Editing Nobledark Imperium Notable People (section)

=== Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Army Lukas Bastonne===

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Lukas Bastonne, the Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Army, is a man both blessed and cursed with a supernaturally good memory. Or at least he is cursed and the Imperium is blessed.

He is the youngest of the High Lords by a good hundred and fifty years but that one remaining purple Cadian eye has long ago waved goodby to notions of youth or innocence or joy. He was bright enough to have skipped the duties of Whiteshield in the Cadian Army and could have transferred straight to officer school with all the perks this would bring, such people considered near as nobility on Cadia. He refused this honour on principle, a man without perspective is not a good officer, a man who hasn't started at the the bottom has no right to ask of those people to do that what he could not have been asked.

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Brilliant as he was this state of affairs was only temporary and he quickly climbed the ranks on merit and aptitude, his merciless memory serving him and others very well. But that perfect memory came at a price and that price was that it was a perfect memory. He remembers the face of every corpse that was once a friend, every horror shat out by the Eye of Terror, tortures beyond counting, lifetimes of death and destruction. He used to tattoo the name of every soldier that fell under his command. He ran out of skin a very long time ago.

Lukas Bastonne as of 999.M41 is not a happy man. Gone are the days that he doesn't wake up to the sound of his own screaming and he drinks like a fish. Rumor has it that he has gone through eight livers. Unsightly as his drinking habit is none can deny his competence at his job and even pickled in gin he has not lessened in his diligence. His job is all that keeps him getting up in the mourning.

He is a man of no humour or good cheer. He is a man who knows the value of life though knows that for the Imperium to survive that life must be spent, spent but never wasted. He will not ask others to do what he would not, but he is Cadian and they live on the doorstep of Hell. The worst nightmares of other worlds are the every other day on Cadia.

He does not wear the full ceremonial garb to the meetings of the High Lords, or any other meetings. He is from a world where pomp and ceremony go to die. He wears a field uniform at all times, he feels naked without it. He carries his las-rifle at all times because he's a soldier damn it. He rose through the ranks for fear of the incompetence of others. those names tattooed belonged to people to whom he owes it to ensure that the lives of his people are spent, not wasted. That was his driving ambition to get where he is. Now there is nobody above him bat the Emperor, now he can maybe comfort himself a little knowing that lives that are lost mean something, that his friends weren't just discarded.

Under his less than tender command the Imperial Guard is operating at a level of performance as efficient and powerful as it ever has done. He would see all worlds, not as copies of his homeworld, but as strong as it in their own way. Different worlds forge different men and different men slay different monsters and no matter what Chaos and Orks and Necrons and Ffucked up intergalactic Locusts throw at the Imperium somewhere is a soldier that can kill it.

Of his family nothing is known, Cadia has no shortage of lost war orphans. Lukas Bastonne was on some birth issued dog tags about his neck though Lukas isn't a normal Cadian name although his purple eyes are a native trait so it's possible that one parent or grand parent was an off-worlder stationed on to the Gateworlds. Not that it matters, not that it matters at all.

The other High Lords endure him with either hostility, pity or fear but he does not care for their friendship or approval. They know their job, he knows his. And under his command the Guard and the Imperium will march on.

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