Hi,
I'm currently planning a new mixed DH/RT campaign focusing around a ship's crew in the employ of an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor of the Xenos Hybris Radical philosophy.
The question is has anybody got/used cool concepts for Xenos Hybris Inquisitors or Throne Agents - I'm thinking for NPC rivals or colleagues of my main cast.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Sherlon Gavv is a small man shaved bald with a nigh constant half-smile who is always wearing mono coloured jumpsuits and worn leather gloves. The jumpsuits became a habitual wear of his as he joined the SPA-Force (Space-Air) of his planets defence forces. With his determination and sheer lust for flying he eventually made it into the RRCAS Guncutter Squadrons (rapid redeploy and close air support). That is where he got his MIU and his habit of constantly wearing gloves to better protect theThat is where he got his MIU and his habit of constantly wearing gloves to better protect the knuckle contacts.
Sherlon is an energetic personality who enjoys life in all its aspects. Especially gambling, drinking and the company of men (you read this right. While Sherlon is not waving this fact into everyone’s faces, he is not making a secret out of it either. He totally stays away from people he works close with, so). He is capable and talented guncutter pilot who had seen quit a few combat missions. During this mission, he picked up another habit. And a more nasty one. Stim. He is unwilling to accept the fact that a human body has limits and regularly uses Stim to push himself beyond these limits.
Quote:
Okay, its gloves off!
The androgyny looking Robbies Necreau has the light frame and pale skin of a hiver, while his long blond hair indicate that he is not from the working classes. Anyone giving him a personal slight that is not politely corrected (“taken back”) after a stern and formal reassuring question of the hiver will learn his profession, so. Necreau is a “Champion of Justice”, a professional duellist bred by Scintilla´s legal system of trial by combat.
Robbies was given into the care of a sword-school from an early age on in order to follow his families tradtion. Raised in an environment not unlike a Schola Progenia, he is very formal, polite and correct in his manners. This comes especially true in regards of honour and he will never ever openly insult another unless he is willing to spill blood over the matter.
While himself a man of honour, he knows that the majority of men are simple scum who do not deserve to be treated better then they treat others and has thereby no scruple on using “dirty tricks” if need arises.
His current function is that of a bodyguard, a form of service he is not uncommon to and his quick wit and reflexes serve him well, as his skills with pistols do. While he always dresses to the occasion, he is never without his sword (a fine monosword with the words “Justice” and “Honour” engraved into the one and the other side of the blade) and a HE-Pistol (feed from a normal cell and thereby short on ammo).
Quote:
"Well, I am not a man who needlessly turns down a request. Especially not one that is so insistingly brought force as yours"
"I beg your pan, but could you put your last statement into different words for me? I won´t to be sure that I did not missed your true intention"
"A shame to sullen my blade with their blood, but Mother Duty never raised me to love her".
"Men are to be fought. Dogs are to be put down".
"A well formulated point of view. But please allow me to lend you a different angle of vision to his matter"
Milli Bethwitt has a handsome round face with big brown eyes but to a little too much weight and waist for many men´s taste. The swirl of electoos on her body (which those on the corner of her cleavage and shoulder only give a hint to) would not be of the taste of a regular imperial citizen either. But regular imperial citizens are not the people Milli was raised to deal with. Born in Gunmetal City, Milli lived a life among the brothers and sister of her clan, and this was life by the gun. While life was cheap there, those she had taken where enough to give her a reputation with the criminal elements and she herself was never particular picky about how money could be made. So did her clan, but what could have been a success story ended with a raid of the PDF Forces intended to give the platoon a taste of blood. As the Enforcers mobbed up later, they found Milli and some other of her clan to be not dead yet and bagged the survivors.
Milli is different to most of her “peers” in that she does not have any loyalty to her Inquisitor and not much to her cell mates. She is loyal to the remainders of her clan, so, and that is the leverage the Inquisitor uses. He literally bought her and the few other survivors and ensured that they where locked up safely in some of the better prisons and the world. Milli, singled out as the most reasonable of the lot, was offered a deal. She could put her talents to use for the Inquisitor and thereby earn her clan mates an early release (8 years; “after good behaviour”) and herself some freedom while at work for her new employee. Or she could decline and it would be seen that she and the others would be send to the next dirtwhole of an infection ridden penal colony that was available.
Milli is foul-mouthed, unfriendly and prone to violence towards almost everybody. She behaves around her cellmates and her Inquisitor since she does not wish her deal to be cancelled, but she misses no opportunity to make it known that she is not a here for the sake of the Imperium and that she is not buying into the ideals and believes most of the others did.
In her private quarters she has paved a wall with fotos of her clan mates, both those dead and those still alive. As part of the deal, she regularly exchanges astropathic messages with them (to be sure that they are alive and well).
While a good gunslinger, her main purpose in the cell is to lend the set of skills to the group she acquired during her life as a criminal.
Product of a Deathwatch game (before we got rapidly bored of it) kept up with marines easily. Mostly biomancy but also had a little bit of Pyro, TK and Telepathy with enough thump behind it to use without expending a lot of effort. I like a shades of grey character, its fairly rare you'll find anyone a complete extremist and this one tends to blend into the background... until its too late.
Xanthia Nilsson
Background
Born on a rogue traders vessel to two of the officers onboard, Xanthia spent most of her time as a well socialised and educated child that travelled widely through the Koronos expanse and Calixis sector. A small part of that involved interaction with some xenos (Styrixis, Eldar, Orkoids, Kroot) which wasn't always of a violent nature that majority of the Imperium associates them with, however quite a few where so she's not completely naive of the dangers of having something to do with an alien mindset. At 16 that all ended and rather than run the risk of having an unsanctioned psyker running around onboard she was dropped off to a black-ship and spent the next 9 years going through the sanctioning process via hypno-indoctrination, unlike a lot of psykers that ended up as astronomicon cordwood, deemed useful and released into the care of an Inquisitor by the name of Van Vuygens as an assistant.
Xanthia spent 12 years as an acolyte, investigator and interrogator with the skill set and talents to match any, she is also a very formidable, multi faceted psyker in her own right, which she relies on for defence and offence. As a hardened, experienced campaigner she is also completely fearless and suicidally intractable when facing down the worst elements human, warp spawned and alien can throw about... and blowing the absolute (un)living **** out of them.
With cellular control and shape flesh powers as a legacy of years of psychic skill practice she can look like anyone. Her natural shape that fits into her regular armour and clothes is approximately early-mid 30's with white skin, light blonde hair, green eyes, 175cm tall, 65kg, exceptionally fit, healthy and very attractive. Clothing, varies from op-shop uni student through to things royalty would wear and dresses to suit the situation and impression.... or it'll be buried under a particually excellent suit of Ignatus power armour and a very large force sword most of the time anyway when it comes to violence. Of which which she is more than adept.
Politics & Personality
Like her peer, Xanthia is a scholarly type with a lot of formal education and informal understanding of the galaxy, its people, history and mechanisms, along with proscribed understanding of threats to its existence. Unlike her peer, she is gregarious, diplomatic and has slightly more of a practical hands-on approach to learning that has made her more friends than enemies, highly respected in some circles and also unlike a lot of the common brutality of the Imperium- a distinct charitable streak to help humanity better defend itself. Advocating that better education, health care, stamping out internecine warfare of humans killing each other for petty reasons and mutual hard work in the name of Emperor and Imperium, is part of the path to making humanity as a species overall, a productive and resilient one.
As a 'radical minoris' she shares some of the Xenos Hybris views that humanity needs to learn from history of alien species actions which have been both successful and destructive to their cultures and bringing them to bear against the daemonic and warp spawned threats which constantly corrupt and chew on the fractured parts of the Imperium. As a practical person, not an advocate of widespread interaction and alliance with xenos or even bringing their cultures into contact with humanity at-large because it creates conflict. Aliens have alien minds, strange behaviour and unusual practices which will never be accepted for long periods of time, so its futile to try and mesh them together as some happy 'star trek' bull. Xanthia is well aware of cultural conflicts, exotic diseases and even just plain bloody ignorance creates fractures in human society so its best to remain a case of 'us and them' and that some aliens are just destructive and malignant entities which will cause damage to humanity. That is much the same with Xeno equipment of which some Xeno-Hyrbis view as being beneficial additions, but quite a lot isn't unless its been extensively re-engineered for human use.
Being a newly minted inquisitor, Xanthia doesn't have a lot of influence outside of the imperium except for some rogue trader ties, many members of the Adeptus Administratum academics and a number of planetary governments inside the Calixis system of which are hold her in high regard and debt for prior assistance rendered. It is probably one of her strongest suits in that she is extremely charismatic and capable of motivating a lot of people into doing what she wants and finding themselves doing it because they want too do it, fear and threats as a motivator aren't used very often because their effects are short lived. A lesson encouraged in her by her peer/sponsor that social skills are very important things for an Inquisitor to have.
Amongst the majority of Calixis' Inquisition, she is held in very high regard for being willing to put her life on the line to assist another Inquisitor in need and as a person of utmost integrity, distinguished quality, a respectable peer to other junior inquisitors and throne agents. Quite a few of the Ordo Malleus and Hereticus factions of Calixis tried courting her as a member but she has remained Xenos and to her credit, an independent entity in the organisation overall with passing alliances in the past when there has been need of diplomat/scholar/psyker to their investigations when things overlap.
On a scale out of 100, she is probably only about 15% Radical, 5% Pragmatic and 80% Puritan to Imperial Creed. She has very little time for the extremist Radical or Puritan Factions in Calixis as by and large, they are quite disruptive, destructive by their nature and actions.
Ever mindful of her own words and actions, other Inquisitors would probably describe her as something of a pro-humanist chip off the old Van Vuygens block that is methodical, resolute and measured, but the more hardline inquisitors think she's soft when it comes down to sacrificing others for the same betterment of humanity. Same said inquisitors though have no doubt (and some amount of admiration) that at least she'll personally go in swinging and not bomb a planet into an airless rock without a lot of really **** good reasons to do so.
A few will also have picked up that there is a particularly dangerous edge to her personality that won't have any remorse for casualties, at best there will be a little bit of "professional honour offended" that she didn't do the best with the economy of scale available, much like a CEO who didn't profit from a venture as much as they'd hoped. Also like most CEO's overseeing a big picture, if a few little people get squashed, its probably factored in somewhere as acceptable losses. Unlike most Imperial commanders however, there is a limit set to what is acceptable and after that, its time to cut losses and try something different rather than continue throwing people into a senseless meat grinder.
Yes, there is a fair chunk of arrogance in being an Inquisitor, as it is a job that requires them bearing the Emperors will and judgement without question, that as a subject simply isn't up for speculative interpretation by the average plebeian. If Xanthia tells someone to come back into line with Imperial Creed, then they better **** well do it quick smart or risk wearing their arsehole around their ears.
@Gregorius21778 - as helpful as ever - many thanks.
MKX said:
Yes, there is a fair chunk of arrogance in being an Inquisitor, as it is a job that requires them bearing the Emperors will and judgement without question, that as a subject simply isn't up for speculative interpretation by the average plebeian. If Xanthia tells someone to come back into line with Imperial Creed, then they better **** well do it quick smart or risk wearing their arsehole around their ears.
Thanks for this - I can see using her as a good potential atagonist to the player's Radical master and, by association, them...
Cyrus Ryker is a unique individual. Born on an ancient void vessal, and trained as a tech-priest until he came of age and his true fate was revealed. He was a Psyker. However, this information came a little too late, and he was already implanted with advanced Mechanicus Implants, though not brought into the Cult Mechanicus. This was only made possible by the unorthadox methods employed by his home vessel. once brought onto the black ship Light of Terra , he quickly became an outcast, this was for two reasons.
In addition, once he reached Terra and was tested by the Emperor, he was found without any flaw within him, at the time. As he was indoctrinated, the torture he underwent only strengthened his will and he emerged even stronger than before, with a desire to serve. This lasted about as long as his first mission. A simple search for evidence of a cult turned into a full-scale Daemonic Incursion by the Vile-Savants. He and his retinue were the only ones to survive the zombie-plague, and there his mind finally bent, if not snapped. he became convinced that only the Warp itself could protect he and the Imperium from the Cults and Daemons that would destroy it. However, he did not find the Xanthite Doctrine Acceptable. This problem plagued him as he advanced his career. Eventually as he ascended to the rank of Primaris Psyker he found his answer. his ship was hijacked by an Eldar Corsair-ship, and it's loyal guardsmen were slaughtered by Arcane Sciences and Psychic powers far beyond his own abilities. Although he and the ship were allowed to live, as the Eldar only wanted the Relic in it's hold, he became convinced that only through Xenos technology could he master the Warp and it's power.
Politics and Personality
Cyrus does not participate actively in the Politics of the Imperium, but is not afraid to throw what political weight he has around when he has to, and is individually capable of making a Planetary Governor cry himself to sleep at night after a meeting with him, even without use of his powers. he believes heavily in the use of Xenos Technology, and uses it when possible to manipulate the energies of the warp. However he does not shy from the use of his powers when he needs to, but he will never use his powers when a gun would do just as well or better ( a Xenos Gun, of course). He is considered highly eccentric and is often through to be insane by his more puritan or power-hungry peers.