F0lkL0re
Officially not an Inquisitor
- Location
- Shetland
We started but never finished and everyone forgot about it.
Dragon Kings in the 41st Millennia (Exalted/40K Empire)
- Thread starter StarJaunter
- Start date
Yes, there nature allows them to visit/inhabit their icons so as long as an Ondar Shambol exists then any solar temple can arrange the trials
Tzneetch: Just as planned
Just wanted to apologize. The votes closed but my plague carrying child got me and my wife sick which peaked on Friday and I was stubborn and went to work anyway so I couldn't muster the strength to post until now.
It is okay focus on what is important (your family). We are willing to wait for things to stabilize.
With luck they will get well soon, and I wish you and your family well.
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So fun tidbit that is kind of behind the scenes so I will spoil it.
I have been working on what Abaddon has been doing and on basically the last day of the time this turn represents Abaddon has a eureka moment and has figured out what the Dragon Kings are, at least within a context that makes sense to Abaddon the Despoiler with 99 percent accuracy. The problem is the roll to make that presentable was a botch. So going forward Abaddon basically understands what the Dragon Kings are as much as is relevant to him but whenever he tries to tell anyone else he sounds like a crazy conspiracy theorists talking about extradimensional Reptilians being in league with God infiltrating the government.
Abaddon = Space David Icke confirmed
I have been working on what Abaddon has been doing and on basically the last day of the time this turn represents Abaddon has a eureka moment and has figured out what the Dragon Kings are, at least within a context that makes sense to Abaddon the Despoiler with 99 percent accuracy. The problem is the roll to make that presentable was a botch. So going forward Abaddon basically understands what the Dragon Kings are as much as is relevant to him but whenever he tries to tell anyone else he sounds like a crazy conspiracy theorists talking about extradimensional Reptilians being in league with God infiltrating the government.
Abaddon = Space David Icke confirmed
The funniest part of this whole lizard people infiltrating the power thing is it's true in this quest.So fun tidbit that is kind of behind the scenes so I will spoil it.
I have been working on what Abaddon has been doing and on basically the last day of the time this turn represents Abaddon has a eureka moment and has figured out what the Dragon Kings are, at least within a context that makes sense to Abaddon the Despoiler with 99 percent accuracy. The problem is the roll to make that presentable was a botch. So going forward Abaddon basically understands what the Dragon Kings are as much as is relevant to him but whenever he tries to tell anyone else he sounds like a crazy conspiracy theorists talking about extradimensional Reptilians being in league with God infiltrating the government.
Abaddon = Space David Icke confirmed
"How's it feel to have your own infiltration and corruption shtick turned against you chaos boys!! HAHAHA!"
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Technically the roll was to see if and how thoroughly and quickly he passed on his findings.
The contrast of the crit in understanding quality and botch in pass on finding quality led to conspiracy Abaddon.
Technically it could just have been him deciding not to tell anyone for some Despoilery reason. But I thought of the Conspiracy thing and can't let it go.
TLDR Abaddon basically treats you as a familiar 40k faction now but fails to tell anyone about it.
The contrast of the crit in understanding quality and botch in pass on finding quality led to conspiracy Abaddon.
Technically it could just have been him deciding not to tell anyone for some Despoilery reason. But I thought of the Conspiracy thing and can't let it go.
TLDR Abaddon basically treats you as a familiar 40k faction now but fails to tell anyone about it.
So typical Chaos Lord/Sorcerer behavior "Learn what you can and tell no-one else what you learn, unless you absolutely have to.".
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
How does this interact with so much of his power being tied up in favors? For example, would other parties performing divinations for him dismiss or fail to divine with the accuracy of his profile on us, thus forcing him to either accept somewhat subpar prognostication or else spend his own time and energy accounting for us, or does it just mean Tzeentch isn't going to have plans custom tailored for extradimensional Aztec kung fu lizard wizards?
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
No, you don't understand, it's the Lizard People, and they serve a hidden golden power like the Emperor who is neither in the materium or the immaterium, yet I can see signs of his touch, and he has four hands. Four Hands!
Warp is weird. He will receive divinations that make sense to him and to the situation. This is how Mad Seers and Crazy Warlords can still be dangerous... at least with Chaos backing.
So a sane diviner... if such a thing existed can give a divination that seems sensible as any to themselves and may seem useless to the insane customer but clicks with said crazy customer and they get the mechanical advantage the divination provides.
Given that Abaddon is less insane than most sources of Divination he uses and his familiarity with Divination he is even less impeded by seers not understanding the prophecies they are giving him than most.
Lets be honest if his seers did fully understand what they were telling him he would probably be killing them anyway.
If he tried to just assign the task of "dealing with you" to some other group they would have no basis to work with and would have to start from scratch, including having no clue what to do with divination. Even if they had all the related prophecies recorded it would be nonsensical to them. Even if he did a divination for them it would be useless unless he took enough control of the other group that its basically him dealing with the issue (you) anyway.
TLDR: If he is having his fortune told he will not be impeded by the fortune tellers lack of understanding/believing him. Any inconsistencies this generates are covered by shouting Warp! randomly until no more questions are asked.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
So any action he's directly responsible for we have to be worried about but the assorted warbands and greater daemons that mostly serve as a smokescreen for his big moves/are pursuing their own shit are still mostly in the dark.
*looks down at WH40k lore*
*looks back up*
*looks back down*
*looks back up*
Yep, that checks out.
EDIT: If I can get over my chronic writer's block, I might do a Pepe Silvia omake.
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Again so funny because it's true.
But yeah Abaddon just got more dangerous for us, because he isn't going to underestimate us a second time (not like with Planet Killer). So it is good we put PK out of the picture before the fighting got more real.
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The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Does mean we can probably kiss the already miniscule chance of stealing a fortress goodbye. Hopefully the Eldar will be amenable to letting us do our god-rezzing ritual on theirs.
I see no reason they wouldn't be amenable to us god-rezzing one of their gods using the fruits of our combined efforts. Although there is still a chance we could steal one of the fortresses from Abeddon, just a smaller chance as he isn't as likely to dismiss us as a weak powerless race unable to hinder his plans.
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LinkOnScepter
The One who Strangles Concepts to death
- Location
- Interwebs
@StarJaunter
I have finally managed to reach the end of your Quest after binge listening to it on my e-reader.
I will openly admit that when I first started reading it, I thought it was going to be a short Quest. I figured you'd collapse under the weight of your own mechanics and end up stumped around what to do. That this Quest would be another one with good potential but crushed by ambition.
You have proven me wrong and then some.
To the point where you are currently the most respective QM I have come across. No other that I have seen has been able to keep track of all these mechanics, make sure they all have some meaning in the greater Quest, ensure that not a single one is too unwieldy or too abstract, AND keep the narrative consistent while constantly finding new things to add.
I clap for you and look forward to seeing where you take this Quest.
I have finally managed to reach the end of your Quest after binge listening to it on my e-reader.
I will openly admit that when I first started reading it, I thought it was going to be a short Quest. I figured you'd collapse under the weight of your own mechanics and end up stumped around what to do. That this Quest would be another one with good potential but crushed by ambition.
You have proven me wrong and then some.
To the point where you are currently the most respective QM I have come across. No other that I have seen has been able to keep track of all these mechanics, make sure they all have some meaning in the greater Quest, ensure that not a single one is too unwieldy or too abstract, AND keep the narrative consistent while constantly finding new things to add.
I clap for you and look forward to seeing where you take this Quest.
High Praise!
It honestly does not feel like I am doing this well as I bumble along. From my eyes its a patchwork of system and mechanics from various editions of Exalted, B5 Wars, and other quests and RPGs I have seen.
So Thank you very much
Erinys
the Frantic Archivist
- Pronouns
- She/Her
B5? I had figured you were using space battle mechanics from some 40K game. It must be confusing to switch between the different definitions of cruiser and destroyer. (For those unfamiliar with B5, as far as I can tell B5 destroyers are the equivalent of 40K battleships, not 40K destroyers.)
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For space battles? hell no
I use the naval battle rules from Third Edition of Exalted for your ships... just scaled up. Your ships are at their base a Speed stat, a Manuever stat, a health bar, and a few keywords representing what it can or cannot do.
I tried to go full B5 war for ship combat but I couldn't manage the complexity of managing a full empire battlefleet with something so complicated... part of the reason Splintered Circle died. Honestly even these rules are too complicated with how many ships that game was growing.
The b5 system I use is their boarding combat mechanics and is for boarding plus most ground battle rules are derived from the same base. If we get into enough ground battles I am gonna need a large battle mechanic or to develop a spreadsheet to help or something. Rolling hundreds of dice for each side with variable numbers as each side takes loses ... after Tocha I don't want to do it by hand again.
Gothic Expedition 142.M41 - Water to 143.M41 - Fire
[X] Prepare for Trouble; Make it Double, Arming Up Edition
-[X] Next 9 seasons have the Luminous Herald of Dawn visit the systems containing the Blackstone fortresses and other critical sites around the Sector in aide of Divination back home and to familiarize the locals with your presence, plus one early season to recharge the relics and arks.
-[X] Next 9 Seasons for the Abundant Feast and Cargoships are spent joining convoys to help the humans make up for and protect from further pirate losses, as well as providing assistance with rebuilding and fortification as possible using only local materials.
-[X] Next 9 Seasons for the Stalking Mantis are spent infiltrating deeper into Chaos cults to gain a sense of whats going on from their side, occasionally fabricating more obvious leads for the Inquisition to find if it's something both subtle and important for the Imperium to know.
Archival Codex
Subject Index: Gothic Expedition
Journal Entries of Khalash, Achtontekatl of the Legions of the Realm and High Commander of the Gothic Expedition.
142.M41 - Water
While our ships remain undamaged and few of us fell in battle it cannot be denied that we were in some ways spiritually exhausted. Years worth of planning, preparation and Divination went into a critical strike upon the forces of the Despoiler. And a weighty blow was felt none can deny. But we have no divinations to guide us going forward, our Relics and Holy Arks are depleted, and the advantage surprise and unfamiliarity of our presence to our foes has or soon will flee as well. In a sense we have lost momentum and it is with joy I receive news of the return of our third cargo ship carrying with it precious cargo, replacement crew, the Wondrous Globe of Precious Stability and most importantly for the moment, news and entertainment from home for warriors who have not seen it in years.
During this time the Luminous Herald of Dawn has stationed itself above the Star near our base and begun the sacred rites and rituals to re-imbue the Holy Light of the Unconquered Sun within our relics and Arks. Afterwards I plan on leading it to missions to visit the remaining Talismans of Vaul to gain the astrological profiles needed to restore our divinatory edge in this conflict. Seeing those we might one day defend and possibly start building relations with them in advance should also begin rebuilding the momentum of conflict within our spirits.
With three cargo ships and the Abundant Feast available I have started working with the Sisters to offer our services as transportation including the protection of the Abundant Feast. We have a few offerings but I have been warned that cargoes committed to our ships will be of low value and it will be sometime before we are trusted to convoy with anything, mostly as few are the Charter ship masters willing to trust non-humans with their safety. Not a surprise given the war. Hopefully we can earn at least some trust... or least free up trusted ships for more important cargoes.
The Stalking Mantis has begun deepening their ties to the cult they noticed Elysium. I am not an expert in such warfare methods but I understand they are replacing some cultists with infiltrators. Others are joining from scratch. Still others are acting as agents for human spies, and some are pretending to be the Raksha beasts these cultists worship laying out special assignments to "chosen ones" Already they have learned of competing and allied cults on the planet and have spread our net to them. All to learn more about Enemies plans by learning what they want their quislings to do. With the need for frequent trips and dealings with Wyld Worshipping cultists I have given them the Wondrous Globe of Precious Stability. With the legs it grants them I hope they can spread their nets to all the worlds in the Sub-sector and coordinate multi system reprisals.
142.M41 - Earth
While not obvious about it of course the Herald of Dawn travels to the Bhein Morr Subsector side by side with the Stalking Mantis, making its first stop Blackstone I at Fularis
We are well received. The Lord Captain of the fortress treats us as civilly as might be hoped and we even host an entourage from the System's defenders aboard the Luminous Herald of Dawn before committing to our survey work.
The Cult Hunters I have set upon Fularis find the bare bones of a cult which tenuous connections to the rest of the sub-sector. This is quite surprising given its almost certainly the primary target and threat in the sub-sector for the Despoiler. Your spies confirm that inquisitorial forces are watching the cultists here too but you are pretty sure they are unaware of your presence.
Getting humans to trust the protection of their Charter ships to the Abundant feast is a step too much to ask as of yet and your can make arrangements to move only the least valuable of cargoes. Things that would effectively just not be moved normally and would have minimal consequences for the fact. Still you have to build trust somewhere.
142.M41 - Wood
After Fularis we bid farewell to our spies and new friends and made our way to the Cyclopes sub-sector traveling to Rebo V, home of Blackstone IV
Here you are treated almost warmly by the Lord Commander of the Rebo defenses. They had family on Savaven and are deeply appreciative of the God-Emperor given miracle you helped manifest in defense of the system. You complete your survey in record time and things seem to be going well on this journey.
Cult efforts on Fularis which seem to be coming down from on high are directed at disrupting operations on the blackstone fortress but these operations lack support and planning compared to what is expected. Your analysis seem sure its a false operation meant to distract observers into thinking thats ALL the cult is doing and miss the support they are providing cults on other planets as well as making themselves the apparent focus of Inquisition efforts in the sub-sector. You are also pretty sure said Inquisition has taken the bait.
While no charter captains have yet agreed to move with your ships you were given a consignment of food to move from an Agriworld to a Hiveworld. They had a back up in play but at least the goods you moved were things that would have needed to be moved even if you weren't available.
142.M41 - Fire
After we farewell our friends at Rebo we travel to the Lysades Subsector. Blackstone V is at the Schindelgeist system.
It is here I choke on my earlier optimism.
Reactions here do not go nearly as well and despite notes of clearance and the clear presence of Sororitas on board we are driven out of the star system. Attempts to linger or come back discretely and take our readings nearly lead to disaster as Imperial forces fire on our ship and we must go in truth without getting the needed data from Schindelgeist or Blackstone V
Stalking Mantis moved to Bhein Morr itself in search of cults after establishing a full counter cult and controlling several critical positions in the Fularis cult. We have managed to "Accidently reveal" to the inquisitors the truly useless status of the cult on Fularis... even as we ensure that is absolutely true with our influence.
On Bhein Morr another minor cult is found but the Imperials here are much more on guard and there are several near incidents where your presence here might have been noticed. Indeed you cannot be sure that some locals suspect your presence and just lack the proof to do anything about it.
After over six months of regular trips slowly gaining trust through reliable movement you eventually come across a chartist ship with absolutely critical freight and when no escort will be available he finally agrees that moving with your ships and sheltering among xenos is better than nothing. The incident goes well and while he wouldn't choose you if he had a choice he might be willing to accept moving with you with slightly less urgent transport going forward. With time who knows.
143.M41 - Air
Driven away early and because it is on the way we make a courtesy stop at Port Maw to meet Admiral Ravensburg.
He approves our goal of trying to divine the despoilers next target but does not believe in our success enough to try to force our presence on any of his Lord Commanders and Captains.
Later on I meet privately with the Lord Admiral and we talk long into the night going over plans and stratagems. As we talk I teach the Admiral Gateway and he teaches me a similar game called Regicide. By the end we are sharing old war stories and while I am not sure I would call us friends we are well acquainted.
On Bhein Morr we are almost caught again as we try to influence a supposed cult leader and realize almost too late that said cult leader is already a hidden Inquisitor.
We certainly didn't expect the Imperial Inquisition!
Regardless the cult on the planet is covered twice over and can accomplish nothing without running it through both us AND the inquisition at this point.
A brutal attack sees us fending off ork pirates who even manage to board the Abundant Feast... and discover to their ... joy (because they are orks) that the ship is a troop transport. The disruption does not help build confidence in our work and because they are ork pirates instead of chaos ones it feels like we have made no progress in months.
143.M41 - Water
We stop at Brigia near Savaven to take the readings needed for Blackstone VI. The Captain of Brigia allows us to take our surveys after having received a message from the Lord Admiral but makes no attempt to befriend and get to know the Dragon Kings.
After this the decision is made to move the Stalking Mantis to Stranivar due to its massive population making it susceptible to blockades. Here disaster strikes as the massive population has led to both a massive cult and a situation of human population density we have never encountered before hindering our normal methods. Indeed we have a few incidents wherein one of our people has to blow cover and run. The cult certainly knows we are there and the Imperials might as well if they were not also flailing impotently in trying to deal with the massive cult present here.
We manage a few trips moving either food or fuel for the imperials but nothing goes quite right for progress to be made in terms of trust.
I received word from home near the end of the season. An ongoing divination effort tied to the false hand of darkness just triggered. We can confirm with high likelihood that Abaddon the Despoiler is aware the Hand of Darkness in his possession is a fake. Still at least a great deal of his effort has been wasted on it.
Things have returned to normal... for a given standard of normal being minimally trusted transport of low value goods for humans.
143.M41 - Earth
Since it is nearby we make a quick stop at Savaven to see how they are doing over a year after loss of the Planet Killer.
Our return to Savaven is celebrated by its inhabitants and the sororitas on board mingle and make personnel exchanges with their homeworld. I was personally thanked for our intervention by the Admiral who would have been in charge of facing the Chaos forces without our presence. He at least seems fine with the "glory" of that fight being stolen from him.
Notably Inquisitor Horst seems filled with questions and concerns rather than relieved by our aide.
Our teams on Stravinar make their move to disrupt the rituals occuring on the planet. Considering the populations involved we have paid special attention to preventing the Seven focus rituals belonging to the Plague Primordial known as Nurgle. Avoiding the spread of disease seems the most important thing right now.
In response, cults focused on the other members of the Chaos have stepped up and a secret war of dematerialized elementals and daemons takes place just out of sight for the normal inhabitants of this planet. Which matters little as the cults are practically in open warfare with the local arbites and inquisitors. There is a non-zero chance this planet may have lost critical infrastructure by now without our aide and I am not sure how much longer we can keep this up. Luckily regiments of the imperial guard have been deployed to secure vital infrastructure but so far their aren't enough troops to control anything else... the cults are just too big and their use of mutations and "blessings" makes up for their poor training and equipment compared to the guard.
At this point we seem to be past infiltrating this cult and can barely keep them from overwhelming the human wardens. Our focus remains on suppressing the Nurglites as the last thing Stravinar needs is an epidemic to deal with.
We are seeing signs that Slaanesh is bowing out and influence shifting to Khornate and Tzneetch cultists... and nurgalists of course but we are suppressing them. Honestly we are surprised the raksha supporting that faction haven't abandoned the world considering the fervor we address them with. We are glad that humans are free from disease spirits but ... we are left with nothing to slow the cultists of the other two factions.
Luckily we didn't have anything terribly important on board when our ships were jumped by hordes of Raksha during transit. Our seers cannot confirm if this is unusual behavior due to whats going on or if we just got unlucky.
I suppose it technically contributed more to battling chaos forces than fighting the orks earlier?
143.M41 - Wood
After Savaven we make the trip to the hive world of Anvil 206 over which Blackstone II floats.
Once again we are driven out of the system, complaints about our activities in the sub-sector and interfering with the mining concerns owned by local nobility... as well as other assertions that were completely baseless.
Attempts to use the nearby spy network and other hijinks to buy us time to take reading don't pan out and we are forced to leave before finishing. The issues with humans never seem to end.
In a bit of daring that I approved and made arrangements with Lord Admiral Ravensburg to get human support for we have used the Abundant Feast to transport some quarter million Imperial guard, Arbites, Soritas and Inquisitorial forces as reinforcements to Stravinar while our mosok team supported by the Draculee units assigned to the group arrange for shock deployments of Ruby arrows to critical sites pushing back the cultists while somehow still managing to hide our involvement from the majority of the planets inhabitants.
We have started using the recovery a cult cell undergoes after brushing against a unit of our elite shock troops as a method to insert infiltrators and actually start handling what we are supposed to do with this mission.
143.M41 - Fire
With mixed results we return to Base and send the information we did manage to collect back home in high density and well shielded data crystals.
Reward: You can divine Blackstone I, IV, VI. Blackstone II and V are still unscanned and III is already lost to Abaddon. You can also perform Divinations on Port Maw and Savaven if you wish.
Things have started going poorly on Stravinar... again. There is evidence of outside support slipping in, probably through wyld portals. There are also reports of Chaos Space Marines bolstering the cults but so far they have stayed in the back and worked to organize things only.
The cults owing to Slaanesh and Nurgle have been driven off the world but Khorne and Tzneetch are still going strong. Overall we haven't lost progress but haven't made progress... and considering the reinforcements we brought to bear thats a bad sign.
Reward: You have found and thoroughly compromised the Chaos Cults on Elysium, Fularis, and Bhein Morr. Stranivar's Hive nature is just not going well... or the cultists are just that good? Based on Analysis of preparations for the claiming of the Bhein Morr subsector you guesstimate they are 20-30% ready to go. Although its clear that Stranivar is much more important to their plans than the other three worlds you have visited, baring the Blackstone fortress itself.
A few desperate nobles hire the Dragon King freighters to transport them away from Stravinar as if they are willing to risk Xeno corruption instead of facing what is coming. Oddly some 85 or so percent of the Hiveworld still has minimal idea anything is particularly wrong. There are just too many people with too little awareness of what goes on to know normal from not.
Note: I spoiled it in thread so I will state it here in case you only read story posts. Abaddon has spent this whole time (since Savaven) trying to figure out what the hell dragon Kings deal is. It finished this season and his quality roll was 99 meaning he understands you within his personal context. You can still surprise him with new weapons or tactics but you are no longer an out of context threat to him. Even if you do something outside of 40k context he can wrap his mind around something close enough to the truth that mechanically its in context for him. He also rolled 04 on a check to see how well he passed it on. The basics of that low a roll meant he wouldn't pass it on and if anything leaked it would not be believed. However it kinda became this memetic thing where now Abaddon sounds like a raging conspiracy theorist talking about secret armies of interdimensional lizardmen to anyone he tries to tell instead of just keeping it secret. Mechanically its the same difference... unless you take an action that would exploit either silence or craziness to collapse that quantum waveform.
Relations:
Imperial Navy (Gothic Sector): 5.6
Eldar Corsairs (Graildark Nebula): 5
Horst: 1.3
Order of Quicksilver Rose: 4
-[X] Next 9 seasons have the Luminous Herald of Dawn visit the systems containing the Blackstone fortresses and other critical sites around the Sector in aide of Divination back home and to familiarize the locals with your presence, plus one early season to recharge the relics and arks.
-[X] Next 9 Seasons for the Abundant Feast and Cargoships are spent joining convoys to help the humans make up for and protect from further pirate losses, as well as providing assistance with rebuilding and fortification as possible using only local materials.
-[X] Next 9 Seasons for the Stalking Mantis are spent infiltrating deeper into Chaos cults to gain a sense of whats going on from their side, occasionally fabricating more obvious leads for the Inquisition to find if it's something both subtle and important for the Imperium to know.
Archival Codex
Subject Index: Gothic Expedition
Journal Entries of Khalash, Achtontekatl of the Legions of the Realm and High Commander of the Gothic Expedition.
142.M41 - Water
While our ships remain undamaged and few of us fell in battle it cannot be denied that we were in some ways spiritually exhausted. Years worth of planning, preparation and Divination went into a critical strike upon the forces of the Despoiler. And a weighty blow was felt none can deny. But we have no divinations to guide us going forward, our Relics and Holy Arks are depleted, and the advantage surprise and unfamiliarity of our presence to our foes has or soon will flee as well. In a sense we have lost momentum and it is with joy I receive news of the return of our third cargo ship carrying with it precious cargo, replacement crew, the Wondrous Globe of Precious Stability and most importantly for the moment, news and entertainment from home for warriors who have not seen it in years.
During this time the Luminous Herald of Dawn has stationed itself above the Star near our base and begun the sacred rites and rituals to re-imbue the Holy Light of the Unconquered Sun within our relics and Arks. Afterwards I plan on leading it to missions to visit the remaining Talismans of Vaul to gain the astrological profiles needed to restore our divinatory edge in this conflict. Seeing those we might one day defend and possibly start building relations with them in advance should also begin rebuilding the momentum of conflict within our spirits.
With three cargo ships and the Abundant Feast available I have started working with the Sisters to offer our services as transportation including the protection of the Abundant Feast. We have a few offerings but I have been warned that cargoes committed to our ships will be of low value and it will be sometime before we are trusted to convoy with anything, mostly as few are the Charter ship masters willing to trust non-humans with their safety. Not a surprise given the war. Hopefully we can earn at least some trust... or least free up trusted ships for more important cargoes.
The Stalking Mantis has begun deepening their ties to the cult they noticed Elysium. I am not an expert in such warfare methods but I understand they are replacing some cultists with infiltrators. Others are joining from scratch. Still others are acting as agents for human spies, and some are pretending to be the Raksha beasts these cultists worship laying out special assignments to "chosen ones" Already they have learned of competing and allied cults on the planet and have spread our net to them. All to learn more about Enemies plans by learning what they want their quislings to do. With the need for frequent trips and dealings with Wyld Worshipping cultists I have given them the Wondrous Globe of Precious Stability. With the legs it grants them I hope they can spread their nets to all the worlds in the Sub-sector and coordinate multi system reprisals.
142.M41 - Earth
While not obvious about it of course the Herald of Dawn travels to the Bhein Morr Subsector side by side with the Stalking Mantis, making its first stop Blackstone I at Fularis
We are well received. The Lord Captain of the fortress treats us as civilly as might be hoped and we even host an entourage from the System's defenders aboard the Luminous Herald of Dawn before committing to our survey work.
The Cult Hunters I have set upon Fularis find the bare bones of a cult which tenuous connections to the rest of the sub-sector. This is quite surprising given its almost certainly the primary target and threat in the sub-sector for the Despoiler. Your spies confirm that inquisitorial forces are watching the cultists here too but you are pretty sure they are unaware of your presence.
Getting humans to trust the protection of their Charter ships to the Abundant feast is a step too much to ask as of yet and your can make arrangements to move only the least valuable of cargoes. Things that would effectively just not be moved normally and would have minimal consequences for the fact. Still you have to build trust somewhere.
142.M41 - Wood
After Fularis we bid farewell to our spies and new friends and made our way to the Cyclopes sub-sector traveling to Rebo V, home of Blackstone IV
Here you are treated almost warmly by the Lord Commander of the Rebo defenses. They had family on Savaven and are deeply appreciative of the God-Emperor given miracle you helped manifest in defense of the system. You complete your survey in record time and things seem to be going well on this journey.
Cult efforts on Fularis which seem to be coming down from on high are directed at disrupting operations on the blackstone fortress but these operations lack support and planning compared to what is expected. Your analysis seem sure its a false operation meant to distract observers into thinking thats ALL the cult is doing and miss the support they are providing cults on other planets as well as making themselves the apparent focus of Inquisition efforts in the sub-sector. You are also pretty sure said Inquisition has taken the bait.
While no charter captains have yet agreed to move with your ships you were given a consignment of food to move from an Agriworld to a Hiveworld. They had a back up in play but at least the goods you moved were things that would have needed to be moved even if you weren't available.
142.M41 - Fire
After we farewell our friends at Rebo we travel to the Lysades Subsector. Blackstone V is at the Schindelgeist system.
It is here I choke on my earlier optimism.
Reactions here do not go nearly as well and despite notes of clearance and the clear presence of Sororitas on board we are driven out of the star system. Attempts to linger or come back discretely and take our readings nearly lead to disaster as Imperial forces fire on our ship and we must go in truth without getting the needed data from Schindelgeist or Blackstone V
Stalking Mantis moved to Bhein Morr itself in search of cults after establishing a full counter cult and controlling several critical positions in the Fularis cult. We have managed to "Accidently reveal" to the inquisitors the truly useless status of the cult on Fularis... even as we ensure that is absolutely true with our influence.
On Bhein Morr another minor cult is found but the Imperials here are much more on guard and there are several near incidents where your presence here might have been noticed. Indeed you cannot be sure that some locals suspect your presence and just lack the proof to do anything about it.
After over six months of regular trips slowly gaining trust through reliable movement you eventually come across a chartist ship with absolutely critical freight and when no escort will be available he finally agrees that moving with your ships and sheltering among xenos is better than nothing. The incident goes well and while he wouldn't choose you if he had a choice he might be willing to accept moving with you with slightly less urgent transport going forward. With time who knows.
143.M41 - Air
Driven away early and because it is on the way we make a courtesy stop at Port Maw to meet Admiral Ravensburg.
He approves our goal of trying to divine the despoilers next target but does not believe in our success enough to try to force our presence on any of his Lord Commanders and Captains.
Later on I meet privately with the Lord Admiral and we talk long into the night going over plans and stratagems. As we talk I teach the Admiral Gateway and he teaches me a similar game called Regicide. By the end we are sharing old war stories and while I am not sure I would call us friends we are well acquainted.
On Bhein Morr we are almost caught again as we try to influence a supposed cult leader and realize almost too late that said cult leader is already a hidden Inquisitor.
We certainly didn't expect the Imperial Inquisition!
Regardless the cult on the planet is covered twice over and can accomplish nothing without running it through both us AND the inquisition at this point.
A brutal attack sees us fending off ork pirates who even manage to board the Abundant Feast... and discover to their ... joy (because they are orks) that the ship is a troop transport. The disruption does not help build confidence in our work and because they are ork pirates instead of chaos ones it feels like we have made no progress in months.
143.M41 - Water
We stop at Brigia near Savaven to take the readings needed for Blackstone VI. The Captain of Brigia allows us to take our surveys after having received a message from the Lord Admiral but makes no attempt to befriend and get to know the Dragon Kings.
After this the decision is made to move the Stalking Mantis to Stranivar due to its massive population making it susceptible to blockades. Here disaster strikes as the massive population has led to both a massive cult and a situation of human population density we have never encountered before hindering our normal methods. Indeed we have a few incidents wherein one of our people has to blow cover and run. The cult certainly knows we are there and the Imperials might as well if they were not also flailing impotently in trying to deal with the massive cult present here.
We manage a few trips moving either food or fuel for the imperials but nothing goes quite right for progress to be made in terms of trust.
I received word from home near the end of the season. An ongoing divination effort tied to the false hand of darkness just triggered. We can confirm with high likelihood that Abaddon the Despoiler is aware the Hand of Darkness in his possession is a fake. Still at least a great deal of his effort has been wasted on it.
Things have returned to normal... for a given standard of normal being minimally trusted transport of low value goods for humans.
143.M41 - Earth
Since it is nearby we make a quick stop at Savaven to see how they are doing over a year after loss of the Planet Killer.
Our return to Savaven is celebrated by its inhabitants and the sororitas on board mingle and make personnel exchanges with their homeworld. I was personally thanked for our intervention by the Admiral who would have been in charge of facing the Chaos forces without our presence. He at least seems fine with the "glory" of that fight being stolen from him.
Notably Inquisitor Horst seems filled with questions and concerns rather than relieved by our aide.
Our teams on Stravinar make their move to disrupt the rituals occuring on the planet. Considering the populations involved we have paid special attention to preventing the Seven focus rituals belonging to the Plague Primordial known as Nurgle. Avoiding the spread of disease seems the most important thing right now.
In response, cults focused on the other members of the Chaos have stepped up and a secret war of dematerialized elementals and daemons takes place just out of sight for the normal inhabitants of this planet. Which matters little as the cults are practically in open warfare with the local arbites and inquisitors. There is a non-zero chance this planet may have lost critical infrastructure by now without our aide and I am not sure how much longer we can keep this up. Luckily regiments of the imperial guard have been deployed to secure vital infrastructure but so far their aren't enough troops to control anything else... the cults are just too big and their use of mutations and "blessings" makes up for their poor training and equipment compared to the guard.
At this point we seem to be past infiltrating this cult and can barely keep them from overwhelming the human wardens. Our focus remains on suppressing the Nurglites as the last thing Stravinar needs is an epidemic to deal with.
We are seeing signs that Slaanesh is bowing out and influence shifting to Khornate and Tzneetch cultists... and nurgalists of course but we are suppressing them. Honestly we are surprised the raksha supporting that faction haven't abandoned the world considering the fervor we address them with. We are glad that humans are free from disease spirits but ... we are left with nothing to slow the cultists of the other two factions.
Luckily we didn't have anything terribly important on board when our ships were jumped by hordes of Raksha during transit. Our seers cannot confirm if this is unusual behavior due to whats going on or if we just got unlucky.
I suppose it technically contributed more to battling chaos forces than fighting the orks earlier?
143.M41 - Wood
After Savaven we make the trip to the hive world of Anvil 206 over which Blackstone II floats.
Once again we are driven out of the system, complaints about our activities in the sub-sector and interfering with the mining concerns owned by local nobility... as well as other assertions that were completely baseless.
Attempts to use the nearby spy network and other hijinks to buy us time to take reading don't pan out and we are forced to leave before finishing. The issues with humans never seem to end.
In a bit of daring that I approved and made arrangements with Lord Admiral Ravensburg to get human support for we have used the Abundant Feast to transport some quarter million Imperial guard, Arbites, Soritas and Inquisitorial forces as reinforcements to Stravinar while our mosok team supported by the Draculee units assigned to the group arrange for shock deployments of Ruby arrows to critical sites pushing back the cultists while somehow still managing to hide our involvement from the majority of the planets inhabitants.
We have started using the recovery a cult cell undergoes after brushing against a unit of our elite shock troops as a method to insert infiltrators and actually start handling what we are supposed to do with this mission.
143.M41 - Fire
With mixed results we return to Base and send the information we did manage to collect back home in high density and well shielded data crystals.
Reward: You can divine Blackstone I, IV, VI. Blackstone II and V are still unscanned and III is already lost to Abaddon. You can also perform Divinations on Port Maw and Savaven if you wish.
Things have started going poorly on Stravinar... again. There is evidence of outside support slipping in, probably through wyld portals. There are also reports of Chaos Space Marines bolstering the cults but so far they have stayed in the back and worked to organize things only.
The cults owing to Slaanesh and Nurgle have been driven off the world but Khorne and Tzneetch are still going strong. Overall we haven't lost progress but haven't made progress... and considering the reinforcements we brought to bear thats a bad sign.
Reward: You have found and thoroughly compromised the Chaos Cults on Elysium, Fularis, and Bhein Morr. Stranivar's Hive nature is just not going well... or the cultists are just that good? Based on Analysis of preparations for the claiming of the Bhein Morr subsector you guesstimate they are 20-30% ready to go. Although its clear that Stranivar is much more important to their plans than the other three worlds you have visited, baring the Blackstone fortress itself.
A few desperate nobles hire the Dragon King freighters to transport them away from Stravinar as if they are willing to risk Xeno corruption instead of facing what is coming. Oddly some 85 or so percent of the Hiveworld still has minimal idea anything is particularly wrong. There are just too many people with too little awareness of what goes on to know normal from not.
Note: I spoiled it in thread so I will state it here in case you only read story posts. Abaddon has spent this whole time (since Savaven) trying to figure out what the hell dragon Kings deal is. It finished this season and his quality roll was 99 meaning he understands you within his personal context. You can still surprise him with new weapons or tactics but you are no longer an out of context threat to him. Even if you do something outside of 40k context he can wrap his mind around something close enough to the truth that mechanically its in context for him. He also rolled 04 on a check to see how well he passed it on. The basics of that low a roll meant he wouldn't pass it on and if anything leaked it would not be believed. However it kinda became this memetic thing where now Abaddon sounds like a raging conspiracy theorist talking about secret armies of interdimensional lizardmen to anyone he tries to tell instead of just keeping it secret. Mechanically its the same difference... unless you take an action that would exploit either silence or craziness to collapse that quantum waveform.
Relations:
Imperial Navy (Gothic Sector): 5.6
Eldar Corsairs (Graildark Nebula): 5
Horst: 1.3
Order of Quicksilver Rose: 4
I wanted to apologize for the delay.
Most of it was stress from Work. Who knew that Putin trying to start world war 3 would make international shipping more stressful!
Some people just have no clue. Like I have constant requests to move things to Russia trying for the slimmest justifications to get by sanctions and you know they are asking EVERYONE in hopes some idiot somewhere moves their freight for them.
Then there was the expeditors company getting hacked. We got buried for like two weeks as everyone who would use them started throwing business our way with no warning.
Any sorry about all that. Once everyone has a chance to digest I will post a normal budget with a two year window representing what was being worked on at home while all this is going on.
Most of it was stress from Work. Who knew that Putin trying to start world war 3 would make international shipping more stressful!
Some people just have no clue. Like I have constant requests to move things to Russia trying for the slimmest justifications to get by sanctions and you know they are asking EVERYONE in hopes some idiot somewhere moves their freight for them.
Then there was the expeditors company getting hacked. We got buried for like two weeks as everyone who would use them started throwing business our way with no warning.
Any sorry about all that. Once everyone has a chance to digest I will post a normal budget with a two year window representing what was being worked on at home while all this is going on.
Well time to exterimates that planet it's too filled with chaos
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Hmm… I'm tempted to temple boost a Friendly Fire Off Wrath. On the one hand, it resolves the actual problem pretty well, on the other, it would be terrible optics and has good odds of getting the planet quarantined. Which is still better than being in the hands of cultists, but will still be a pretty major blow.
The fact that he knows about us is bad news, but honestly him seeming like a crazy conspiracy theorist make it worth it. Just imagine him trying to give a briefing on his latest nemesis and the poor cultists and chaos marines who have to take him seriously.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Unfortunately, he's enough of a crafty fucker that he can render even troops that don't believe we exist useful. The main use is that it means shit like the False Prophet or whatever Greater Daemons are pulling their own schemes primarily of their own impetus, with the Despoiler merely ensuring they pull them here and now where they can cover for his own schemes still don't know jack about us. I wonder if we can pull BruceWayneIsTheBatman on Chaos. Further obfuscating ourselves while damaging Abbadon's clout for round 2 great rift boogaloo.