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the Black Library wrote:It is the 41st millenium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest among his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defense forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
To be man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Our setting is the Helican subsector, Scarus sector, Segmentum Obscura. We are operating under the auspices of Inquisitor Geron and Inquisitor Lord Caesurian, Ordo Hereticus Master of Scarus.
Background:
Delsa Narchana is the second son of Governor Aulis Narchana, former ruler of the Retalos system. His family discovered at an early age he was a psyker, but his father used his position to keep that fact very quiet, ensuring Delsa was never carried off in the psyker-hunting Blackships.
Although Delsa was never allowed leave the palace grounds for fear of his powers being discovered, a fact which he grew resentful of, he frequently came into contact with various high-ranking politicians, merchants, priests and generals. As he grew older, Delsa became increasingly jelous of his older brother, Marant, who was to inherit the throne from his father.
As time passed, and Marant neared the age where he would take over as ruler of Retalos, the soon-to-be-governor's political views became more outspoken. He began to make it quite clear that he aimed to throw all the corrupt officials which his father had tolerated out of power. Naturaly he began to make quite a few enemies with his plans, and these enemies began to make plans of their own.
They contacted Delsa secretly, offering him control of the throne if he would assist them in overthrowing his father and killing Marant. Delsa agreed, not knowing that they secretly planned to kill him when he was no longer of use to them.
It was during this meeting that a local cardinal, Barrosso Diem, who was secretly the leader of a cult dedicated to the Chaos god Tzeentch, realised that Delsa was in fact a psyker. Barrosso contacted Delsa secretly, offering to train the young psyker how to use his powers to their full effect. Delsa eagerly agreed, and was quietly inducted into Diem's cult. Within a month he was utterly corrupted.
It was two months later when Delsa and the corrupt politicians and generals made their move, sparking a planet-wide rebellion that quickly became a bloodbath. Delsa killed his family and took control as ruler of the planet. During the confusion of the uprising, Delsa also killed his mentor, Barrosso Diem, and took over as leader of the cult.
It took another three months for Delsa's faction to finaly defeat those still loyal to the dead governor, during which the war became increasingly brutal, finaly ending with the use of chemical and nuclear weapons on cities still under the control of the loyalists.
With the war at an end, Delsa Narchana summoned the politicians and generals who had instigated the civil war and installed him as ruler to his palace. The corrupt officials went to the palace with a squad of troops, intending to kill Narchana and take over the planet for good. However, Narchana had plans of his own.
The officials entered the throne room with their elite soldiers, smugly informing Narchana that he was no longer of any use to them and that he was to be executed. Instead of begging for his life, as they had expected, Narchana simply laughed. When asked what he found to be so funny, Narchana replied that he found it amusing that they had come here planning to kill him, for he had summoned them to his palace to inform them that he had planned to tell them the exact same thing.
Before any of the officials or their guards could react, a hideous daemonic creature that Narchana's cult had summoned burst through the doors of the throne room. Within moments it had massacred them all, leaving Narchana as sole ruler of Retalos.
It was at this point that the Inquisition took notice of what was happening on Retalos. Until now, the Imperium had been rather uncaring of the civil war that had engulfed the system. In an empire of a million worlds, such wars happened with regularity. But rumours of daemonic influences on the planet's ruler could not go uninvestigated.
Inquisitor Geron and his retinue arrived on the planet disguised as the crew of an ore freighter to investigate what was really happening. What they found shocked them. Rather than keeping his powers a secret, Narchana boasted openly of them, claiming they made him superior to all other humans. His personal cult, the Cult of Accension, was clearly twisted by the Dark Powers, and enjoyed a privilaged position in the system.
Inquisitor Geron quickly hurried back to Imperial space, and gathered a task force to retake the planet in the name of the Emperor. The campaign to retake the planet was fierce, with Narchana's forces fighting bitterly to the very end, and the Cult of Accension utilising daemonic beings to combat the Imperial forces on the surface of the planet. However, the war could only end one way.
Within a month the Imperial forces had captured much of the planet, and were marching on the Governor's Palace in the planet's capital. Inquisitor Geron and his personal retinue led the Imperial forces into the palace itself. Resistance was fierce, and Inquisitor Geron and his retinue became seperated from the main Imperial Guard force. However, they managed to fight through to the throne room where they confronted Narchana.
The psyker summoned a daemonic monster to defend him, which killed two of Geron's retinue and almost succeded in killing Geron himself before it was finaly killed. However, the noise of the battle had attracted a nearby squad of Narchana's soldiers, which engaged Geron and his retinue in a firefight, allowing Narchana to flee the throne room via a hidden passageway. Geron left his retinue behind to hold off the enemy soldiers while he persued to psyker.
The passageway eventualy ended in a hidden hanger bay near the top of the palace itself. Inside, a large warp-capable transport vessel was preparing to take off. As Geron watched, a dozen members of the Cult of Assenscion and several other high-ranking officials of Narchana's government hurried into the ship. Geron engaged Narchana in a vicious battle in the hanger, with Narchana displaying surprising skill in combat. Geron eventualy gained the upper hand, knocking the power sword out of Narchana's hand. Before he could strike the psyker down, Narchana used his power to blast Geron out of a nearby window. Geron managed to grab onto the ledge to prevent him from falling to his death, and climbed back into the hanger just as Narchana's freighter blasted out of the hanger towards space, Geron's recently arrived retinue firing impotently at the shuttle with their weapons.
Geron franticaly voxed orbitting warships to launch fighters to intercept, but he was too late, and Narchana's freighter escaped into the warp. For almost a year, Inquistor Geron searched for Narchana, but it seemed the psyker had elluded justice for good. Geron had just about given up, when he recieved a call from Retalos' newly installed ruler.
It transpired that PDF forces had stumbled across a hideout occupied by a dozen or so former soldiers of Narchana's regime, along with a high-ranking member of the Cult of Accenscion. In a fierce fight, the soldiers had been wiped out and the cultist captured.
The cultist had failed to reach Narchana's escape shuttle before it left, and then fled the city to a hideout he had prepared in case of such an occurance, using his powers to enslave several soldiers to do his bidding. Geron learned from the cultist that Narchana had planned to flee to the Talio system and attempt to take control of the planet, as he had Retalos.
Geron initialy considered simply alerting the authorities, but realised that that was a bad idea. Narchana still had a warp-capable freighter, and would surely flee if he realised he was discovered. Geron realised he would have to find Narchana quietly, by himself, and kill the psyker and destroy his cult once and for all.
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Milo Trask is a realtively young interrogator, currently the protege of Inquisitor Geron. Geron suffered greatly from the attack on Retalos, both physically and mentally, and in addition believes the captured cultist to be lying - the Adeptus Astra Telepathica just recently swept Talio and the surrounding systems, and it strains credibility to think that the Black Ships would have missed someone as powerful as Narchana. Even so, although Geron himself was still undergoing augmetic procedures, psycho-surgery, and re-indoctrination, he felt it wise to send his interrogator to follow the lead. Besides, it would be a good lesson in subtlety for the fire-and-brimstone young man. In that vein, since it wouldn't exactly be covert to bring in the Sisters of Battle and because a powerful psyker may be involved, Inquisitor Lord Caesurian has had the Ordo Sicarius attach an assassin from the Culexus Temple to the mission. The Adeptus Astra Telepathica, having gotten wind of the possible huge omission by the Black Ships (they ARE the astropaths, after all,) have sent a representative/warrior - Novice Galatea. In addition, Inquisitor Lord Caesurian's office has secured the services of two former Guardsmen - Chirurgeon Marco Karibi and Baron Octavian Naja - and Trask had recruited a hunter, known only as "Stig," from the feral world Iocanthos in the Calixis sector while travelling back to Thracian Primaris (the capital of the Helican subsector) from St. Angevin's shrine world of Drusus. There is a covert Inquisitorial presence on many worlds across the Scarus sector operated by stormtroopers or agents of the Ordo Hereticus' own people, including one on Talio Secundus, overseen by Captain Enrick Von Hydden.
Our intial goal is to establish our presence on Talio, maintain secrecy, yet collect information as to the truth of the rumors about Narchana - and if true, to begin to find out about his associations without revealing ourselves.