhabit. General backstory theme being that they've been pushed back and back, semi-nomadic, and that is a large part of why the current leader wants them to domesticate a bit. For longevity.

@BangoSkank

Sounds interesting, although, as a player, I'd personally suggest leaning away from the zany 40k orcs and take them more seriously as a culture; I think that would be a better way to approach and accomplish what you described.

BLOOD & IRON: IMPERIAL AMBITION

@Liotrentany more updates?

I don't personally have any issues with what you proposed.

AFGHAN: A NEW TOMORROW

<Snipped quote by gorgenmast>

mODERATORS PLEASE DELETE MY POST i DONT WANT TO BE IN THIS RP NO MORE

@gorgenmast

Too bad, stupid. You're in for life.

alpine republic

THE FATFUCK

A SLOVENLY-DRESSED MAN sat alone at a diner booth in a grease-stained tanktop that had once been a 3XL Six Flags over Freedomville T-shirt until the sleeves had been cut off. A spittle of saliva-diluted mayonnaise trickled down from the corner of his mouth and disappeared into the neckbeard-shaded folds of his multiple chins as he sunk his disgusting teeth into the sesame seed bun of a greaseball diner burger.

"Good eatin'," the fatfuck said to nobody in particular through gluttonous mastication. More likely a subconscious reaction he had absentmindedly voiced as his conscious mind was entirely focused on consuming and enjoying his burger.

"Yep, that's some good eatin'."

@gorgenmast

TODAY'S NEWS

The burgers from the Fatfuck's favourite have been recalled for containing approximately 90% Cobalt-60 by mass.

BLOOD & IRON: IMPERIAL AMBITION

The People of the Darkling Womb

Name of your Nation: The Drow Confederacy/self-named People of the Darkling Womb



Type of Government: Tribal Confederacy

Demographics & Population: Approximately 5 million.

Governance & Politics: The People of the Darkling Womb, though a technical Confederacy, can barely be called a unified people. Individual tribes and clans are governed in various ways - some by force, some by gerontocracy, some of the most ‘modern’ by classical monarchy, and others by vote. The confederacy is merely a loosely formal way for these tribes and communities to cooperate, meeting in a central, neutral location; a sanctuary nestled into the Earthen Womb, the large, towering mountain range near the western edge of their homeland. Deep within this sanctuary is an enormous pillar of a highly concentrated form of what the Darklings call the 'blood of the gods' (known elsewhere as manarite), running far deeper within the ground than even the Darklings have gone, holding enormous religious significance to most tribes. It is, however, incredibly dangerous to be around to all but the most powerful mages or the most physically resilient people.

Culture & Society: Contrary to popular belief in the human nation-states, the Dark Elves (or the People of the Darkling Womb, as they commonly refer to themselves), adamantly believe that elvenkind is the 'race' which others descend from, including themselves. Their race, they argue, descends from the pale-skinned stock adapted to the underground with darkened skin to better camouflage themselves in poorly-lit places, a wild difference from the ways in which some elves adopt other drastic changes to adapt to their environments - often in ways that humans cannot.

This is not to say that they believe elves to be inherently superior, however, but rather stands as an example of how their culture, absent human influence, has developed along fundamental lines that are not generally compatible with assimilation into human society.

Another is the relatively different nature of gender roles in Darkling society. The Darkling Kin, perhaps due to the unusual environment in which their civilization emerged, developed to be highly sexually flexible due to extremely high death rates (that often were just as high at the home as they were away from it), resulting in the unusually high prevalence of offspring-viable intersex people, and the cultural expectation that anyone, regardless of their biological sex, was expected to be highly fit and capable of fighting.

Darkling mastery over magic has since reduced many of these pressures, as has the introduction of foreign agricultural techniques, but the cultural expectation of violence and flexible gender roles has not abated, remaining strong even in the presence of influence considered highly unusual to the Darkling people.

Magic, likewise, has enormous cultural influence in the Darkling people, and ability to use it, while not the sole determinant of one's status, is a major contributor. Magic has both an enormous spiritual significance to the Darkling people (due to its necessity for contacting the extraplanar beings the Darkling communicate with and occasionally work alongside, particularly daemons and the divinities they serve) and necessary practical utility. It is, after all, incredibly difficult to survive beneath the earth without access to magic, and, in many ways, the Darklings' access to magic without the use of manarite technology is what allows them to survive being fully colonized. The foreigners may be communicated with, but they are nonetheless viewed with careful caution, as a general rule.

Magic & Technology: Unlike societies that rely on the industrial exploitation of manarite for their magic, the Darklings rely on it in another way entirely - exposure. Highly resilient to manarite mutation as a result of millennia of proximity to it, the Darkling are a generally highly magically adept people, though their unwillingness to cannibalize a substance they view with such immense reverence, and their until-recently lack of access to easily proliferating agricultural crops (not to mention the simple fact that they mostly live underground) has resulted in very low levels of industrial development compared to the countries colonizing their home archipelago. Many types of livestock of beasts of burden that allowed these civilizations to proliferate mass agriculture, also, simply didn’t exist until they were introduced, and many of those that have been introduced (such as horses) are utterly unsuitable for life in massive underground caverns.

What the Darklings have, though, are several sources of potent magic, both that from within and without; that is to say, through spiritual means. This magic, in fact, has been a prime factor in keeping their lands safe from encroachment, causing casualties in conflicts with colonial powers that make their home even less desirable, though it nonetheless posesses enormous resources of lumber and valuable minerals, not to mention an extensive network of underground tunnels to expedite transport.

Military Overview: Although a warrior culture in many respects, until skirmishes and battles with the Viceroyalty of Veliký Zelená (which have since ceased), the Darkling tribes, for the most part, had nothing resembling a formal military, instead relying on loose bands of warriors to resolve conflicts when words could not. Since contact with colonizers, however, a handful of bands have seen fit to adopt relatively modern military arrangements, complete with regiments and formal officer training. Most, however, still rely on nomadic bands, forced to constantly move through the places beneath the earth to avoid threats and follow sources of food, lacking the ability to establish permanent places for training.

Additional Info: (Miscellaneous information that don't really fit in any category.)

Bam.

N.E.O. - New Earth Oracle

April 1st, 1991

"One of the biggest bastards on the planet in a little town like this... Huh. Why are we killing him, again?"

"Please tell me you're joking. I know we didn't get much school, Jair, but you've gotta be-" the woman across from him began, the resulting wrinkles on her sepia-brown skin barely visible beneath the lenses of her full-face helmet.

Jair's hand went up, flat-palmed, signalling her to stop.

"Sarcasm", he said simply, shaking his head. "He's the king of bastards, the way I see it, the Neo-Nazi fuck. I know why we're here - to make an example."

"And show the Americans that there's a new player on the block," Jônatas - the man immediately to his right among another five - said, not so much as bothering to glance up from the rifle his eyes were boring a hole into.

"I know why I'm here!" Samara shouted over the noise of the helicopter's rotors, turning away from Jair.

"I'm talking about the government! The brass!" Jônatas snapped back, stopping to briefly glance out one of the helicopter's door windows. "I mean, think about it, right? All the shit that's going on, it's a great way to confuse the Americans, split their attention, distract them..."

Jair nodded.

"...So they want ways to do that that aren't going to cause problems for us! I mean, Terre'Blanche is a known war criminal. 'Africans should be exterminated or enslaved' kind of war criminal. The Butcher of Transvaal! Even the Americans aren't stupid enough to throw a fit about him getting killed, even if they do find out." He continued, animatedly waving his right hand about, a few more of the twenty heads around them turning to listen in to the conversation.

"So we kill him, the Americans either do nothing, so we know we can do whatever we want here, they dedicate resources to the area that then aren't going somewhere else..."

"...Or they side with a Neo-Nazi," Samara nodded in understanding, her grip on the butt of her rifle tightening.

"Exactly," he replied, Jair staring directly at him. "And, well, we get to kill a Nazi. Everybody wins."

"One minute!" A voice announced over the intercom as the two side doors of the helicopter swung open, a pair of personnel - one next to Jair - working to fix thick, weighted ropes in place.

"And we get some nice family photos out of it," Jair said, gesturing to another man, toward the front end of the helicopter's cargo bay, a Canon camera in a pouch at his hip opposite his sidearm.

"You think they'll know we're coming? Samara asked, posing the question to nobody in particular. Jair shrugged.

"Probably not. With the new antiradar missiles the SAIC is running, not to mention the jets we sold them, they'll be lucky if they even see us."

"Thirty seconds! Up, up, up!"

Jônatas nodded, jumping to his feet, and Jair followed soon afterward, then Samara, then, one by one, everyone else inside the helicopter. "These French helicopters are pretty quiet, too. I mean, figuratively - the pilot told me they've got tiny radar profiles. If they knew we were here..."

"We'd be dead by now," Samara said, and all three of them nodded together, while Jair struggled to flex his hands in the thick leather gloves around them.

"Ten!"

"Nine!"

Jair leaned, glancing out the open door, wind whipping past his face. Past the formation of slate-grey helicopters to either side of his, a handful of a distance away, were the dim lights of Ventersdorp, and a fenced-off compound a few hundred meters away in the kiddle of the town.

"...Five."

"Four.

"Three."

Closer and closer, the helicopters rocketed toward the compound. Now, it was practically under his feet - just as he heard the telltale, muted crack of a suppressed gunshot ring out, then another - helicopter snipers taking their pick of the compound's sentires, he imagined, and still no visible sign of anyone else waking up in the compound.

"Two!"

The roof of the largest building in the compound was beneath his feet now, gloved hands tightly clutching at the rope dangling from the helicopter.

If their intelligence was right, Terre'blanche wasn't far.

"One. Go!"

A pat on his back sent Jair sliding down the robe, the friction of the rope he was clinging to tangible even beneath thick leather gloves. The flat, green roof approached rapidly, so fast that Jair didn't even have time to think before his boots hit the ground and he shuffled away, yanking away at his outermost gloves as he watched the remaining seventeen follow, sliding down the four ropes one by one... But only for a moment.

Time, unfortunately, was of the essence. Jair had a Nazi to kill.

Only briefly glancing over his shoulder to make sure his comrades-in-arms were following him, Jair shouldered his rifle, moving up to the side of the door nearest him - rooftop access - and pressed a large, handheld millimeter wave scanner against it, watching the small display on its body for any sign of movement behind the door.

Nothing yet

By the time he'd finished, four of his squadmates were already beside and behind him - and with a muffled grunt, he brought his leg up and drove his heel into the door just beneath the keyhole, smashing the thin wooden door open, leaving him in yet more darkness.

Sliding infrared goggles over his face that bathed his vision in green light, he fast-walked down the stairs, moving past the first landing, yet more of his comrades heading into the door he left behind to the telltale snap of suppressed gunfire.

He finally paused at the second landing, glancing through the small window at the door.

A face - no, two. Three?

Stepping back to the side of the door, he held up his hand to stop, quietly testing the door handle...

It didn't stop.

Flinging the door open, he fired a burst down the hallway, another flying past his shoulder - and he say the first bodies drop, the first barely managing to start shouting curses in Afrikaans before three sharp cracks sounded and a large hole opened in his neck.

"Second hallway. Take a left where the first hallway bends, then take your first right, then it's the fifth door on the left, right on the northwest corner of the building." He reminded himself, paying no attention to the soldiers filtering in behind his group, checking the doors behind him, the chopchopchop noise of whirling helicopter blades still audible outside as yet more came in to land, gunfire becoming more and more frequent, behind, above, and below him.

Reaching a fork in the hallway, Jair quietly peaked past it, catching sight of another pale-skinned militaman. Quickly popping around the corner with his finger on the trigger, he gave it a quick squeeze - and down the man went, writhing on the ground until Jair ended his life with another pull of the trigger, the barrel of his gun mere inches from his head. His body went limp as blood and brains oozed from his burst-open skull, and Jair moved on without another thought, turning right down another hallway.

Fifth door on the left, northwest corner, he reminded himself, practically sprinting down the third, much shorter hallway, past more closed doors. It took only a handful of seconds to reach the end, and, once again, he pressed himself to the side of the thin wooden door, backing up a handful of steps.

Ambrósio - the fifth assigned to their squad - knelt down at the door, sliding a small, black strip beneath it, a small box in his upon which were two buttons. One red, one green, and a small red switch on top. A brief glance and a nod passed between them as Ambrósio, a handful of inches shorter than Jair, stepped away from the door, flipping the red switch.

He we go, he thought - then a click and a loud, nearly ear-piercing bang, muffled by his ear protection. Stepping forward to the sound of a deep, slurred voice cursing in Afrikaans, he jammed his heel into a thin wooden door, and down it went.

Eugene Terrblanche, half-dressed out of bed, barely had the chance to turn to see Jair's dark-skinned face befpre his rifle went up and three bullets cut open his throat.

---

April 2nd, 1991
The call came to Adriaan's station fourty minutes after midnight.

Five helicopters moving toward Ventersdorp that'd somehow managed to slip past the ANP's radar networks, landing at the HNP compound in the middle of the town.

So late at night, and on such short notice, the SADF Army colonel hadn't much time to organize a response - but he had enough to smash together a group of one hundred-somethibg militiamen and stuff them onto tent-backed SAMIL 20s, onto an hour-long drive toward Ventersdorp in the dead of night.

Their drive through Ventersdorp, for the most part, was uneventful. A few people stared out at the convoy from the windows of their poorly lit houses, some with broken roofs or crumbling walls - but most, it seemed, were perfectly content to keep their curtains drawn and their lights off, leaving the town as something more like a ghost town than anything inhabited.

It was eerie, he thought, as the convoy rolled up to a large, green-roofed fenced off building - Terreblanche's compound, up to a busted-open gate.

The very moment the trucks stopped, the militamen, wielding battered R1s older than most of them were.

Adriaan followed with a sharp grunt as he dismounted, sauntering toward the gate as troops rushed toward the building, not a single helicopter in sight, clustering about the door, quietly muttering about something in hushed whispers.

The first hint he had that something was wrong was one of the younger men stumbling away and emptying the contents of his lunch onto the ground, then another, and another, and as he got closer, he finally saw why.

Tying together the handles on the large double-doors ahead of him was a rope dripping with blood, and hanging from that by its hair was the head of a chubby, grey-haired old man, his sockets empty aside from a mess of blood, gore, and ravaged muscle, a note nailed to his upper lip, in fluent, penciled Afrikaans.

"A gift from friends of Africa"