Quest:The Long Night:Volume One:Life in the Storm

Brief Interlude

Durin stated that at the beginning of the quest, he rolled a d100. Had he rolled a 1 or 2, the ruins would have had a fully functional Standard Template Construct.

He rolled a 3.

And so, the turn after the Emprah is gone, Tranth finds a wrecked one. Wrecked as in “The core that creates new designs is vaporized with Melta fire, but a good portion of the library is salvageable.”

In the Imperium, it would have made you a Sector Governor at least, while Tranth would have probably been set on the way to become the Fabricator General of Mars. As it is... well, Tranth hangs a biiiig “Do Not Disturb” sign on his door and locks himself in to fulfill as many of the Mechanicus' wet dreams as possible.

The Nine Worlds Conference

So, now that the Subsector is your whole universe for the time being, it's decided to call a conference of planetary representatives and decide how to proceed on. The politicking takes time, but ultimately, it's decided that the Subsector does need a single government. The conference decides to call it The Imperial Trust, with a High Council composed of the Planetary Governors, an Inquisition representative and a Mechanicus one. Each member appoints a representative to form a Low Council handling matters between the High Council meetings. A Security Council handles military matters. As per the Emperor's instructions, the Ecclesiarchy gets no official power. Not that Saint Lin has trouble making people listen when needed.

Living on

After that, matters more or less settle in. Tranth digs through the STC database, the planets proceed on (with you having sent some forces to suppress the revolt on Jotunheim), Britton (now in charge of the Trust's whole Mechanicus) works on integrating his people more closely with the rest of the population, Saint Lin works on the new tenets of faith and the morale of the Nine Worlds. You start considering marriage.

Xavier is sent to Midgard to help against a cultist uprising. A couple of years earlier, he got himself a familiar pet, from a local species called Phase-Tigers. Large felines capable of walking through walls and becoming invisible, they turned out to be easily tameable once some cubs were discovered orphaned after the Necron attack.

This comes in useful. With the help of his pet and some other Psykers, Xavier manages to melt a Cultist Hive into slag. He does get a bit of BSOD about the hundred million or so people inside who were yet to be turned by Chaos. Just a small reminder about the setting.

However, Ridcully tells you that the matter of Cultists should be wrapped up quickly. Another Chaos invasion is coming.

Second Chaos Invasion

Sure enough, they hit Midgard. Your fleet holds quite well against them, but not enough to prevent a landing. Once planetside, It's your regular war. That is, until the Chaos Lord decides it's time to start a major summoning ritual. Any asset that can be spared is thrown to disrupt the ritual sites, while Xavier infiltrates the Hive City of Barovik to take on the invasion leader himself. Alongside him come a platoon of The Governor's Own (Rotbart's bodyguard; elites trained and equipped to be a match for Astartes), some regular Avernite forces and a number of Battle Psykers. They make it to the leader, where the Avernite forces engage the Chaos Lord's escorts, Xavier takes on the Angel of Betrayal himself, and Mittens phases away with some grenades to disrupt the local section of the ritual. The battle goes heavy but well, then Xavier takes a moment to survey the battle...

The Angel of Betrayal slits his throat.

That's bad. Quite an unpleasant wound. Xavier is forced on the defensive for a whole three minutes until he can patch up the carotid. Meanwhile, Mittens sets off the bombs (the ritual is weakened but still going) and heads back to help his friend. He gets heavily wounded, but the two manage to get an advantage over the Chaos Lord, while the rest of the forces get to the ritual chamber and finish off the Chaos Sorcerers.

The Chaos Lord decides it's time to bugger out, and teleports away to his flagship. Xavier does manage to get one final attack in though.

The Angel of Betrayal arrives on the bridge sans his head.

There is still a lot of fighting to be done, traitor hives to be taken, some local mutants to clean up, but victory is no longer in doubt. Still, once all is done and accounted for, the total Trust military casualties stand at about fifty million.

One thing that saddens you, is that Henry lost his wife while you were away. A giant Worm attack as they were inspecting the construction of intercity subways.

It takes a lot to help him deal with the grief, but with Saint Lin's help you manage after a couple of years. You also decide to finally get settled down yourself. There are two candidates; an extremely beautiful (and completely non-monogamous) lady from Vanaheim named Freia, and an Asgardian noblewoman named Sif. You ultimately choose the Navy lady. Takes a few years, but she does manage to let her bed-hopping past go.

In the meantime, another shifting of the Warp Storm means Jotunheim is cut off, along with all the forces you sent there. Since they were just about done anyway, the planet should be fine once back.

Constructor results

Finally, after ten years of effort, Tranth manages to finish with the STC library. The findings...

To start with, there are plenty of minor STCs. In Quest terms, they translate to increases in production, income, medicine, and morale. Also, there were things like better factory automation, better underground mining/constructing vehicle, a regular construction robot, reflective armour for aircraft, some cogitators, Mass Conveyors, Flamers (Hail the Holy Fire!), armoured transport the size of ten Baneblades, hard-to-fake biometric dog tags, better aircraft IFF, thrusters for orbital defences, a repulsorlift train, a medical pod, a constructor Knight variant (think IndustrialMech from BattleTech)...

Second, you found a few more variants of the Impaler, like a pistol and heavy pistol (the latter is for Power Armour only), an Assault Cannon, a Gatling, a Heavy Gatling (suitable in size for a Leman variant) and a Sniper Rifle.

Next, speaking of Power Armours, you find those as well. Variants for stealth, for Jetpack raids, for pilots, for heavy fighting (Centurion level of protection), for regular fighting... Each has an advanced variant with swappable modules. For things like additional shielding, longer combat, camo, etc. Of course, a couple armours are still missing, and some designs are damaged and need to be completed, but you can just imagine what all that would have been worth to the Imperium. You also find a HUD for regular troops. Actually quite simple to make; you start giving it to all your troops, militia included, even before Tranth finishes.

Then, you find the design for makeshift fortresses. Basically, bring in the parts, bring a platoon of grunts, give them an hour, and you have a fifty-meter by fifty-meter fortress. Can be built side by side and hammered together for a fortification as big as you want. Even better, the fortresses come in different variants. Some are simple, like barracks, fuel depots, or hospitals. Another has Ion Shields, yet another a comm and ECM module. Finally, a few have armaments which are very valuable on their own. Notably, a much cheaper Turbo-Laser Destructor and a double range and fire rate Earthshaker. Later, you also find one with a Baneblade-sized Vanquisher Cannon variant.

Also, you find designs for a facility producing knowledge implantation chairs. Devices which can, in short order, feed a person with a variety of skills... in theory. Unfortunately, for now, the only skill program you found is for basic piloting.

Next, there is a mobile exploration facility. Think a StarCraft style flying building with the size and armament of an Imperial Escort. Of course exploring Avernus would require something like that.

A Cruiser-sized Defence Monitor variant. The design is badly damaged and takes a while to complete.

And, as a final note, miraculously, you find nice-tasting MRE recipes.

Continuing

As a note, toward the end of Tranth's efforts, another possible source of Dark Age tech shows up. A banged up ancient exploration vessel named Well of Urd has arrived at the system. The kind of ship Mars would have probably converted into an Ark Mechanicus. For a while, Tranth thought about how to best access it. Turns out one of the pieces of that artifact set you've been collecting works. According to Muspelheim's records, the Governor of Helheim used to wear this jewellery, and the ship still recognizes it.

On less optimistic notes, the recent High Council meeting has shown that some people are still displeased that the Church gets no political power. Saint Lin starts an investigation. The Mechanicus, in the meantime, starts splitting between the more conservative and the progressive members. Britton and Tranth are both with the Progressives, but the Conservatives currently seem to have the numbers due to them dominating the shipyards and infrastructure of Vanaheim. In your system, the Mechanicus are currently colonizing one of the moons. It's all solid metal, so you expect them to be busy.

And, in Even Worse News, Saint Lin reports the Star Father has risen.

Abomination

Yes, the Abomination. The Star Father. Tjapa, as he is named here. In this quest, unlike Shape of Nightmare, the Abomination isn't the Emperor. It's an amalgamation of all the negative traits of the Imperium that the guy's been keeping asleep while he sat on the Throne (plus corrupted by the leakage from the crack Magnus made under the Golden Throne). However, that doesn't prevent the bastard from claiming to be the Emperor. Or plenty of guys – and, most notably, gals, like our favourite SoBs (fortunately, the only ones Avernus has is a few from Orders Dialogous you've requested decades ago) – believing him.

The nature of the Abomination is different, too. It's not a god of perfect order. There are no planets of people moving in formation until they drop dead, there are no perfectly remoulded planets, none of the geometric perfection from Shape. What is he, then?

Well, it's simple. Tjapa is the god of Imperium.

To be precise, he is the god of the Imperium as some people on this site like to picture it. There are no occasionally sane Inquisitors who think that maybe accusations of treason should actually be investigated before an Exterminatus. There are no Ecclesiarchy members who think that perhaps the reason another person worships the Emperor differently is a legitimate difference between two planets instead of heresy. There are no generals nor admirals who believe that, once in a while, flanking an enemy might be better than fifty frontal assaults per day. Nor any officers who decide to think a bit for themselves and do that despite the general giving no such order. No administrator realizing a labourer should be sometimes cared for instead of being worked to death. There is only moronic obedience. Mindless labour. And plenty of golden bling everywhere.

Tjapa is Tyranny. And he is awake.

The Vision

Around the time you receive the news from Saint Lin, Ridcully is pulled into a vision. A vision of all the Eldar Craftworlds gathering for a massive ritual. It seems they decided that now, with the Four distracted fighting the Abomination, would be the perfect time to bring Ynnead into existence.

Unlike what was expected, it doesn't quite take every single Eldar soul. Alaitoc, Biel-tan and Saim-Hann retain much of their population, to carry out tasks that must be done with the galaxy being as it is. Still, the ritual is successful. The Eldar got what they strived for.

Congratulations! It's a girl.

First things first, Ynnead goes to get the Eldar souls from The Hungry Bitch. She manages to sneak upon the distracted God and rip the souls out with a lucky strike, but unfortunately, Slaanesh gets in a lucky strike of her own, and the souls are scattered all over the Warp. Still far better than it used to be.

Aftermath

The first and most obvious consequence of the ritual is that Ridcully came out of his vision incurably blind. On the other hand, the visions boosted his divination skill to levels all but unheard of for humans. Effectively, he's on the level of some extremely green Farseer. A number of your other diviners are dragged in as well. A few come out stronger, a few more don't come out at all.

Meanwhile, the awakening of the Abomination means you are dealing with a massive surge in cultist numbers. Where before, about fifty thousand traitors popped up every year, now you must deal with over a million. Jane is really busy. So is the Inquisition, and that's with you getting off lightly; the Abomination prefers to convert the more mindlessly obedient people, and the Hellworld weeds out that type quickly enough.

Lin, meanwhile, finishes his investigation. Seven senior priests are found to be responsible; three are executed for outright worshipping of Tjapa, the rest are lectured and demoted.

On a more personal note, you've killed another local Alpha (that one a Warhound-sized Godzilla copy complete with Melta breath). This time, the set piece you've looted was a sword. Actually, you've looted it first (from between the creature's teeth), and then used it to kill the Averzilla.

Your Psyker school, meanwhile, is filling up fast. You already had to expand it once to fit five thousand instead of one, and another expansion might be needed soon. Hardly a year passes without a Gamma beginning his studies. Passing the graduation trials is a different matter, and often requires personal tutoring by Xavier or Rids.

Jotunheim is released from the Warp Storm. Your forces have been quite successful in dealing with the rebels, helped by the fact it's been one more year for them than for you. Asgard, though, is swallowed in Jotunheim's stead.

However, there are problems rising. Not only are the Abomination cults continuing to grow, but Rids claims another external problem is imminent. The cults are finally culled after a couple of years of outright military action, quarantine, divination, sermons, and all the other 110% effort investments proper for a loyal servant of the Emperor. A little disturbingly, later scans showed a giant Magma Wyrm was waiting right under the main Cultist stronghold, presumably to swallow it whole had you failed to deal with the problem.

On a very bright note, however, Freia bore you a beautiful little daughter. You name her Syr.

Another invasion

The threat foretold by Ridcully has arrived. A double-pronged Ork WAAAGH. Most of the Greenskins are headed for Avernus, but the Trust fleet is mostly concentrated in Alfheim, having detected the enemies headed there first. Not too bad, actually. The Ork fleet in your system consists of fifty Roks, one hundred fifty escorts, fifty capital ships and a single Hulk twenty-seven km in length. More than enough to smash through your orbital defences, of course, but you're pretty sure the Avernites can give them a most warm welcome once planetside. The only concern is that they may decide, instead of Avernus, to attack the fourth planet, Cumae, where you've put all your space production facilities in orbit.

Fortunately, that's easy enough to prevent. You simply compose and send the Orks a nice welcome message, describing what kind of Orky and WAAAGHy place Avernus is, and how they should come and visit it to have fun and prove they are indeed propa Boyz who actually have whatever it is Ork Boyz have instead of humie Boyz' bits.

It works perfectly. The Orks do smash through your defences (the Roks and the Hulk are all but untouched, but the rest of the fleet is halved in number) and start landing their Roks. As befits the Greenskins, they charge at your cities exchanging hundreds of their own for every human. A bit worryingly, the Roks keep disgorging Boyz like clown cars. Must be some tellyportas inside connected to the Hulk. The wildlife stays neutral in the conflict.

You manage to wipe out the Roks near your cities, after which the Greenskins concentrate to build a massive fortress well out of your guns' range. Seems like the Warboss (who introduced himself as Garkill the Konqueror) is pretty smart for his kind.

Reports from Alfheim are optimistic enough. Admiral Freyr (your brother-in-law) states that the local Hulk has been boarded by Muspelheim and Avernus elites along with Xavier and Surt. The fleet should be able to come help in a month, the Orks already planetside will take longer.

Then the Orks launch an attack upon one of your cities out of the fortress. About seven hundred million units. The city is left rather battered, and you lose several million men, but not one of that army is left to give his opinion about the battle. Doesn't matter; you're still certain they had all the fun they came for.

At this point, the Orks decide to withdraw and start returning to the Hulk. More surprisingly, a large piece of it suddenly blasts away and lands upon your territory. It contains some survivors from your orbital platforms, along with millions of members from a Xeno race you don't recognize. The Orks build a few Roks in the system, strap them to the Hulk and leave, with Garkill personally promising to come back for another scrap once a new WAAAGH! is ready. You have nothing left to do but talk to the new race. The Xenos call themselves the Quartok and are led by First Councillor Aryz. According to him, they are a relatively young race that was all but exterminated by the Imperium a few centuries ago. Their current colonies are way out of reach, but so long as you are willing to let them stay, they are willing to try letting the past go and getting along with the Avernites.

The Emperor's instructions to Saint Lin theoretically allow coexisting with Xenos, so long as they are reasonable and recognize the sovereignty of Mankind. The Quartok seem to fit the description. You offer them good enough terms, with them getting a district in one of your Hives until a city can be built and requiring to accept Human inspectors for their security. The guys are already Deathworlders to begin with, so Avernus should be acceptable environment to them.

A brave plan

Saint Lin, meanwhile, has come with a very daring plan. Him and Ridcully decide to go into the Abomination's realm and learn about its nature and how to guard against it. Best if Xavier's going along as well, along with them taking some of the Black Crystal Jewellery set. The plan is successful, and you also get two unexpected results.

The first one is that, during the planning, an idea comes up. What if, instead of taking Lin into a vision of the Immaterium's present, Ridcully instead uses his sight to look into the Materium's past, and take along... Tranth? In other words, to watch how a particular archeotech piece was assembled and make it easier to replicate or repair it. Turns out it's possible, so long as the tech comes from offworld. Planetside, the psionic interference is too much to see anything clearly. So no bringing that STC Constructor online anytime soon.

The second result? That's something the Trio had noticed about the planet of Avernus during their raid.

It was watching them.

Any chance for a break?

Not really. Wouldn't be much to write about if nothing really happened. However, it's not all bad news. Well, actually, it's two pieces of good news and one of bad.

The first good news is; when Ynnead was born, the Craftworld Eldar have received a massive temporary power boost. In a rare display of reasonable thinking (which you honestly hope there will be more of, with the galaxy heading south), they decided to use that boost to, among other things, drive their dark relatives out of Commorragh and the Webway. And they succeeded.

The second piece of good news is; they managed to liberate a personal pet of Asdrubael Vect which he left behind. Namely, one Jagathai Khan. Loyalist Primarchs are rare and valuable in the setting, even if this one required quite a bit of therapy for obvious reasons.

The bad news? A Dark Eldar colony is right in our backyard.

A patrol had discovered that Fjol IV, a formerly lifeless planet near the Vanaheim system, now has an atmosphere, an orbital defence grid, and a Dark Eldar fleet presence. An emergency meeting of the High Council determined that it's very risky to attack them. However, it also determined that letting them dig in is even riskier, so it was decided to send everything the Trust can spare as soon as it can do some minimal upgrades and preparations (for you that means training your forces for the task, refitting your escorts with sensors and point defences from the Defence Cruiser, and hurrying up your construction of twenty Macharius regiments).

The War of Fjol IV

The battle in space is fierce, as can be expected when Imperium ships fight the Eldar. In fact, Freyr is forced to admit he's facing a superior commander. Fortunately, once you blast apart the biggest DE orbital stations, that part vanishes. Presumably, that's where the bastard was. Time to show those sadomasopirates what Avernites are like.

Three task forces land. One is the regular Trust Guard, one is a force of Avernites and Midgardians commanded by you, and one is the heavy hitter – an army of ten thousand veteran Imperial Guard Regiments under their old commander/Governor of Midgard, Aelfric Abingdon, supplemented by your heavy armour, Power Armour, and the best Psykers.

Turns out that, for all your successes, the Dark Eldar are still fully capable of killing more soldiers than they lose. Your task force is losing troops at a four to one ratio to constant raids, the regular Trust troops are really bogged down, and the heavy hitters are actually doing well and should soon reach their objective. You yourself get to your target city in about nine days. As befits the Dark Eldar, the outer walls are manned by slaves chained to their cannons. More cannons are firing at you from inside the city. Half a battery of Deathstrike Missiles and some artillery barrages later, your forces have a beachhead.

Then, your vanguard spends the night in a Dark Eldar city with enemies constantly popping out of the sewers. And with artillery firing on both sides. Proper Warhammer. At least you manage to block most of the sewers as your main force moves in. A few days later you take over much of the outer city, but the inner parts with DE elites are still behind yet another wall, although you take out their cannons (the Macrocannon sized pieces going last). The elite task force manages to take out the fortress blocking the path to their own objective, while the regular guard had to slow down to reduce casualties.

Three weeks after landing, you take over all the outer city. Then the enemy sends a few thousand night assassins. You lose two Lieutenant-Generals and thousands of lower level officers, the Guard loses about half of theirs, the veterans are barely touched.

On the fortieth day, you finally take over the central keep of the city. However, you don't find much due to failing to stop the reactor those losers set to overload. Would have been helpful if someone could actually tell where the “Any” key is located. Guess Xeno language lessons are needed from time to time.

The Guard, meanwhile, takes over their objective but is left in a somewhat lacking condition for now. The elites sneak into the keep of their own objective city, loot it, and rig the reactor to blow.

The last objective to be taken is a mysterious facility with lots of experiment labs. In the end, it's glassed from the orbit; apparently, the Dark Eldar decided to counterbalance their brothers' increased sanity by experimenting with the daemonic.

A hundred million dead, thirty million of them from Avernus. Such are the costs of the victory. Time to go home, lick your wounds, and check who gained a level.

Aftermath

The casualties naturally cause even more losses to Avernus wildlife. But, in one unrelated incident, a good portion of one of your island cities vanishes without a trace one night.

Investigations and divinations show it's nothing to really worry about. Just a member of some local Cthulhu species in the Alpha+ range waking up for its millennial meal. Fortunately, it seems to prefer cultists.

However, the Orders Dialogous sisters finish translating the records looted from the Dark Eldar. Now that's a bit more worrying.

Basically, it might have been about twenty years for you, but for the rest of the galaxy, well over a century had passed.

The status of the galaxy is about as one would expect. The Imperium had split into thousands of pieces, usually sector sized, a lot fell or are falling to Chaos, Forge Worlds and Astartes are holding their domains (Ultramar currently controlling a dozen sectors), Orks are rising, Abaddon is grinding his way through the Cadian Gate, and will likely be done in a century or so, Huron Blackheart holds a large domain already. Tyranids and Necrons aren't very active, although the former are currently fighting the Orks in your vicinity.

A bit of peace

You start attempts to negotiate with some local sapients. Trolls are the first to be contacted and agree to leave you alone in return for some food. The Quartok status, meanwhile, is still unclear on the Trust scale. You're working on that, but the latest High Council meeting was forced to delay that matter and some others due to a few more planets swallowed by the Warp Storm (you really hope nothing too bad happens until they're released; both Midgard and Vanaheim are missing, and that's most of your fleet).

The number of major Psykers you find is about a hundred every year, some of them Chaotics. Most of those are put down quietly, but sometimes, a few thousand... or million people die. Minor Psykers per year number in the thousands.

Exploring space

Technically, space is explored already. But there is one very major detail. A detail that was somehow missed during the initial system survey.

The third planet of the Helheim system, Cocceio, is orbited by a ship graveyard. According to Muspelheim's records, a massive Iron War battle had occurred here. Now, you finally find the time to set a proper survey station.

Over forty thousand wrecks. One tenth of them capital ships. Sizes ranging from eight hundred meters to thirty times that. Thousands in easily repairable condition. And every bit of it is holy Dark Age tech. Tranth and his fellows are drooling oil already.

Tranth starts with the lighter classes. Aside from the ships themselves, there are boatloads of guns onboard. Grav-Weaponry, stable Plasma Weapons (with a flamer analogue that kills any user without that Centurion-level suit), Meltas, some analogue of the Eldar Haywires... And, as a final note, Conversion Beamers and [[Warp_Weapons#Vortex_Grenade|Vortex Grenades]. No blueprints though. That's from two types of escorts, a total of fifteen thousand ships.

Champion Surt, meanwhile, sends you a bit of data. It seems that the Command Battleships of the Dark Age tended to have databases of blueprints onboard. Those are the ships twelve and above kilometres in size. The graveyard has six of them.

The Grief

Of course, the good news had to be set off. You lose your wife. Just as your family sits down for dinner, a Blink Spider teleports in, and bites her. It's the Death's Head variety; kills in ten seconds, no countermeasure exists.

The Avernites fear the Spider. The Avernites hate the Spider. So much that, when a daemon summoned by its cult attempted to cower them by appearing as a spider, they blasted it apart.

Now, you hate the Spider even more. You hate everything. You are devastated; the now teenaged Syr, even more so.

Your friends are helping, but it takes a while for you to get over your loss.

Going on

Tranth continues with the ships. This time, he chooses the most intact of the Command Battleships.

Alas, it seems that the data storage part had been deliberately destroyed. Not that there are no other findings. Tranth finds Stasis Grenades, the original form of the Neutron Laser, some vehicles. Also, there are a few dozen lightsabers (which your bodyguards end up using dual-wielding, Protoss style). And, there is some really advanced (that is, advanced even by Dark Age standards) Exitus Rifle variant. Regular, Shield-Breaker and Hellfire rounds are found.

As for the ship itself, Tranth can make neither heads nor tails of it. It's thirteen kilometres long, but the only guns are a few Macrocannons. Almost the entire ship is taken up by what seems to be an enormous gravity-based superweapon (plus an overpowered reactor feeding it). It looks easy to repair, but Tranth has no idea what it's for.

Next, Tranth checks the biggest ship. A twenty-four kilometre long Supercarrier. Some spacecraft onboard (what little couldn't be launched in its last battle), vehicles, repair facilities, a lot of the same weapons... no designs though.

To put it short, it isn't until the fifth ship, the Sword of Surtur, that you find what you were looking for. Tranth may be a male, but you're pretty sure he now knows the meaning of “multiple orgasms”.

Tanks capable of burrowing underground. Tanks bigger than the Capitol Imperialis and capable of surviving a Battleship's Lance. Titan-sized Conversion Beamers. Tanks projecting shield umbrellas over their neighbours. It's all there. That is, except the more advanced things like Vortex Weapons and those Super-Exitus Rifles. And, of course, you still don't have the industry to build enough for everyone (some improvements to that and medicine were found, but you'll need a lot more). Still, you've got all the standard gear (and then some) for Dark Age armies and fleets. Plus Implantation Chair programs for things like piloting and maintenance.

One minor issue is; the datacore included the blueprints for both Men of Iron and Men of Stone (in this quest, regular, non-robotic AIs). After a bit of debate, it's decided that the former can never be trusted, since they did revolt, so that blueprint is destroyed. The Men of Stone, on the other hand, didn't revolt, but still aren't trustworthy, so that blueprint is locked away to only be used if there is no other choice.

On a minor sidenote, Nilfheim is back. It's been twenty-five more years for them than for us, and they haven't been idle. Both the industry and the population had a major boost.

Meanwhile, your daughter has started a career as a military officer. A captain already. Now she's on Navy practice. What's next?

Pink Skies

Some might remember that the Imperium had chosen the safest spot on the planet to settle. What wasn't said, one of the more dangerous locations is the poles. A snowy wasteland full of Warp Rifts. Daemons come out of them all the time, to be eaten by predatory seals, blasted apart by armies of Epsilon level penguins, dissolved by giant Blank bears...

Not today. Apparently, The Hungry Bitch felt a bit bored, so suddenly, without the slightest warning, the Rifts swell, and the planet is flooded with Slaaneshi daemons. The sky turns pink.

There is an earthquake right at the start of the incursion. That means you're cut off from the rest of Avernus, and can't organize the defences outside Dis, the capital. You do manage to use that Black Crystal Sword to slay the Keeper of Secrets who breached the walls, but for the rest of Avernus, you can do nothing but wait for the reports. Three weeks pass before the daemons are gone.

Entire garrisons gone completely, buying time for the rest. Psykers going Chaotic, including one Beta who wiped out an entire city. Slaaneshi cults popping up like mushrooms all over. In total, half the military is gone. Along with twenty percent of the population.

The wildlife... seems to be experienced in fighting daemons. Those island-sized turtles? Were seen spitting psionic nukes at them. Those city-eating Cthulhus were seen active as well. Some huge lion species which seems to be related to the Phase-Tigers, slicing daemons with their claws from a kilometre away. And, as a final surprise, a huge kilometre-thick serpent which seems to stretch as far as your sensors can scan. You never saw what its head is like, but presumably, the daemons who did were not pleased.

Henry is gone, killed during the assault of the new Psyker city being constructed (Xavier, in his grief, completely obliterated the leader of the attackers – not banished; obliterated). General Drago was killed by a rogue Psyker. Britton is likewise dead, saving a Warlord Titan from irreparable damage. And troubles are far from over. After all...

...Daemons mean cults. And daemons everywhere mean cults everywhere. Time for another 110% effort crackdown. At least the wildlife seems to be licking their wounds, otherwise the battered walls would have been a real trouble.

Half a dozen ongoing projects suspended due to shifting priorities. Military deployed everywhere, with cities becoming literal battlegrounds. Inquisition forces brought in to assist, along with tens of millions of Trust Guard soldiers. Lin preaching day and night to the people (with you putting in a few speeches of your own as well).

It's not enough.

You take out over a hundred million Cultists, but many more are at large. The next year is expected to be worse.

You request help from other planets (at the cost of a lot of reputation), you tighten the restrictions to no person leaving their house without a good reason...

This time, it works. More or less. You kill almost half a billion Cultists, and the remainder is largely confined to three cities. The next year, you look over the situation there, and decide they're not worth the bother. To put it plainly, you evacuate what loyal citizens remain, and slag the cities from orbit.

As a sidenote, remember those soul-eating mermaids? Well, the proper term is Sirens. Very good singers, capable of channelling their psionic power through song. One of your senior Psykers (and a good singer, of course), a Beta named Tamia Jameson, had figured the trick out during the incursion.

Losing Henry, meanwhile, hits hard. Not just in a personal friend, with him being the last person to remember you from before Avernus. He was the one in charge of the infrastructure, and while city expansion, hospital construction and fortification upgrades don't make for the most exciting summaries, that doesn't make them any less important. After some deliberation, you promote your personal assistant, Caroline, to take his place. Drago, meanwhile, was replaced by Leopold Schwarz, an experienced general who had almost died alongside him, but did survive, albeit with prosthetics Vader would envy. As for Britton, he was replaced by a protégé of his, Marian Scott, a nice young Magos. Her youth, on one hand, appeases the Conservatives, who consider her less of a threat. On the other hand, any project requiring radical research and modifications is to be shelved for the time being, due to her lacking the authority to push those through without risking a civil war.

Back to norm again

Well, almost back to norm. You do manage to recover in about fifteen years, but Ridcully reports Garkill will soon be back. You prepare forces, request whatever help can be spared, distribute the found archeotech among your troops...

This time, Garkill arrives with four Hulks (his own having swelled to thirty-six kilometres in length), two hundred capital ships and a thousand escorts. The Trust fleet gathered is about twice that, except for the Hulks, which are a big problem.

In two days, the Trust fleet manages to clear out most of the Hulks' escorts. After a day more, you manage to take out one of the smaller Hulls, and Garkill orders the other three to jump out. One doesn't make it.

A good victory, but you can once again be sure he'll be back for more fun.

On a darker note, a problem rises with the Quartok (you managed to get the Trust to accept their protectorate status). They have recently started advancing their tech by reverse-engineering the sacred technologies of the Mechanicus. The only reason the situation can be salvaged is because your treaty with them didn't prohibit such a thing explicitly. Still, a lot of reputation is lost once you decide to come clean to the Trust.

Meanwhile, the Mechanicus is finishing the wreckage survey, while Saint Lin is working on the final reshaping of the Trust's Church and checking its rituals for Star Father contamination.

The Astra Telepathica is building a third city, along with a branch on Midgard. Tamia has finished the basic research on Songweaving. Seems quite easy to use, so long as the Psyker learning can sing.

Caroline decides it's well past time to build some therapy facilities to help people with PTSD. Well overdue, for a world like Avernus.

You decide to send the military to explore another region of Avernus. Despite all the preparation, quite a few people die, including a Division (a million troops, that is) blown up when some soldier steps on a fingernail-sized bug.

Trading with Sirens

You have established a diplomatic relationship with the Sirens, and decide to see whether they can be traded with for knowledge. Turns out they are willing to trade for general knowledge of the planet, but Psyker knowledge? Sure, just give some snacks. Human souls. Not anytime soon, sorry.

The knowledge of the planet is as follows. For one thing, there are five groups of creatures. First, there are the Animals (which includes some plants, like those dragon-bearing trees). Second, there are the Peoples; regular sapient races like Trolls, Sirens, and a few others. Prominently, one of the continents has two warring species of Lizardmen – yes, that is correct, seem to be the ones from WFB. Next, the Guardians; those include the polar Penguins, the Border Lions (those seem to be the big cats glimpsed during the Incursion) and the Sphinxes (seen during the exploration of the new region. These can lock down local rifts). Next are the Weapons; big guns like those Island Turtles, Cthulhus and the division-killing bugs. Finally, the Great Ones; unique creatures like that kilometre-thick World Serpent.

New forces

A few of your agents are caught on Vanaheim trying to manipulate public opinion in Quartok favor. Olaf, the Governor, isn't too offended, but the public and his opposition are, requiring a couple of backroom deals to make it appear as if he wrangled some proper compensation out of you.

On the brighter side, a Strike Cruiser has entered the Warp Storm and is currently orbiting Alfheim. It carries thirty Ultramarines.

Some might question whether the presence of Ultrasmurfs is a good thing. Normally, it might not be, but it seems that in the nine centuries that have passed for the rest of the galaxy (ten times as long as for you, once again), Ultramar was forced to pull a good portion of the sticks out of its collective ass. For these guys, most of that time was spent in constant fighting away from home, so presumably even more sticks were pulled out.

In any case, these are the remnants of the Second and Seventh companies of the Ultramarine Chapter. Fifteen are original veterans, the rest are newer recruits. Since Grey Knight Gene-seed is too complex for you to grow right now, you need these guys if you want a proper Astartes force.

After a bit of debate in an emergency High Council meeting, it is decided that the Astartes can settle upon that world you've cleared of Dark Eldar years ago, with the right to recruit from any world in the Trust. Also, the worlds are sending people and resources to settle the planet properly, and once the Chapter and the World are sufficiently developed, they get the appropriate Council seats.

A bit too much for some newcomer stragglers, but it seems the Trust still has a good portion of the Imperium's respect toward Astartes. Well, they certainly won't be complaining about the recruit quality...

The Marines accept, rename themselves to Varangian Guard, rename the planet to Byzantium, and ask that you divine whether Ultramar is okay.

According to their reports of the outside, most of the Sector is taken over by Orks, divided between three Warlords including Garkill, except for the Sector's core, which is an Abomination polity. A sector or so away, there is an Astartes polity called Dragon's Nest, run by a Blood Angels successor Chapter.

Ridcully, as requested, divines the status of Ultramar. Turns out they are now a fifty-sector confederacy with a hundred Marine Chapters. The Tau are their main problem, forcing them to adapt to the extent of reverse-engineering Xeno tech. Your new neighbours, it seems, are also willing to make some adjustments to the Codex Astartes, even asking for knowledge about the newer tech use.

In the meantime, Jane decides to create an elite operative force close to the Vindicare level. A few years are spent requesting data from other planets about possible implants, training regimens, equipment... finally, she selects a thousand orphaned babies and begins.

Then, a few problems strike. Caroline dies to a Gnaw Worm, your head of Biologis dies as well, one of the Grey Knights vanishes in a manner so mysterious that none of Rids' divinations tell anything except “he suddenly faded away”, Jane almost dies (and is left with irremovable scars) after fighting a rogue Beta...

Most importantly, however, Ridcully states that in a few years, the Warp Storm is going to dissipate.

An emergency meeting of the Council concludes that the planets of the Trust are quite well defended, except for Alfheim, which still didn't move that far from the Agri-World status. Also, Byzantium is yet to build any significant orbital defences. Avernus, as a stopgap measure, hands over some Orbital Defence Platforms which it had mothballed after the recent tech upgrades.

Continue

Back to the main page