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The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

Investigate the Sea?

  • Yes

    Votes: 593 80.4%

  • No

    Votes: 145 19.6%
  • Total voters
    738
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The implications that I've been reading is that Avernite wildlife don't follow normal population statistics, and in fact get bred out of the Warp whenever the WorldMind wants some more wildlife.
 
Reynal said:
So, I felt the need to omakeify Xavier's defeat of the daemon prince. I felt like rather than a bare victory, the reason he came close to death was more because of pushing too far. Maybe give a bonus to his roll for traits and/or making the daemon prince perma-dead in canon from this I guess if I had to pick?


Cat and Mouse

Right now, Gerald Xavier was the calmest he had been in the past few days. Ever since Henry had been killed by those damn invaders, he had been having trouble keeping it together. In both a personal and professional sense, Henry had been a keystone of the defense. Henry's command ability, as well as encyclopedic knowledge of the resources they had available and amazing organizational skills, had allowed Xavier to focus almost entirely on tactical command and combat. On a personal level, Xavier had been very glad to be able to relax with one of the few people who didn't view him as essentially a demi-god and the right hand of Rotbart. One of the few people who he counted as family, like Syr, Frederick, and Mittens. But now not only did he lose that outlet from the constant stresses of combat and command, as well as a large margin of his flexibility in command duties, but he had the knowledge that his brother in all but name was dead haunting him whenever he tried to rest.

But now he was not resting. He was engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a daemon prince, one of the greatest traitors to humanity in existence. His doubts and worries were faded, his mind engaged in this far more immediate struggle. It was never more engaging playing these games of cat and mouse with another predator. He would say fellow predator, but he would never claim kinship to those foul beings who discarded their humanity and turned traitor for power.

In games like these, you never really knew who was cat and who was mouse. Oh, you might believe yourself to be the cat through the entire fight, but there could be no certainty. Many a daemon and chaotic psyker he had faced before this believed themselves to be the cat right up until their destruction, each dying with a surprised look upon their face as they realized that they had never been in control of the fight at all.

Had it been years ago, back when he had faced the so-called Angel of Betrayal, he had no doubt he would have been the mouse. He had been good, very good, but that fight had knocked the arrogance out of him before it could truly take root just as much as the intervening years had improved his skills. Now he knew that it was not immutable fact that one was the predator and one the prey. No, one lucky blow, one miscalculation, and fortunes would be flipped.

But still, right now he knew he was predator. The daemon prince believed him to have been finally trapped in illusion, and was even now preparing to move in and defeat him. But it had neglected his connection to Mittens—while it might have temporarily succeeded in ensnaring him, it had neglected that he had an entirely separate viewpoint to draw upon, perhaps because he had been careful to avoid having Mittens make an appearance in this fight.

As he drew forward to end this charade and send this foul traitor to humanity and the Emperor back into the warp to beg forgiveness from its masters, however, everything changed. This, this THING dared to taunt him with the death of Henry? It DARED to disparage his memory, claim that it would hunt down his soul within the warp and take it?

No, simple disincorporation would never do for this THING. It would know pain, it would know fear, and it would know death. True death, the kind it had sought to evade with its betrayal to mankind. Drawing far more deeply upon his power than was safe, Xavier SLAMMED down upon the being's manifestation, holding it in place. Stalking forward, rage in his eyes and heart, he swung, dismembering it while burning it with fire strong enough that the wounds left could never regenerate. And then, once he saw the understanding and terror in its eyes, he pulled deeper still upon the warp and burned it down to its very soul, and then burned that. There would be no returning to the warp for this foul thing.

Turning back up, he saw the hordes the daemon prince had commanded, and he saw their fear. In his fury, just destroying their prince was no longer enough. So he turned his power outwards, and commanded them all to burn.

Some minutes later, Xavier came back to his senses. Here he was, exposed, exhausted, and vulnerable. Luckily, none had taken advantage of his slip—perhaps the daemons had been too eager to get away, or perhaps they had not noticed that he was exhausting himself and using levels of power that were dangerous even to him. Quickly, he gathered himself and returned to the heavily damaged university. It looked like they would be safe, a traitor to humanity had suffered final death, he had lived, and Henry was avenged. It was an acceptable result. But still, he chided himself not to lose himself to vengeance like that next time a person he cared about died. Or if he felt the need to do it again, at least not to be such a damn fool about it. Rotbart came far too close to losing both of his pseudo-sons to that daemon.
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cannon
 
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Daemonic Incursion Part Six: Everglades
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    • Daemonic Incursion Part Six: Everglades

    The Everglades, as the souther most of Avernus' inhabited regions had a far smaller force attack them then the other regions. To make matters even worse for the daemons it turned out that there were more Orks in the Everglades then you thought, which was demonstrated by several respectable Orkish hordes attacking the daemons. As such the Everglades suffered the least damage of any region of Avernus, with The Fens in particular surviving virtually unharmed due to the masterful defence run by Lieutenant-General Paulson and Jane. The Everglades lost a bit over a million soldiers and thirty million militiamen to the daemonic incursion, nine percent of the military and ten percent of the total population.

    There were six Chaos Psykers of respectable power in the Everglades, two each in The Fens, Asmat and Okefenokee. The Gamma-level Daemonologist in The Fens summed a large group of daemons who killed 300,000 militiamen, 11,000 PDF Troopers, 13,000 Helltroopers, 360 Witch Hunters, 10 Witch Sniffers, 23 minor Battle Psykers, 7 Veteran minor Battle Psykers, 3 major Battle Psykers (1 Epsilon, 1 Zeta Biomancer, 1 Zeta Diviner) and 2 Veteran major Battle Psykers (1 Zeta Diviner, 1 Epsilon Pyromancer). The Daemonologist and his Delta level Diviner comrade were both killed by a strike force of Psyker Hunters led by Jane, who is well known as Avernus' best Witch Hunter.

    The gamma level in Asmat was quickly execute but the Delta-level Telapath killed 5,000 militiamen, 2,000 PDF Troopers, 20 Witch Sniffers, 14 minor Battle Psykers, 24 Veteran minor Battle Psykers, 3 major Battle Psykers (1 Zeta Biomancer, 1 Zeta Telekinetic, 1 Zeta Telapath) and 3 Veteran major Battle Psykers (2 Zeta Biomancers, 2 Epsilon Diviner).

    A gamma-level Telapath in Okefenokee was able to wreck havoc in the city, turning the defenders on each other and opening several holes in the defences that the daemons outside took full advantage of while a Delta level Telekinetic guarded him from attack. In total 800,000 militiamen, 22,000 PDF Troopers, 7,000 Helltroopers, 840 Witch Hunters, 500 Psyker Hunters, 25 Witch Sniffers, 76 minor Battle Psykers, 12 Veteran minor Battle Psykers, 1 major Battle Psyker (Zeta Daemonologist) and 1 Veteran Major Battle Psyker (Zeta Telapath), were killed as a result of the Psykers actions.

    Both Jane and Lieutenant-General Paulson preformed miracles in the defence of The Fens, who killed daemons with such efficiency that forces were pulled back from attacking the rest of the region in order to get at whatever was being defended in The Fens.
    The Fens Defenders d100= 90+20(defences)+10(south)+13(martial)+23(heroics)+19(Omake)=165: +15 to rolls in Everglades
    Lieutenant-General Paulson d100=65+26(combat)+8(piety)+37(situation)-15(general)+5(traits)+9(Omake)=134: Survive
    Jane d100=94+33(combat)+6(piety)-20(Witch Hunter)+37(situation)+29(Omake)=179: Critical Survive
    Asmat Defenders d100= 36+10(defences)+15(south)+19(Omake)+15(The Fens)=86: Major 6.3% of the population killed
    Limberlost Defenders d100= 62+10(defences)+10(south)+19(Omake)+15(The Fens)=116: Moderate 3.3% of the population killed
    Okefenokee Defenders d100= 17+10(defences)+10(south)+19(Omake)+15(The Fens)=71: Major 7.8% of the population killed
     
  • Threadmarks
    • What we need is an omake where Jane is unable to show her true feelings and Frederick is too busy to notice anything that isn't a form. This unfortunate situation continues until Syr comes back and notices the atmosphere with these two.

    Stepping in Syr saves the day and is able to get both of them to talk to each other. Which snowballs into many things...
     
    Jane has loved Rotbart ever since she crushed those Rotbart chaos cultists and turned them into Rotbart the Imperial Saint cultists, she is the High Priestess of the cult and now has branches almost everywhere in the Imperial Trust.
     
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    A Sleeping God
  • Sidestory
    • Giant badass robots need character development too

    A Sleeping God

    In the halls of Dorthonion a broken god sleep, broken and battered, burnt to black; its honors were ashes across a hellish battlefield, yet its battered cogitator thought, slow, but with the weight of granite slabs, enough to crush the mind of any techpriest who tried to intrude into them.

    It thought of the Golden God, the dead god. It thought of the defenders of this world who lacked his vision, his hand molding them into perfection, yet still they fought with skill and courage equal to any of those who fought in ancient days

    It thought of Glorious Mars, of fallen Mars, of the Techpriest who was forging it anew upon this world, who sacrificed himself and his vision to save it

    It Decided, It Made as the machine god made manifest It Forged

    Its Rage, wild for so long broken, beaten, purged of weakness, shaped into a blade that would never dull or break to guarantee no strike against it and those it follows went unanswered

    Its Shame Its Sorrow embraced, understood, reshaped, an Armor of Contempt for itself and those it fought with to never let its weakness cost another

    This it thought of and more
    So Sanctus Furorem awaited
    To Awaken
    To Rise
     
    Last edited:
  • Sidestory
    • 3man75 said:
    What we need is an omake where Jane is unable to show her true feelings and Frederick is too busy to notice anything that isn't a form. This unfortunate situation continues until Syr comes back and notices the atmosphere with these two.

    Stepping in Syr saves the day and is able to get both of them to talk to each other. Which snowballs into many things...
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    Click to shrink...

    I'd prefer to have any relationship that develops between them be the result of player choices rather than omakes. Omakes after that are fine, but I don't think it would be good to force it with omakes since other players may have different ideas.
     
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