Spee

Description:

A bronze skinned man from Fedrid, almost 2 meters in height and a bit over 90 kg (6' 200lbs). A mane of long black hair extends over his modified explosive collar. In combat he pulls it into a pair of braids wrapped with 550 cord.

Demeanor:

Though the savages from the feral planets are often expected to be stoic and brooding, Spee is about as loud and rambunctious as one can get. Full of stories about the battles that he has fought in, often repeating the same narrative in a number of ways, the former Scout can while away the time talking to himself if he has to.

He has a taste for amsec and lho sticks, and finds himself often losing in games of chance to that blasted psyker when he isn't chatting up Conny M to no effect. Nolan and Spee, have a mutual dislike premised on the stripling wedged in the poster boy's tail. Varghast has a few tricks (particularly in urban environs) that are useful, making for a relationship of professional respect. Volich is a bit too dour but more trustworthy than say that creepy preacher, the noble, Three-fingers or Vic & his cronies. Spee has taken to looking out for Loenida, Kat and Slayer...not that they can't take care of themselves (well Loenida & Kat anyway) but they seem to be here by the whim of the fates unlike himself and most of the others. Kenzie and he have an arrangement where the mutilated provides him with upgrades in exchange for anything interesting he finds while on point. He also provides some herbal remedies to Doc, with the understanding that the medic will use them come Spee's time under the knife. The rest he treats with varying levels of ambivalence, in as friendly a demeanor as one can expect in a penal legion.

Of course this changes in the field. Able to maneuver with very little sound the guardsman can move into position and mark targets or eliminate them on command. Using the survival skills of his home planet Spee is born to fight and trained to kill...swift, silent, deadly.

Background:

The way he tells it he had been assigned to the Margin Crusade. His unit was assigned some nameless jungle death planet. As the IG tithe from Fedrid they performed rather well in their limited skirmishes. Reconnaissance and covert operations were their specialty...up until the Chaliced Commissariat officer arrived.

He forced the men into a more standard regulation uniform deep red in color, denying them their Soul Masks, as well as issuing autoguns in order to "Shock and Awe" their enemies. The new tactica undermined their mission objectives of stealth and many of the men wound up toe tagged & bagged. Moreover, the Chaliced Commissar was selling the Soul Masks for a brisk profit back on Scintilla as curiosities.

It was a bit over a month before Spee had the officer in his sights. As the unit's sharpshooter he had been issued a Hunting Rifle with telescopic sight. Less than five pounds of pressure on his trigger, a booming report, a shower for the men standing near him and the issue had been resolved.

About 6 months after that the the papers for his new duty station arrived with the replacement officer...Spee was a member of a penal legion.

Gear:

Spee pushes the boundaries with his kit, but as a scout he is provided a bit more space...after all the officers would like to know where not to stand when the Emperor provides the criminals with his mercy.

Once again his unit's primary scout and reconnaissance trooper Spee has been fitted with a modified collar. What it does he doesn't rightly know but Kenzie has informed him it is not the same make as the rest of the unit. Thus far it has deterred Spee from shooting anyone that he hasn't been cleared to engage. Not that he hasn't used the threat to deter any issues with his comrades from coming to a head. It also has prevented any escape attempt.

Kenzie has worked with Spee on a number of things to include aiding him in manufacturing a pair of Razor Disks and outfitting his re-issued hunting rifle with a bi-pod and silencer. Doc has provided the steady hands to assist in the assembly of smoke flares. The scout also wears a braid cloak crafted with help from Kat into combat when applicable.

Spee's most valued possession is always strapped to his back, a handmade Soul Mask, deep burgundy in color. More than a few of the 1500 that aren't populating the squad bays any longer added some color to the Mask, when they took Spee's boisterousness as bluster. While quick to laugh in most situations, the Mask is his connection to his people, planet and unit. None of which he considers a laughing matter.

Tech Priestess Opala

Description: Opala was a mildly attractive woman prior to her initiation into the machine cult, but the transformations she underwent through her initiation and early rise in the church have all but erased that beauty. Divided almost perfectly between bio mass and machine, the broken demarcation between her human and mechanical halves is a good metaphor for the depth of her personality.

Quirks: Though Opala can be cold and inhuman at times - accepting even the most terrible things with a detachment that can be unnerving to those who don't know her - she maintains a strong connection to her biological past and it is this which gets her into trouble. Most notably the priestess is attracted to the pleasures and stimulations of the flesh ... this may not necessarily be sexual, though at times it certainly is. This manifests most commonly as suggestive comments to her male companions or a passionate desire to throw herself into new experiences.

History: Born into a family of socially comfortable maintinance workers, Opala was raised around machines and learned to appreciate and feel the machine spirits quite early in her life. When other girls were discovering boys, she was contemplating the mysteries of gear and circuit, so when the opportunity arose, she eagery pursued a calling into the Machine Cult. Though she succeeded well initially, Opala soon began recognizing the things she had deprived herself as she observed the lives of "untouched", biologically complete humans.

Instead of distancing herself from the desires of the flesh, her initiation into the cult made her appreciate and long for it all the more. Initially this manifested itself in acts of daring or disobediance that frustrated her superiors ... but it was not until she was caught using her augmentics to partake in the carnal knowledge of a servitor that she was punished for her transgressions.

Technically the Tech Priestess is not subject to the laws which condemned the others to this penal battalion, however, her superiors have assigned her to the task of assisting and living within the limitations of the unit as a method of punishment; it is hoped that living and suffering among these dregs of humanity will cure her of her obsessions. In truth, however, it has merely opened her eyes to another experience to which she was unaware and she has - surprisingly even to herself - developed a particular fondness for combat.

Well, I've run through the majority of the NPCs here - penal platoons are damned deadly places - and I could certainly use any more ideas people have.

Solahma

Solahma is battle-worn man with slightly greying skin and the appearance of permanent weariness. He doesn't speak much with his fellow soldiers, preferring to retain a quiet, almost placid sense of reserve, though when he does it is with a steady-paced and pleasant voice. This is easily misinterpreted as Solahma being one of the few "level-headed" people seen in a Penal Legion. Those with a better understanding of human nature, perhaps more grounded in reality than the average penal legionarre, would recognise it as complete emotional detachment from any and everything. Sometime during the numerous beatings and hazings on the way to the Penal Legions, something simply broke in Solahma's mind and was never fixed.

Very little formal information about the man exists, but from the tatty shreds of his uniform and the crude branding on his greyish forehead it appears he was once a junior officer in an Imperial Guard regiment drafted from Dreah. During a deployment, Solahma's regiment was deployed to hold a Hive from rampaging orks, where it suffered heavy losses in just under a week of bombardment. The regiment's advisors calculated that one company would be required to hold a narrow canyon outside the city to stall for time while reinforcements arrived to bail out the depleted regiment, and so the company commanders drew straws for the suicide mission. Solahma's company was given the "honour" and marched out within the day.

During the battle, Solahma's platoon was given the order by the company's commissar (the captain had been shot for cowardice in his duties prior to this moment) to charge the ork lines to buy a precious thirty seconds for the rest of the Hive. Solahma shot the commissar and ordered his troops to fall back instead, using the rest of the company's deaths as a delay while they readied themselves at the narrowest point of the canyon.

One of the five reinforcing regiments found the remainders of the company 36 hours after their deployment, the nineteen survivors standing shoulder-to-shoulder before a literal wall of dead orks. When fully informed of the unit's actions, Solahma and his verterans were placed immediately into the Penal Legions. The rest of the regiment was punished, with the complete executions of the colonel in command of the regiment and his chief advisors and the rest suffering decimation, for being so callous as to send only one company to fight by itself.

In battle, Solahma makes for a good tactical co-ordinator. He has a sound knowledge of tactics in small to medium-scale engagements, specifically on the defensive, and a level head. Whatever empathy he must have had for his men prior to the Penal Legions has all but faded, however, and you can never count on him looking out for anyone's lives, himself or otherwise. If anything, he is now more than willing to sacrifice the lives of others to take stray rounds or entire ambushes for him if necessary.

Subject: Synod Gar (Penal Legionnaire No. 8829324)

Short History:
Was found by several Penal Legionaries as a young man, wandering the battle field partially on fire. Was found to have an aptitude for burning not unrelated to his apparent inability to feel burns.
Wears a self contained suit to avoid killing himself due to heat exposure.

(Continued survival of subject is due to the sealed nature of his suit. Removal of suit is likely to cause death within 5 hours due to massive infection)

Psyche report:
Due to severe burning to the majority of his body, face and throat, subject cannot talk, preferring to communicate through grunts, gestures or writing.
Also, it seems that his rather 'unhealthy' devotion to fire-starting hides a rather devious mind. Great care is too be taken when giving the subject a real flame weapon (This is advised against, but subject would be rather useless in any other role, as his interest in things that do not 'fuel' his pyromania is limited)