Session 5
Scheduled for 7/9. Be there or be heretical.
Scheduled for 7/9. Be there or be heretical.
200 points apiece except Tauron, who got 300; total is 1000 each.
Spends
If you put together all the background and sort it and so on, it looks like this. The Emperor is of course the largest word.
Due to player absence and celebratory evenings.
House Callidon is a minor noble house with a long history of bibliophilia. It is located on the Hive World of Baraspine. Our loyal band of servants arrived at the House on assignment to recover a certain book, twin to the one almost stolen by heretics. They were assured that Baron Callidon would understand the necessity.
Matters started to go wrong on arrival, when they were met by a nervous castellan, one Cheswick. He explained, or rather did not really explain, that something awful had happened to the Baron. Baroness Callidon echoed his concern and his lack of clarity both. In the end, Wollsey cut through the static and ordered the group brought to the Baron.
The Baron was situated in the library, past a set of armed guards and hastily installed locks. While he was, in some senses, alive, he was also missing the top half of his head; from all appearances, his head had exploded from the inside out. Nonetheless he was able to communicate, after a fashion. He explained that he’d be happy to give over the book, but he didn’t have it any more, because it had been stolen. Presumably by the same people who left him in his current state. His madness limited his utility.
Octus departed the library to interrogate everyone within reach, beginning with the Baroness and Cheswick. Grim spent a little while investigating the library; it was for the most part rare historical works, with some mild heresy mixed in. Wollsey braced himself and dug around in the remains of the Baron for a little while, discovering some non-human meat in with the rest. Beef, perhaps?
Meanwhile, Octus learned first that the House had been on “lockdown,” and second that the House’s definition of lockdown did not include excluding servants. After much interrogation and study of records, it became clear that the only outsiders in the House at the time of the incident were slaughtermen, or butchers. While nobody remembered them leaving the kitchen area, or doing anything except dropping off carcasses, it was also the case that several people had odd lapses of memory around that evening.
Back in the library, Wollsey ordered the room burnt to the ground. The Baron did not object. Grim, watching with psyker eyes, saw the Baron’s consciousness flee the room, but without a host it seemed unlikely that it would last long.
The team proceeded to the kitchen, where Wollsey noticed a kitchen boy — one Gebbo Thumb — acting suspiciously. He fled when he noticed Wollsey’s attention, but Grim and Mir had little trouble apprehending him.
He admitted to allowing the slaughtermen in, and noted that they weren’t the usual vendors. As is standard practice among the noble houses of Baraspine, he accepted a bribe to allow a new set of tradesmen a chance to out-do the usual ones. The arrangement was organized by his brother Herrick, who was in the business of making such arrangements.
With some persuasion, Gebbo agreed to take the team to his brother. Without any delay, the group proceeded down into the bowels of the Hive. Midway down, two men — slaughtermen, from their garb — attacked the group with chain-axes. They moved with an odd, unjointed stiffness. When Mir cut off one’s arm, a chitinous thing was visible where a skeleton might otherwise be, and when the pair was killed two spider-like creatures withdrew their five limbs, each limb corresponding to arm and arm and leg and leg, and fled into the sewers.
The team is now partially wounded, and contemplating the next move.
Every Arbitrator of every rank wears a mask. These masks are intended to symbolize the impersonal, implacable nature of Imperial Law, and also to protect the identity of those who devote their lives to dispensing the Emperor’s Justice. Arbitrators are expected to wear their mask whenever acting in an official capacity, and to keep their masks clean, polished and in good repair.
Low-ranking Arbitrators are issued their masks. These are simple things made of a bronze-like metal, generally featureless, and are a familiar sight on most worlds. They provide no additional protection to the wearer’s face or head, and are cheaply and easily replaced. As Arbitrators advance through the ranks, however, they are awarded better masks, which cover the head, doubling as flak helmets. Here, Arbitrators are permitted to customize their masks with useful devices, such as filtration plugs and re-breathers, though the expense of such outfitting must be borne by the individual. The masks worn by the uppermost echelons of the Adeptus Arbites are baroque, terrifying things: massive helms that engulf the head and neck, beautifully detailed and incorporating the rarest and most expensive technology.
200 points apiece; total is 800 each.
Spends
Atellus: Psy Rating 2
Octus: +5 Ballistics Skill
Grim: Psy Rating 2
Woolsey: Deceit +10
Tag, here. This looks like a reformatting of the material on the old GW Dark Heresy site, which is perfect. Printable.
Have you ever seen the Emperor?
On a thousand, million worlds his name is worshiped and revered and often taken in vain. His likeness and icons and symbols are carved into the sides of great cathedrals and given a place of honor in every home. From the moment of your birth to the second of your death the mass of humanity is immersed and supports the unstoppable tidal wave of faith that focuses on our Emperor and Saviour.
But have you seen the Emperor?
Not in pictures. Not in vids. Have you actually been to Holy Terra, stood before the Holy Throne and looked up at the physical reality of Humanity’s god?
I have.
My story, I suppose, is so common as to be unremarkable. I grew up on an Imperial World called Melinda’s Gift. A place far from the Calixis Sector, deep in human space, Melinda’s Gift was actually a pretty nice world. We didn’t fear attack by Ork or Tyrannid. It was mostly devoted to agriculture, but there were also a number of prime “administrative centers”, which were really high-end resorts for harried Imperial bureaucrats.
For the most part I had a pretty happy childhood. I was never the strongest, or fastest, or most popular, but I always seemed to do fairly well. If I was known for anything it was that I was considered to be rather lucky. Few of the other kids would play poker with me after awhile. Despite this, I was well-liked and tried to live as the Emperor commands.
In High School we got tested for psychic ability. I know now that this process can be much more “involved” on other planets. Melinda’s Gift reduced the whole affair to a benign administrative process. The kids would line up in the gym and the Psykers would run their scanners over you. If the test read positive, off you went. Admittedly, the Pyskers were very creepy and despite the positive spin put on things, no one really wanted to go off with them, but the whole process was fairly bland. Things got a little more exciting when someone would spontaneously manifest in class. Then school security would have to rush the poor kid and beat him down. There weren’t too many of those, the screenings caught most people early, but they happened from time to time.
So kids got scanned and the psychic ones would be hauled off. Funny thing was, I was never scanned the entire time I was at school. The scanner would break, or I’d be home sick, or I’d get detention, or some other thing always got in the way. Since the scanning was an annual deal, all us figured, I’d just get scanned next year and things would be fine. But somehow, I never managed to get scanned.
Of course, that was the basic manifestation and by the time I reached my senior year, the Pyskers realized that something was up. What followed was the most bizarre day of my entire life. The Psykers requisitioned a squad of Arbiters to pull me in. It should’ve been easy enough and I probably would’ve complied with anything they told me to do, but freak accidents and bizarre coincidences foiled the Arbiters time and time again. I didn’t know what was going on. At every moment I was either unaware of the Imperial attention or naturally reacting to some disaster that was happening around me. In the end, the school was leveled, about a dozen people were killed a few dozen more were injured, three other kids spontaneously manifested powers that went out of control and spawned chaos entities, and 8 high-ranking Pyskers had to be called in to get things under control. There was talk of the Space Marines paying a visit, but the Imperial Guard managed to clean up most of the mess. So Miranda’s Gift was never so happy to see a Black Ship arrive.
You’ll hear a lot of horror stories about the Black Ships. All of them are false. Life aboard those ships is a million times worse. I’m not going to talk about it except to say that I was keenly tested to determine the extent of my power. Nothing ever came of it. I was assumed to be some sort of psyker idiot savant. I could sometimes manifest great power, but there was no conscious control of it. After a great deal of testing it was decided that I was better off being fed to the Emperor. By that point, being fed to the Emperor seemed like the greatest thing in universe and it had nothing to do with the drugs or psycho-ganda.
So I’m standing in the long line that leads to the furnace. The one blessing they give to you is that the line winds right past the Throne and everyone who goes in gets a chance to look at the Emperor who’s about to eat them. Actually, I got a second blessing, they dope up the sacrifices so that they’ll stay quiet and complacent as they shuffle off to death, but the injector missed or something, I was completely lucid. It didn’t matter. I was about to be eaten by the Emperor rather than spend another second on the Black Ship, I was content.
So I’m looking up at this shattered, dessicated corpse nestled in its web of technology. It’s not at all what I’m expecting, but even an idiot savant like me can feel the monstrous waves of psychic energy roaring out of this man. I’m looking right at the Emperor of Mankind without a sliver of a doubt.
Then…everything falls away and I’m standing in this field and across from me is the Emperor, but it’s not a tube-ensconced corpse, it’s this man. He’s tall and trim and his hair is white and his eyes are blue. The Emperor has reached out and swept my small, insignificant mind into his. He’s…Love. That’s really the only way I can describe it. He loves humanity, loves me so much that he’ll do anything to keep us happy. That’s tough right now. It’s a cold, hostile universe and we have to be tough to beat back the aliens and chaos and stuff, but that’s not where he wants us to be. He doesn’t want us stacked like cord wood in Hiveworlds, he doesn’t want to devour endless souls to keep the beacon alight, he doesn’t want the billions of atrocities that must be committed to keep Humanity alive, but for now, those atrocities are all that’s keeping humanity alive. Someday, when we win, he’ll take it all apart. He’ll come out of his shell and travel the worlds of Humanity and each planet he walks upon will be molded by his powerful mind into the beautiful paradise he’s always wanted for humanity. A place in his mind that I’ve been to.
We spent long days walking, talking, getting to know one another. He shared the wonders of his future plans for humanity with me and I…well, I hope that I managed to ease the terrible burdens that he shoulders because he loves all of us so much.
Finally, we’re lying on the beach snuggled together looking up at the stars (and looking up at them in wonder not fear!) and he says to me, “Atellus, this is my dream, but we’ve got a lot of work to do before it can come true”.
“I know,” I said.
“That’s why I’ve got to ask you something.”
“You’re going to eat me now?”
“No,” he laughed (god, what a laugh), “I love you too much for that. I need you to go far away to the Calixis Sector. There’s an Inquisitor out there in charge of heretical material and I need you to help him in his work.”
“What would I be doing?”
“Well, officially you do whatever the Inquistor says you should do,” said the Emperor.
I smiled, “And unofficially?”
He smiled back, “Well, I’m not sending you out alone. You’ll be reporting to a man named Wollsey. One of the best agents I have. I’ve had a premonition that he might be in some sort of trouble, so I’m hoping that while he’s keeping you safe, you can watch his back, OK?”
“OK.”
“There’s one other thing. The Inquistor you work for is in charge of heretical material, but he doesn’t go around burning books. He keeps them.”
“And you want me to expose his treachery and burn him on the pyre of his own books?”
He laughed again, “No. The truth is that none of them know what true heresy is anymore. So great works of evil get swept up with the scrawlings of madmen or even truly useful things. There are any number of perfectly harmless books written during the Dark Age of Technology that are now decried as heresy. It’s all part of the great price we pay to keep Humanity safe. The thing is, I’m pretty sure that among the books in this Inquisitor’s library is a couple of books on cellular regeneration. The technology was pretty advanced at the end of the Dark Ages. The apparatus that keeps me alive makes use of a number of its techniques. But the Holy Throne was the best that could be cobbled together at the end of a devastating civil war. If I could find a few more books on the subject, a few more advanced, complete tomes, the med-techs could take advantage of it. Not only would it make my existence more tolerable, but it could hold the key to banishing our enemies once and for all. The aliens would find near-immortal humans impossible to defeat, chaos would find a revivified Emperor and bolstered Pyskers an insurmountable barrier. We could break out of our decaying stalemate and usher in the golden era I’ve long dreamed of and that we’ve shared together here.”
“Do these books have a name?”
“Not yet. I can see them very clearly,” he said as a large blue book with a hexagonal cover patter appeared before me. “And now you have too. But you’ll hardly be successful if you ask to see ‘the big blue book’. I’ve got other archivists working on the names. When I have them, I’ll let you know. Get those books back home to me and it will be the end of all this madness.”
“I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t, Atellus,” he gave me a quick kiss. “The sooner you get started the better. But before you go, there’s one last thing I need to tell you.”
He whispered into my ear and everything went white. When my vision cleared I was sitting in a chair next to the Holy Throne surrounded by Imperial Priests and Custodes. I was dressed in fine robes and there was a ring on my finger. I’d been out for almost a day and a half. My return to consciousness was followed by a very intense examination that made me wish I was back on the Black Ship. In the end, I told them what they wanted to hear. My time with the Emperor also gave me active control over my abilities. I was soon in training as a fully-sanctioned Psyker and actually making some good use of my abilities. I never told them about my mission, but was unsurprised when the orders came down for my transfer. So I set off for Calixis.
I have seen the Emperor, both as he is and as he will be. That alone is blessing enough. But in my heart I carry the great secret that the Emperor bestowed on me. The spark of joy that will shield me from all harm and care.
I know the Emperor’s Name.
