- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
There is something really delightful that arises from the mix of Tine's chararctisation and her mechanical build - compassionate people person, and "Terminator Smash".
WARHAMMER 40,000: ROGUE TRADER: FALLEN SUNS (40k roleplaying on the farthest frontiers)
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
- Start date
EPILOGUE: To All Things
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There was, over the sound of squelching boots in mud, and the distant groans of pain and agony, a conversation that everyone had heard at least three times now.
"I could have walked out myself, you didn't have to break my jaw."
"Bruised, darling, bruised."
Dr. Ventris rubbed her jaw, slowly, as she and Aquiline walked through the sprawling tent city that had grown, overnight, near the capital of Purgatorio. They came to the first tent on their docket today and found the way blocked by a wall. Dr. Ventris, her hair still cut short and frizzy to hide the damage done by her brushes with fire, her face still bandaged, and her jaw still showing a throbbing bruise, immediately unloaded on whatever unfortunate lackwit midshipman who had put a wall here.
"This is a temporary medicae tent! For wounded! Who puts a bloody wall in the entrance!?" She shouted, throwing up her hands. "We have nearly fifty thousand wounded we have to take care of, with only six thousand loblollies and a few civilian bloodletters and a dentist and not a single physic among the lot of them thanks to the useless, useless-"
The wall turned around.
Dr. Ventris choked as she realized she was looking at the broad chest and robes of a Space Marine.
She froze solid, while Aquiline put her hand over her mouth to hide her perfect O of shock. The Space Marine had coal black skin and dark red eyes, which were currently filled with wry amusement. He offered a hand that looked like it could encompass the entirety of Dr. Ventris' skull with its strength. Dr. Ventris looked at the hand and saw four fingers, a thumb, a palm, slightly lighter shaded than the skin on the exterior, and then looked along the arm and saw nothing but corded muscle. Yes, it was larger than normal muscle, but it was just muscle.
And to think, they said they were covered in eyes and spit acid, she thought.
"Apothicarian Kel'reth Praetel," he said. "While I tend to work on my brothers, I haven't forgotten everything I learned in seminarum. Though, according to Dr. Balthezar who stopped by on his rounds, this woman appears to have an inflamed appendix ontop of everything. I believe we can have it out in a trice." He gestured back towards the awed looking void-dog that was in the tent.
"Well!" Dr. Ventris huffed, all of her awe forgotten. "If you can trust that fellow, that Inquisitor, that...two faced lying shiftless..." She continued to grump as she walked towards the groaning woman.
Kel'reth looked over her head - not hard - at Aquiline, arching an eyebrow up to where his bangs would be, if he hadn't been as bald as an egg.
"Elle est comme ça, ne t'inquiète pas," Aquiline said.
"C'est la vie," Kel'reth said, spreading his hands.
Emil Vendigroth chuckled, while his wife Tine rocked in the comfortable rocking chair that everyone had forced her into. She looked a bit grumpy about this - Tine wanted to be up and about and down among the wounded, which were a mixture of those that had survived the Revenge, those that had been evacuated from the Aegis-Two, and those that had been hurt on the Scourge. There were uncounted thousands more who's only service had been the solemn burial at space that had been held last week, where the names of the lost had been read out across the fleet by auto-scriptums, and the single tolling of a ceremonial black bell had rung out again and again and again and again. The lists were maddeningly incomplete, simply because of the sheer number of people who had been lost aboard each ship, and the imperfect state of their records afterwards...
Em put his hand on Tine's shoulder, keeping her down on her seat.
"I'm sure the Inquisition is more than up to the task," he said. "Two million men and women, there are surely some that can be saved. Fortunately, Chaos does tend to make it quite clear when one is too corrupted to be easily drawn back to the light."
"I say we burn them all and let the Emperor sort them out," Syl muttered.
"No, we have to hope," Tine said, putting her hand on Em's hand, squeezing. "There were slaves and pressed men, people in a bad situation just trying to survive."
"Hope is the first step-" Syl started.
"Oh, don't quote Thoughts, everyone knows that was written by Belmon Pious, the most humorless and pessimistic sour grape to ever survive the Vandirian purges." Ryia cut into the conversation with a smirk, her augmetic hand holding a glass of fresh pluma juice. She sipped from it, then winced. "Why can't I drink-"
"You can't drink amesac at nine in the morning, sister," Tine said, rolling her head back. "Not before the meeting even starts."
Ryia shook her head, while Syl looked at her as if she had grown a second head. "You...read Thoughts?" she asked.
"I read some books, Syl!" Ryia exclaimed, sounding offended. Then, lifting her glass. "The no fun part's arrived."
The front of the manor house had the most unlikely collection of men and women that the Imperium had seen in...
Ever?
Maybe?
Em wasn't entirely sure, but he did enjoy the sight of a Salamander battle-captain in his ceremonial robes, an Adeptus Mechanicus magos who looked as if she maybe had less biomatter than Ryia's pluma juice, Admiral Nathanial Horne (the only man he knew by sight), and two Eldar Farseers, all walking together towards the Scourge Household. If one took a pict, right now, it might look like the possibility of a galaxy marred by less war and strife in the future. But the thing about picts was they didn't keep moving after you took them.
An hour later, Em was fairly sure that Purgatorio was going to have another shooting war, less than a week since the first.
"The Revenge's prow is, without a doubt, owned by House Scourge, according to the charters. But everything after Deck-15.A, as marked upon this schematic here, is owned BY the Mechanicus and HAS been owned BY the Mechanicus since the ship was signed to the Imperial Navy and, thus, then, to House Scourge in the year 816. The charter says nothing about the ship must needing to be rejoined - only that WHILE it is joined..."
Tine opened her mouth to respond with something polite to the Magos. Ryia cut her off. "You gotta be fucking kidding! It's our ship! Our KID was born there!"
Tine's face turned pink and she muttered. "Well....yes, it is Scourge...that...that does mean that there...yes!" She sprang up, beaming. "Primogeniture Astra states that the homeworld of a nobleborn is where they took first breath - thus, by the strict reading of the Book of Silver, we have to say that while it my not be House Scourge in totality, at least HALF the ship is owned by Zephyr Solar-Ginnabelle Vendigroth Scourge! And, why, look at this! We have signed and written documents proving that birth, we just need to...Tabitha, go fetch Ventirs." Under the table, where the others couldn't see it, Tine hastily signed using House Scourge hand-talk: Make sure they own the half that we want!
"Primogeniture!?" Magos Olo managed to huff out.
"It's the law-"
"The law also states we shall not suffer a xenos to live - and I hasten to add, Craftworld Kaelor is not without crime against humanity - against mechanics! Against myself, in my own person. Your alliance with them could be seen as rights to revoke certain noble privileges, if we were forced to."
"Oh, I have a Warrant that might disagree with that," Tine said, narrowing her eyes.
Em sighed, softly.
The negotiations ground on in the same way for weeks. Every wreck was wanted by at least three parties - depending on who captured it, who had destroyed what, what was on it, who was nearby it. There was a wealth of salvage still being policed in their orbit - even the burned out hulks of destroyers represented wealth that could make or break careers. The most surprising thing to Em was that the people who made the negotiations work at all wasn't even him. The Salamanders were the least interested in salvage and most distantly related to the situation (their leader, Captain Exogh Sho, said that their brothers had been called to the Sector for 'Chapter business' and refused to elaborate and Em never thought to press them for more information) and had a diplomatic tact and humanist bent that left Em grateful for their assistance so many times he lost count.
In the end, the prizes were settled. The wounded were healed.
The dead were buried.
The guilty were punished. The innocent, such as they were...
Well.
They got their second chances.
Ryia walked with Old Sly, her hand on his shoulder, as he looked around himself. They were in the gardens behind the manor, walking along the creek. Sunlight shone through dappled leaves and something seemed to flit before the old man's features. He paused, his palm pressed against a tree. He whispered. "This is...real...isn't it?" he asked.
Ryia, who was used to his mutterings, lifted her head. She had been thinking about the many tasks that seemed to perpetually come up and need her attentions. She had refused to let Berrin go back to being some minor fetcher and carrier of water, mutant or no, and had needed to smash down the institutional barriers between mutants and education, which existed without thought on Purgatorio until she had turned her baleful glare upon it - and that had somehow ended with her, months later, trying to manage the educational system for thousands of orphans left after the battle. She had no idea what she was doing - but she didn't need to have an idea. She just needed to threaten the scholar teachers they found into treating the kids right.
That part of her job was fun.
But now, she was focused entirely on her old captain.
"Yeah, yeah, Old Sly, it's real," she said.
"I..." he blinked. "I'm not going back. There's no more Basilica in the future. I'm...here."
Ryia nodded. "Yeah, you're here."
He turned and smiled at her, his features wrinkled and withered before their time.
"It's a nice...nice day, isn't it?"
Ryia nodded. For some reason, Old Sly was getting blurry.
"C-Come on," Old Sly said, starting forward, moving without her hand on his arm. "I...I remember there being a nice pond - there used to be a nice pond on my homeworld. Did I ever tell you about Kellen? It was such a nice world. Do you have frogs here?"
Ryia had to hurry to catch up.
After she dealt with a runny nose.
Allergies, surely.
"They'll have to fucking TRY!" Xoti huffed, as she stood to attention beside the new Ambassador. The rest of the First were arrayed around her, in their best gear, their weapons slung at parade rest. Em took a moment to look at each of them - at Lidda, Slade, Biggs, Twice-Catch, Xoti...the last was maybe half the reason why Tine had suggested that the First be sent as the honor guard for their first Ambassador to Craftworld Lu'nasad and Kaelor.
But Em had agreed.
Because...
The First had been ghosts for a while now.
The 101st hadn't gotten a single woman off the Revenge. Their barracks had been right in the middle of the ship, right where the...cut...had been. If the First hadn't been on the Argent Scourge, they would be dead.
But he could already see that they were looking more centered. Less likely to, as Xoti had been wont to, challenge Space Marines to 'friendly fist fights.'
Lidda stepped forward, then held out her hand to Em. "We'll keep her safe, sir," she said, quietly, nodding to him. Em took her hand, then on impulse hugged her, drawing her close. Lidda froze, blushed, then hugged him back. They stepped away, then, the whole of the squad, following Lucinder.
"I'm not doing your laundry, just so you know," Biggs' voice carried back as the whole group laughed.
"They'll be okay," Tine said, nodding as she stood up beside Em, wincing slightly as her still healing ribs shifted.
Em watched as the humans reached the landed Eldar shuttle, which looked incuriously beautiful against the regular grid of tents that still dominated that part of the horizon. Fortunately, that city was being transformed, day by day. The Salamanders were damn good at building structures in a hurry, and were more than happy to make homes for those that needed it. It remained deeply surprising to Em, every time he saw it. "We're going to be okay," she added, then smiled. "Come on."
They walked back into the house as the Eldar ship lifted into the sky - and there, Em found Junie and Zeph at the dinner table, both of them frowning incredlously at the sword that was propped up at a dinner chair.
"You want us to sing nursery rhymes?" Junie asked.
"That's for babies," Zeph said, from their incredibly mature age of twelve.
Em couldn't hear Aria's response, but he could guess it had something to do with psyker esoterica.
"That can't possibly work," Junie said, shaking her head.
"Oh, no, having a rhyme running in your head does wonders to really, really, REALLY annoy any telepath that is bothering you," Tine said, sitting down. "Come, I'll sing with you! Row row-"
Em laughed - but Junie's glare sent him fleeing quickly.
From the second story balcony, he watched the sunset. He watched the scaffolding of the new station, constructed at no small expense by the Ark Mechanicus as she hung in orbit, floating above the horizon, a visible webwork of lights in low orbit. He could see the parking swarm of ships - and he knew that he owned a surprising number of them. He slid his palms along the balcony.
Then he lifted his finger, slowly.
He pointed at the brightest star, glimmering through the veil of the warp storms that wreathed the heavens and barred the way between the Expanse and the Calixus Sector. That star was a furious blue-giant, and she had never been explored, though she had been put on many charts. She didn't even have a name.
Em smiled to himself.
The orbital paths brought another scaffolding into line of sight. The faint glittering of work-sparks around her midsection made her visible enough, even from the ground. Her prow remained proud. Her engines remained good. She would fly again.
She would.
"Give me a ship to sail her by," he murmured, then turned and returned to the quiet home he loved so dear.
Postscript
Fhew! That's, uh...370,000 words (approximately) of nothing but Rogue Trader. I bought Rogue Trader when I was 19 or 20, seeing it at a Barns and Noble, with my dear friend George. I had been moderately interested in 40k my whole life, ever since I read my brother's 2nd edition books and played Final Liberation and Chaos Gate, but I had never really "clicked' with the setting until Rogue Trader. Its breathtaking vision of Star Trek meets 40k gave to me, a twenty something goober, something that Warhammer had always lacked.
Hope.
Rogue Trader promised a position and role in the Imperium where you could be, finally, GOOD. And not good in the quasi-fascist hero worshiping space marines and their justified forever war, but actually genuinely good. You can rediscover lost secrets. You can save people. You can make alliances and friends with xenos and strange human civilizations. It was heady and thrilling and I fell deeply in love with it, running several campaigns with my friends, taking advantage of my friend Meg's MASSIVE FUCKOFF HUGE GAMING TABLE, which allowed us to have titanic fleet combats. Even now, those remain some of my fondest memories of tabletop gaming.
I hoped, with these quests, to bring some of that joy to all of you and to give you all a picture of a 40k universe that keeps its '40kness' without being...well, kinda gross.
Now! What am I going to do next? I'm currently running a tank playtest quest using @open_sketch's fantastic CHARIOTS OF STEEL RPG, which is set in the Fallout universe! You can check it out here!
I am also going to be starting a quest I've wanted to do for quite some time! For a year now, my friends at Erika's discord have been telling me about Worm and I wanna get in on this, in my own idiosyncratic way. You can check THAT out here.
Love <3
-Dragon Cobolt
"I could have walked out myself, you didn't have to break my jaw."
"Bruised, darling, bruised."
Dr. Ventris rubbed her jaw, slowly, as she and Aquiline walked through the sprawling tent city that had grown, overnight, near the capital of Purgatorio. They came to the first tent on their docket today and found the way blocked by a wall. Dr. Ventris, her hair still cut short and frizzy to hide the damage done by her brushes with fire, her face still bandaged, and her jaw still showing a throbbing bruise, immediately unloaded on whatever unfortunate lackwit midshipman who had put a wall here.
"This is a temporary medicae tent! For wounded! Who puts a bloody wall in the entrance!?" She shouted, throwing up her hands. "We have nearly fifty thousand wounded we have to take care of, with only six thousand loblollies and a few civilian bloodletters and a dentist and not a single physic among the lot of them thanks to the useless, useless-"
The wall turned around.
Dr. Ventris choked as she realized she was looking at the broad chest and robes of a Space Marine.
She froze solid, while Aquiline put her hand over her mouth to hide her perfect O of shock. The Space Marine had coal black skin and dark red eyes, which were currently filled with wry amusement. He offered a hand that looked like it could encompass the entirety of Dr. Ventris' skull with its strength. Dr. Ventris looked at the hand and saw four fingers, a thumb, a palm, slightly lighter shaded than the skin on the exterior, and then looked along the arm and saw nothing but corded muscle. Yes, it was larger than normal muscle, but it was just muscle.
And to think, they said they were covered in eyes and spit acid, she thought.
"Apothicarian Kel'reth Praetel," he said. "While I tend to work on my brothers, I haven't forgotten everything I learned in seminarum. Though, according to Dr. Balthezar who stopped by on his rounds, this woman appears to have an inflamed appendix ontop of everything. I believe we can have it out in a trice." He gestured back towards the awed looking void-dog that was in the tent.
"Well!" Dr. Ventris huffed, all of her awe forgotten. "If you can trust that fellow, that Inquisitor, that...two faced lying shiftless..." She continued to grump as she walked towards the groaning woman.
Kel'reth looked over her head - not hard - at Aquiline, arching an eyebrow up to where his bangs would be, if he hadn't been as bald as an egg.
"Elle est comme ça, ne t'inquiète pas," Aquiline said.
"C'est la vie," Kel'reth said, spreading his hands.
***
"Scintilla is going to have a field day over this, you know," Captain Locke said as she stood on the front portico of the Scourge Manor house. "What do we even do with two million heretics?" She asked, shaking her head a bit.
Emil Vendigroth chuckled, while his wife Tine rocked in the comfortable rocking chair that everyone had forced her into. She looked a bit grumpy about this - Tine wanted to be up and about and down among the wounded, which were a mixture of those that had survived the Revenge, those that had been evacuated from the Aegis-Two, and those that had been hurt on the Scourge. There were uncounted thousands more who's only service had been the solemn burial at space that had been held last week, where the names of the lost had been read out across the fleet by auto-scriptums, and the single tolling of a ceremonial black bell had rung out again and again and again and again. The lists were maddeningly incomplete, simply because of the sheer number of people who had been lost aboard each ship, and the imperfect state of their records afterwards...
Em put his hand on Tine's shoulder, keeping her down on her seat.
"I'm sure the Inquisition is more than up to the task," he said. "Two million men and women, there are surely some that can be saved. Fortunately, Chaos does tend to make it quite clear when one is too corrupted to be easily drawn back to the light."
"I say we burn them all and let the Emperor sort them out," Syl muttered.
"No, we have to hope," Tine said, putting her hand on Em's hand, squeezing. "There were slaves and pressed men, people in a bad situation just trying to survive."
"Hope is the first step-" Syl started.
"Oh, don't quote Thoughts, everyone knows that was written by Belmon Pious, the most humorless and pessimistic sour grape to ever survive the Vandirian purges." Ryia cut into the conversation with a smirk, her augmetic hand holding a glass of fresh pluma juice. She sipped from it, then winced. "Why can't I drink-"
"You can't drink amesac at nine in the morning, sister," Tine said, rolling her head back. "Not before the meeting even starts."
Ryia shook her head, while Syl looked at her as if she had grown a second head. "You...read Thoughts?" she asked.
"I read some books, Syl!" Ryia exclaimed, sounding offended. Then, lifting her glass. "The no fun part's arrived."
The front of the manor house had the most unlikely collection of men and women that the Imperium had seen in...
Ever?
Maybe?
Em wasn't entirely sure, but he did enjoy the sight of a Salamander battle-captain in his ceremonial robes, an Adeptus Mechanicus magos who looked as if she maybe had less biomatter than Ryia's pluma juice, Admiral Nathanial Horne (the only man he knew by sight), and two Eldar Farseers, all walking together towards the Scourge Household. If one took a pict, right now, it might look like the possibility of a galaxy marred by less war and strife in the future. But the thing about picts was they didn't keep moving after you took them.
An hour later, Em was fairly sure that Purgatorio was going to have another shooting war, less than a week since the first.
"The Revenge's prow is, without a doubt, owned by House Scourge, according to the charters. But everything after Deck-15.A, as marked upon this schematic here, is owned BY the Mechanicus and HAS been owned BY the Mechanicus since the ship was signed to the Imperial Navy and, thus, then, to House Scourge in the year 816. The charter says nothing about the ship must needing to be rejoined - only that WHILE it is joined..."
Tine opened her mouth to respond with something polite to the Magos. Ryia cut her off. "You gotta be fucking kidding! It's our ship! Our KID was born there!"
Tine's face turned pink and she muttered. "Well....yes, it is Scourge...that...that does mean that there...yes!" She sprang up, beaming. "Primogeniture Astra states that the homeworld of a nobleborn is where they took first breath - thus, by the strict reading of the Book of Silver, we have to say that while it my not be House Scourge in totality, at least HALF the ship is owned by Zephyr Solar-Ginnabelle Vendigroth Scourge! And, why, look at this! We have signed and written documents proving that birth, we just need to...Tabitha, go fetch Ventirs." Under the table, where the others couldn't see it, Tine hastily signed using House Scourge hand-talk: Make sure they own the half that we want!
"Primogeniture!?" Magos Olo managed to huff out.
"It's the law-"
"The law also states we shall not suffer a xenos to live - and I hasten to add, Craftworld Kaelor is not without crime against humanity - against mechanics! Against myself, in my own person. Your alliance with them could be seen as rights to revoke certain noble privileges, if we were forced to."
"Oh, I have a Warrant that might disagree with that," Tine said, narrowing her eyes.
Em sighed, softly.
The negotiations ground on in the same way for weeks. Every wreck was wanted by at least three parties - depending on who captured it, who had destroyed what, what was on it, who was nearby it. There was a wealth of salvage still being policed in their orbit - even the burned out hulks of destroyers represented wealth that could make or break careers. The most surprising thing to Em was that the people who made the negotiations work at all wasn't even him. The Salamanders were the least interested in salvage and most distantly related to the situation (their leader, Captain Exogh Sho, said that their brothers had been called to the Sector for 'Chapter business' and refused to elaborate and Em never thought to press them for more information) and had a diplomatic tact and humanist bent that left Em grateful for their assistance so many times he lost count.
In the end, the prizes were settled. The wounded were healed.
The dead were buried.
The guilty were punished. The innocent, such as they were...
Well.
They got their second chances.
***
Ryia walked with Old Sly, her hand on his shoulder, as he looked around himself. They were in the gardens behind the manor, walking along the creek. Sunlight shone through dappled leaves and something seemed to flit before the old man's features. He paused, his palm pressed against a tree. He whispered. "This is...real...isn't it?" he asked.
Ryia, who was used to his mutterings, lifted her head. She had been thinking about the many tasks that seemed to perpetually come up and need her attentions. She had refused to let Berrin go back to being some minor fetcher and carrier of water, mutant or no, and had needed to smash down the institutional barriers between mutants and education, which existed without thought on Purgatorio until she had turned her baleful glare upon it - and that had somehow ended with her, months later, trying to manage the educational system for thousands of orphans left after the battle. She had no idea what she was doing - but she didn't need to have an idea. She just needed to threaten the scholar teachers they found into treating the kids right.
That part of her job was fun.
But now, she was focused entirely on her old captain.
"Yeah, yeah, Old Sly, it's real," she said.
"I..." he blinked. "I'm not going back. There's no more Basilica in the future. I'm...here."
Ryia nodded. "Yeah, you're here."
He turned and smiled at her, his features wrinkled and withered before their time.
"It's a nice...nice day, isn't it?"
Ryia nodded. For some reason, Old Sly was getting blurry.
"C-Come on," Old Sly said, starting forward, moving without her hand on his arm. "I...I remember there being a nice pond - there used to be a nice pond on my homeworld. Did I ever tell you about Kellen? It was such a nice world. Do you have frogs here?"
Ryia had to hurry to catch up.
After she dealt with a runny nose.
Allergies, surely.
***
"You sure they won't just kill you?" Em said, his voice playful as he handed over the embossed scroll to Ambassador Lucincer Noceda. She looked as completely out of sorts in the Imperial Ambassador's attire as she looked with her new tattoos - all of it just made her look of terror more intensely amusing to Em as she took the scroll in shaking hands. The tattoos were impossible to ignore - the two on her cheeks gave the impression of the ceremonial headdress that the Avatar had worn, while others on her palms and her arms implied the wreathing of flames, while also looking like Eldar runes. Em could read them, though he still wasn't sure what to make of 'Who's Words are Holy' on one arm and 'But You Must Not Hear Them' on the other.
"They'll have to fucking TRY!" Xoti huffed, as she stood to attention beside the new Ambassador. The rest of the First were arrayed around her, in their best gear, their weapons slung at parade rest. Em took a moment to look at each of them - at Lidda, Slade, Biggs, Twice-Catch, Xoti...the last was maybe half the reason why Tine had suggested that the First be sent as the honor guard for their first Ambassador to Craftworld Lu'nasad and Kaelor.
But Em had agreed.
Because...
The First had been ghosts for a while now.
The 101st hadn't gotten a single woman off the Revenge. Their barracks had been right in the middle of the ship, right where the...cut...had been. If the First hadn't been on the Argent Scourge, they would be dead.
But he could already see that they were looking more centered. Less likely to, as Xoti had been wont to, challenge Space Marines to 'friendly fist fights.'
Lidda stepped forward, then held out her hand to Em. "We'll keep her safe, sir," she said, quietly, nodding to him. Em took her hand, then on impulse hugged her, drawing her close. Lidda froze, blushed, then hugged him back. They stepped away, then, the whole of the squad, following Lucinder.
"I'm not doing your laundry, just so you know," Biggs' voice carried back as the whole group laughed.
"They'll be okay," Tine said, nodding as she stood up beside Em, wincing slightly as her still healing ribs shifted.
Em watched as the humans reached the landed Eldar shuttle, which looked incuriously beautiful against the regular grid of tents that still dominated that part of the horizon. Fortunately, that city was being transformed, day by day. The Salamanders were damn good at building structures in a hurry, and were more than happy to make homes for those that needed it. It remained deeply surprising to Em, every time he saw it. "We're going to be okay," she added, then smiled. "Come on."
They walked back into the house as the Eldar ship lifted into the sky - and there, Em found Junie and Zeph at the dinner table, both of them frowning incredlously at the sword that was propped up at a dinner chair.
"You want us to sing nursery rhymes?" Junie asked.
"That's for babies," Zeph said, from their incredibly mature age of twelve.
Em couldn't hear Aria's response, but he could guess it had something to do with psyker esoterica.
"That can't possibly work," Junie said, shaking her head.
"Oh, no, having a rhyme running in your head does wonders to really, really, REALLY annoy any telepath that is bothering you," Tine said, sitting down. "Come, I'll sing with you! Row row-"
Em laughed - but Junie's glare sent him fleeing quickly.
From the second story balcony, he watched the sunset. He watched the scaffolding of the new station, constructed at no small expense by the Ark Mechanicus as she hung in orbit, floating above the horizon, a visible webwork of lights in low orbit. He could see the parking swarm of ships - and he knew that he owned a surprising number of them. He slid his palms along the balcony.
Then he lifted his finger, slowly.
He pointed at the brightest star, glimmering through the veil of the warp storms that wreathed the heavens and barred the way between the Expanse and the Calixus Sector. That star was a furious blue-giant, and she had never been explored, though she had been put on many charts. She didn't even have a name.
Em smiled to himself.
The orbital paths brought another scaffolding into line of sight. The faint glittering of work-sparks around her midsection made her visible enough, even from the ground. Her prow remained proud. Her engines remained good. She would fly again.
She would.
"Give me a ship to sail her by," he murmured, then turned and returned to the quiet home he loved so dear.
THE END
Postscript
Fhew! That's, uh...370,000 words (approximately) of nothing but Rogue Trader. I bought Rogue Trader when I was 19 or 20, seeing it at a Barns and Noble, with my dear friend George. I had been moderately interested in 40k my whole life, ever since I read my brother's 2nd edition books and played Final Liberation and Chaos Gate, but I had never really "clicked' with the setting until Rogue Trader. Its breathtaking vision of Star Trek meets 40k gave to me, a twenty something goober, something that Warhammer had always lacked.
Hope.
Rogue Trader promised a position and role in the Imperium where you could be, finally, GOOD. And not good in the quasi-fascist hero worshiping space marines and their justified forever war, but actually genuinely good. You can rediscover lost secrets. You can save people. You can make alliances and friends with xenos and strange human civilizations. It was heady and thrilling and I fell deeply in love with it, running several campaigns with my friends, taking advantage of my friend Meg's MASSIVE FUCKOFF HUGE GAMING TABLE, which allowed us to have titanic fleet combats. Even now, those remain some of my fondest memories of tabletop gaming.
I hoped, with these quests, to bring some of that joy to all of you and to give you all a picture of a 40k universe that keeps its '40kness' without being...well, kinda gross.
Now! What am I going to do next? I'm currently running a tank playtest quest using @open_sketch's fantastic CHARIOTS OF STEEL RPG, which is set in the Fallout universe! You can check it out here!
I am also going to be starting a quest I've wanted to do for quite some time! For a year now, my friends at Erika's discord have been telling me about Worm and I wanna get in on this, in my own idiosyncratic way. You can check THAT out here.
Love <3
-Dragon Cobolt
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
See, that's what you get for not being a named character.
Did the murderbots make it out?
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- He/Him
Maybe a few!
- Location
- The internet
Yeah, that's about what I expected
Out of pure curiosity, was that bit always planned or did my comment inspire that segment?
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
For all he needs is a mighty ship, and a star to guide her by...
So, Zeph or Ambassador Lucincer Noceda for the next protagonist?
My only regret, aside from what happened to revenge, is we never did get Zeph and Junie that puppy.
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It wasn't planned since I didn't know how many enemy ships would survive before you hit Lu'nasad, but enough did that it seemed reasonable.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
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- He/Him
"She's like that, don't worry" for anyone who doesn't speak French and didn't want to plug it into Google Translate themselves.
That closer is a really nice line.
My unprovable thesis is that they were here chasing a rumored relic of Vulkan... and maybe that'll be a plot point in a future sequel quest? We'll see!
DAMN ALLERGIES, STUPID PLANET WITH ITS STUPID PLANTS MAKING A HARDENED VOID-DOG LIKE RYIA TEAR UP
LMFAOOOOOOO
Has this poor girl not been in way over her head for an entire consecutive week since we brought her along to that first meeting? Well, at least that means she's used to it.
😭😭😭
Yeah but did she win any of them tho
Speaking of Xoti, I know that you're planning/considering a future sequel quest with Junie and Zeph as the protagonists DC. I want to pitch you this while I'm thinking of it in hopes that it'll plant a seed: Arch-Militant Xoti. I'm just saying.
This was a lovely epilogue, and for my part you have been more than successful at sharing the joy you feel in the setting. Thanks so, so much for all of it.
that was rather epic, and i enjoyed the quest, as well as the entire series, greatly. i like WH40k, but this series of quests, is one of the best written rogue trader stories i seen, and made me appreciate Rogue Traders. that explorer of space feeling is great, and it feels like the best parts of star trek and WH40k - it has that exploration, mystery and unknown as we go into a new frontier from star trek, with HOPE for a brighter future all teh while. But with the Epic Battles and Action and Heroics that follow Rule of Cool that characterizes the best WH fics!
Seems the mechanicus is here to safeguard the archaotach in revenge, and maybe other ships, and lay claim to it, but i cant help but be curious about the business of the Salamanders
Seems the mechanicus is here to safeguard the archaotach in revenge, and maybe other ships, and lay claim to it, but i cant help but be curious about the business of the Salamanders
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- He/Him
Oh, also, Em doesn't know this, but you can!
The Salamanders were on their way to drop off some battle brothers for Deathwatch, cause there's DEATHWATCH going on via the warp gate hidden in the Maw!
The Salamanders were on their way to drop off some battle brothers for Deathwatch, cause there's DEATHWATCH going on via the warp gate hidden in the Maw!
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Well, that's going to be a fun evac pod ride.
An officer, some deckhands, a mutant and a murderservitor stuck in a tin can.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chillin in the fridge still, since you never used him!
Happerry
Bat out of Hell
- Location
- Kanto
You know... I would make like Eldar and would go to be the one to play in this version of 40k while you two fight among yourselves...
You did great job in making something that is both undeniably WH40k, with all the important canon there, but also wholesome.
- Location
- ferreries
Please tell me this series hasn't ended literally days after I discovered. I really wanted to eventually participate after catching up! Even if it's a sequel some months(years?) down the line!
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- He/Him
Sorry, lol!
But hey, you did get to read 1.5 Neil Stevenson novels worth of Warhammer 40k.
Also, I have new quests to participate in!
Man, reading the last three updates back to back (been a bit busy so needed to catch up) was a wild fucking ride. So many emotions.
The battle reaching its darkest moment, and then the cavalry arriving.
Discovering the true nature of Karrad Vall.
That beautiful epilogue.
Absolutely wonderful, masterful work. Completing one quest is enough of an achievement, with the stresses and time pressures of real life being what they are. Completing the final instalment of a four part series of quests is absolutely astounding!
Great writing, gripping action and emotive character drama, along with stellar worldbuilding of a more positive vision of 40K as a setting, one I would love to play in again. (And has influenced how I would write or GM things in the setting.) Thank you so much for writing this, @DragonCobolt. This four-part quest series will join some of the others on SV which will always have a fond place in my heart.
The battle reaching its darkest moment, and then the cavalry arriving.
Discovering the true nature of Karrad Vall.
That beautiful epilogue.
Absolutely wonderful, masterful work. Completing one quest is enough of an achievement, with the stresses and time pressures of real life being what they are. Completing the final instalment of a four part series of quests is absolutely astounding!
Great writing, gripping action and emotive character drama, along with stellar worldbuilding of a more positive vision of 40K as a setting, one I would love to play in again. (And has influenced how I would write or GM things in the setting.) Thank you so much for writing this, @DragonCobolt. This four-part quest series will join some of the others on SV which will always have a fond place in my heart.
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- He/Him
I am basically a Victorian gentleman who is independently wealthy, so my day job is super easy, I have a nice house, plenty of food, and tons of free time, so...like, don't get TOO impressed.
That's true, but I have also had periods of my life where I have not had huge concerns beyond some uni studies and working or volunteering part time, and I do not have a four part quest series to show for it!
Using free time productively in a way that makes something for others, rather than it becoming a sort of yawning abyss which you struggle to fill, can be a challenge in itself, I find. So yes, I take your point, but still, well done!
Using free time productively in a way that makes something for others, rather than it becoming a sort of yawning abyss which you struggle to fill, can be a challenge in itself, I find. So yes, I take your point, but still, well done!
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I'm just sick of those news articles that are like, "Wow, this guy made a* HUGE business all by himself!", so I might be ... a bit too self effacing
*with his parents 5 million dollar loan, help from his five paid aides, and by being born the son of the Prince of Wales
*with his parents 5 million dollar loan, help from his five paid aides, and by being born the son of the Prince of Wales
If Prince Harry writes a quest on SV, I will assume that the aliens running the simulation are just fucking with us.