Hi all. My friends and I are starting to prepare for some games of Deathwatch and I thought I'd share our preludes with you.

Here's mine...

The Sound of Wings

Deep within the fortress, Decimus Artorius Venator lay dreaming. While without, only the gentle hiss and whir of the arcane devices endlessly tasked with filtering impurities from his blood punctured the silence, within, a cacophony of sights and sounds streamed through his slumbering mind.

He dreamt of his father and the day that the awful burden had been placed on his narrow shoulders. He had barely turned twelve cycles by the count of his people that day. He knew most of the tale even as his father spoke it. Of how his great-great grandsire had won great honour for the clan and how that renown had dripped and ebbed away, despite their best efforts, like a man touched with a mortal wound who knowing the inevitable, still clutches at it in desperation, even as his heart's blood pools on the floor before him. The tale moved on, to the most recent calamity. Decimus's older brother Claudio had been found wanting by the Angels, despite being powerfully built by the standards of his emaciated and stunted people. Rumours that a weakness had found its way into the blood of the family were running rife and unless something was done, they would be forced to look to their own, turning the gossip into unwholesome truth. It was his turn to untaken the journey to Angel's fall. After his father had stopped speaking, he closed his eyes, almost crushed by the task ahead. Then for a fleeting instant, he thought he could hear the sound of wings...

His mind's eye shifted, only to focus on another memory. It was from the time when he was still growing, still shifting into a distant echo of his new father's former glory. He and his squad had infiltrated into the heart of a catacomb, searching for one of the mad servants of a man who plunged an entire world into fire and darkness. Eventually their field-craft had been found wanting and they had nearly be overwhelmed by a living tide of flesh racked and twisted away from its true form by the darker powers that thirsted from beyond the stars. Besiphon and Valenius had died that day. A single crimson tear for his brothers welled up and ran down his achingly perfect cheek even as the dream moved on. Still they had prevailed. When the raging insanity had died away, he had come to the senses as he was about to bring his blade down upon the body of a girl with crimson eyes. For a moment, he froze, confronted by the ghost of the mutant girl who had said nothing, only stared when he in another life had foolishly taken up his friends' dare and tried to sneak into the cannibals' camp. He knew in that instance that only blind fate had seen to it that he had been born and raised among the chosen. The girl before him now spat and hissed, her face contorting into bestial fury and the moment was broken. In an instant so small it could barely said to have existed, her head was severed, her chest pulped asunder as he vented his shame upon her.

His vision wavered and the scene before him redrew itself to form that of another conflict. His second engagement clad in the might of mark VII plate. The Eldar had come with all the fire and deadly grace that their dying race could still command and the Blood Angels had met them head on, loathe to allow them the satisfaction of denying a world to his Divine Majesty. In their mercurial haste and limitless arrogance, the wandering ones had not even deemed it necessary to inform their victims as to the reason behind their slaughter. It had only been after he had crossed blades with one of their seers that the truth had come out. In the flurry of blows, his helmet had been rendered useless and after its swift removal, they had met in a clinch. With a roar, he had ripped the creature's palid throat out and drunk deep of the crimson fluid. His perception had shifted, almost overwhelmed by the dead creature's terror. For unknown to all, a deluded cult was even now seeking to slash the veil between this world and the next and bring a blasphemy into the world. For once, his sergeant had to make do with the Eldar's sweetmeats.

Again a ripple and a change. This time, the memory was more recent, vivid with the hues of his last battle. The orks had come, burning and breaking. Laughing like idiot children while they tore man's works asunder, oblivious to their fragile beauty. His and his squad were patrolling through the blacked corpse of one of too many cities, when they had stumbled upon the Church. Within, the beasts gibbered, grunting in their moronic, thick tongue, while they unloaded thick roaring bolts into the statues of the Emperor and his saints. A dull roar had filled his ears and it had taken him a brief moment to realise that it was the dull double-thump of his twin hearts, stretched out in time. The red mist had descended and raw power burned through his veins. The thick blood of the beasts drenched the floor, the chapel turning into an abattoir, barely able to contain the wrath of the Blood Angels. When the slaughter was done and his vision had cleared, he looked up at the shattered glory of what had undoubtedly been the work of a gifted man's lifetime and wept. The statue despite its violated and broken condition still held the eye. A monument to the nobility and glory of mankind had been lost to the ages.

Decimus woke with a start. Footsteps echoed as two forms walked towards his crypt. His eyes drifted briefly over the slab of marble that with his best efforts had yet to take on the radiance of the statue in his dreams. With a thought, he ordered the devices to detach from the various apertures in his black carapace and swiftly donned the crimson habit that had been hanging on the wall. His brow creased in consternation as he gazed into the supernova blue eyes of Captain Zedrenael, before turning to look upon a man clad in dark armour, a red and black marble "I" proudly displayed upon his chest. The man smelt of secrets and of terrible knowledge gained from musty tomes. His aged face was still hard with purpose.

"Decimus," Zedenael spoke, "this is Inquisitor Toll of the Ordo Xenos. He has ever fought alongside us and now looks to us for aid."

"Tell me, marine," the inquisitor's voice was deep for a human and was only just starting to quaver with age, "what do you know of the Deathwatch?"

Years of training flew by. Some of it had tested him more than he could have imagined. Several times his post-human flesh had felt more like that of the timid boy that had by luck as much as skill made the journey through the rad-deserts to Angel's fall. Then abruptly it was over and he was left to meditate on the task before him, standing in somber vigil over his armour. As he stared at its now unfamiliar form, Decimus felt a cold shiver, like the chill promise of the grave, run down his spine. Repainted in matt black, the plate now resembled that of the Death Company, those doomed souls driven mad by their father's last moments. Only the gun metal shoulder pad and right arm broke the illusion. That and one other detail, the true significance of which began to penetrate his consciousness. No longer was his helm framed by the twin globes of his backpack's heat sinks. With dawning elation, Decimus stepped to one side, saw the might of an Astrates pattern jump pack and for an instant, heard the sound of wings....

Here's Bob_Hunk's:

Brother-Codicier Gottfried knelt in his spartan cell listening to captain Siegward’s footsteps as he approached. He did not need to use his warp-sight to know it was the captain; Siegward betrayed his identity through the distinctive sound of his bionic leg. The minute difference in his gait would have been all but indistinguishable to human ears, but his Lyman’s ear made the difference as plain as day to Gottfried. Not only that, but it allowed him to discern the presence of softer footfalls in the captain’s wake. The footsteps halted outside his cell and a surprisingly soft knock sounded on the door.

“You may enter captain,” said Gottfried, remaining in a kneeling position in front of his miniature shrine to the Emperor, eyes closed in prayer. In his mind’s eye he saw the door to his cell swing open and the captain enter, resplendent in the bright yellow battle-plate of the Imperial Fists. Captain Siegward nodded respectfully to the Librarian, as did the mortal man at his side, a man swathed in black robes and wearing a crimson seal.

Gottfried finished his prayer, bowed low to the shrine, and rose to his feet. With the three of them in the cell there was not much space to spare. As part of their strict life of purity and self-denial the Librarius only provided very basic living quarters for their members. A sleeping mat ran alongside one of the stone walls, Gottfried’s aegis-enhanced power armour and personal force weapon floated in a suspensor field opposite it. The only other objects in the room were a small chest containing a spare set of robes and lapping paste for the armour, and of course the shine to the Emperor in front of which the Librarian had been kneeling moments before.

“I trust this day finds you ready to do as the Emperor bids?” enquired captain Siegward.

“That it does, brother, just as all have previously,” replied Gottfried solemnly.

“And what of the bidding of the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition?” asked the man of the crimson seal.

“They too are bound to serve the Emperor’s will, as are the Imperial Fists. To ask this question serves no purpose when you have already heard my answer.”

The man smiled and nodded.

“Quite so. Allow me to introduce myself, my Lord, and present a petition from the Holy Ordo Xenos,” replied the crimson man, “my name is Inquisitor-Advocate Bartholomeus. Your recent heroic actions in cleansing the Hrud warrens in the Rien star system have come to the attention of our order.”

Gottfried cast his mind back over previous months, his eyes playing over the now dormant force halberd that hung suspended nearby. It’s intricately wrought blade had ended many foul xenos lives on Rien Major during that campaign. He recalled scrying the location of the elusive Hrud twilight praetorians, rooting out their shrouded bases and confounding the foul blasphemy of their warp-seers. Imperial causalities for the final assault had been well below even the most optimistic projections.

“Your own chapter records note that your skill and bravery shortened the campaign by weeks,” continued Bartholomeus, “and it is prowess such as yours and the experience that you have gained against the xenos scourge that we value most highly for the Deathwatch. Even as we speak deputations of my fellow Inquisitor-Advocates are visiting your brother chapters to petition for new members. A Deathwatch team is being founded to perform a mission of incalculable importance to the Imperium of Man. Chief-Librarian Grenzstein has approved your secondment to this task, should you be willing…”

Bartholomeus trailed off, trying to read the Librarian’s answer in his face, but was met by an impenetrable wall of flint. Seconds ticked past, but in the unwavering gaze of the Librarian it felt to the Inquisitor that each of them lasted for an epoch. Finally, Gottfried answered.

“The Emperor’s will shall be done, Inquisitor.”

Thanks for sharing these. I too am getting ready to run my campaign and did some preludes for the group. Unfortunately I included some straight copy & paste of certain items from the rulebook so I can't really post them here without breaking IP. (mostly the descriptions of the Watch Fortress and Omega Vault for example).

Cheers

Here's Apologist's:

With a stilted gait, I picked my way along the corridor; reaching out to steady myself against the dripping corridors. Everything about this craft felt subtly wrong – and it wasn't simply the lack of gravity. The walls glistened, and turned abruptly into flooring, with no sense of logic or reason. Mag-grab soles were useless on the slippery stuff underfoot, so I moved driftingly, my vision tuned through the hood, cutting my view into a narrow tunnel trained down the artery ahead. I cursed as some resinous cysts crackled under my elbow as I braced myself against the wall-floor.
+Tick.+

I closed my eyes in frustration, though the autosenses ensured my perception remained full; the hood identifying and sifting data, highlighting and marking ranges through the boltgun. The frustration left a bitter, acrid taste in my mouth – the frustration and continual spore barrage, that is. My haemestamen and oolitic kidney were frantically dumping counter-acted phage cells and retrograded poisons into my Betcher's glands. A bad sign. I couldn't have long.

I pressed on, artfully using my combat blade to bisect a broad sheet of membrane, which rippled and quivered disturbingly, as though in pain. The air in the chamber chamber was hot and stale; and I felt the deflating, dead wind over my armour as though it were my own skin. Feeling dirty, I pushed my boltgun through the wet web, using it to glance round both corners, then stepped through.

+Tick. Growing tired, Santiagon? You IR-silhouetted yourself there.+ The voice was right; and it galled me. We'd been pursuing this damned renegade and his team for nearly two years; finally trapping him alone in a still-birthed Kraken. He was good. He was Deathwatch good – and worse; he was one of my own.

Did I say trapped? In truth, we had been dancing to his tune since we'd slipped in through the Kraken's ducts. The Caestus had disengaged; the onboard servitors over-ridden by stolen Astartes codes and locked into a deathrun, to the sobs and rage of the Inquisitorial stormtroopers we'd left aboard.

Bringing the Techmarine had, ultimately, been a mistake. His bulky servoharness had slowed him a fraction too much, and when the renegade had detonated the Kraken's cranial chamber, he'd been explosively decompressed; his superhuman physique voided into slippery ribbons through gaping rents in the slitted suit. The rest of us had barely escaped – compression had buckled my torso armour and shredded my primary heart; and the Scythe, his carapace peppered with holes, had woken an hour later from recupersleep to find his multi-lung heaving and his birthlungs writhing with larvae. Barely able to stand, let alone fight, Brother Soruman performed the excision of his geneseed. I think he was still alive when Soruman haltingly pulled out the degraded, spoiled ooze.

The Flesheater had been next – knowing brother Leafstaff's prediliction for omophage-tracking; the traitor Mercian had left trap-spoor in a cultivated dreamweb copse we found in the respiratory system. My lauded cousin, veteran of the Golgothan Wars, had died with his internals spiking; his eyes and skin sharding as I'd watched. He died, eyes furious at his deathspeech went unrecorded

The Marine Malevolent and Valedictor followed quickly afterwards; dying in their own ugly, messy, inventive ways. I was run-down; without backup. Throne alone knew how he survived this environment; and while I didn't envy the resourcefulness of traitors; my mind was ticking over, trying desperately to think up counter-strategems. I was Ordo-sanctioned too, after all – and no mean warrior. I'd crushed the tau on Kronus, made my name in the desperate tunnel-fighting on the Death of Integrity; and even fought Renegades during the shipside battles of Badab. I fought down those bitter memories. I needed to stay clear.

Stimms hissed coldly into my thigh as I mumbled the benediction for clear-sightedness and the suit's machine spirit responded. Clear-headed, now. Why was hunting one of my own Chapter so different? Somewhere, somehow, there was a way to triumph.

A surviving tyranid micro-grub, sickly looking and mottled, edged sullenly towards my foot. Tendrils fronded from the close walls of the makeshift door I'd made. Nothing was decaying – I remembered Brother Lrat explaining that the closed atmosphere of the bioships kept them from degrading. Even the human microbes we brought on our own suits could do nothing; aggressively shut down by the drifting, voracious tyanid microfauna before they could act; a microcosm of the Imperium's own struggle... I stopped myself. My hands were shaking as though palsied. Was he toying with me? The stimms were putting a stark, black border on everything, but my mind was drifting; paranoid – overedged. I forced myself to relax. As the only surviving member of the Killteam; he had to be hunting me.
Shrouded by the humid atmosphere, I nearly jumped despite myself when he called my name over the vox. +Santiagon.+

I swallowed heavily. He had to be nearby. Though I was loath to risk the pollution; I decided to direct-vox him, curtly.
+Captain Mercian.+

I could imagine that familiar stony expression as he began to intone what I recognised as the incantation of purgation.
+By the Throne of Terra; it falls to me to exact the will of Him on Earth...+ I was galled, and cut across him angrily on all channels.

+Cease this blasphemy, Mercian; you recite the Codex as though you know the meaning of your duty still. How dare you– + His voice interrupted mine:
+Duty? You speak to me of duty? Leading a renegade kill-team against a Captain of the Deathwatch? Rebelling from the Will of the Ordo?+

I swallowed. The psychological damage was clear to me now. I brought my boltgun up – I sensed him nearby.
+Duty is a relative word, Captain,+ I voxed, a grim smile splitting my face for the first time in days. +That is the first lesson Veck gave us; and it is you who have been labelled Crimson Active.+

His voice was twisted with either disgust or sadness. I cared not which: his renegade tongue was fat with lies; he was distracting me. I fought for focus over the stimms. +Your mind is clouded, Santiagon, if you think that your duty to the Throne ended when you joined the Ordo. Surrender; and I'll make this quick. You are – or were – a Novamarine; you deserve that much.+ I heard the tension in his reply; was he preparing to move?

+It is you who is mistaken, rebel – and whether your death is quick or sl– + My reply died as he ghosted across my vision, and my boltgun barked – too late. He had gone again, disappearing into the spore-misted air amongst the cannuli of the chamber. Filled with frustration, I yelled directly into the dead air, 'You lie! You led us here! You killed them! You –' I was furious at his lies; his misunderstanding of the nature of our secret duty to the Inquisition. Disgusted with myself at rising to his bait, I pushed forward in a broad circle round the chamber; trying to throw him off the scent and surprise him in turn.

I heard the hum of power armour; then felt sick as I saw his vambrace lying on the floor, disconnected from the suit, powering down. I'd spun about; it was all he needed. Two boltgun shells crashed into my legs, sending me spinning across the no-grav chamber. Instinctively, I overrode the directional jets of my backpack; forcing them to push into the spin rather than steadying me. It was all that saved me, as he briskly strode forward and his chainsword swung through the air, the teeth failing to find purchase.

He snarled, +The reward for betrayal is purgation, Santiagon. Duty is all!+

+It is you who is the renegade, Mercian!+ I yelled as I unloaded my boltgun into him, my backpack compensating for the kick. Two, three, four, five shells ricocheted from his stern armour, until one lodged in his unarmoured shoulder and tore his arm off meatily. His howl of pain ghosted over the comm-net. A few snaps, flashes; and I stood above him, my chainsword pinning him to the floor through his primary heart.

+I say again, Mercian; remember Veck's lesson.+ He grunted. Coughed blood. Tried to pull himself up the chainsword that pinned him, in order to ****** at me. With a stony face, I continued. +Revenge... now there is a word the Imperium – and I – can believe in.+

I saw the pupils contract behind the shattered lens of his visor. +Revenge is a word for those who have been wronged, Santiagon. I operate under the aegis of Inquisitor Malt– +

+I operate under the orders of Terentius!+ I cut him off, enraged. +Do you expect me to belive the word of a traitor and liar? Do you expect me to believe the Inquisition is divided? By the Throne, Mercian; when we served together I knew you were a glory-hound, but I had never taken you for a mendicant! Leaving me to the tender mercies of the Executioners at Badab was bad enough; but killing your own? Killing a loyal–+

His face was contorted with rage, but his voice was dying. +Monster! You call yourself loyal yet kill loyal servants of the Throne! You went too far on Luxor, Santiagon. Firing on the– + he coughed, wracked +–I call thee heretic, Santiagon; and the Inquisition will revenge its own. You might kill me, but–+

+I did my duty, Mercian. I did my duty there; I will execute it here. The only difference is that I will enjoy ending you.+ With a wrenching twist, I activated the chainsword. He took a long time to die.

I began to speak as he thrashed:
+By the Throne of Terra; it falls to me to exact the will of Him on Earth...+

FYI Deathwatch takes place in 817.M41. The Badab war won't happen for close to 100 years.

kenshin138 said:

He as a Tardis

Warp Travel, explaining historical inaccuracies since a week on Thursday