NPC List
Spoiler: Inquisitor Finial Zarkov
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Though the acolytes know little about their Inquisitor, they have been allowed to know that they serve elder Inquisitor Finial Zarkov of the Ordo Xenos, which means they fight aliens... or something. Inquisitor Zarkov is a mysterious figure, who is rarely seen in person by the acolytes, preferring to communicate via the fuzzy Hololithic projector set up in the Hapheastein base. Zarkov generally keeps his face hidden under the shadows of dark green robes, though occasionally the reflective yellow glint of a single bionic eye can be seen. His hands (usually the only flesh visible) are gnarled, rough and withered, indicating centuries of use and aging. Inquisitor Zarkov's voice is low and reedy, and his words are always chosen carefully, and often contain complicated educated words of High Gothic.
Spoiler: Otto Dresh
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Otto Dresh is a veteran of the Imperial Guard, having served his twenty years and survived the wars and skirmishes. He seemingly always has a lho-stick in his mouth and a measure of drink in his hand, spending his pension in one of several "recreation centers" in the hive. He is knowledgeable of the vice in the Hive, following the shifts and changes of fortune of the various players in the underworld. He is not personally involved, but frequently "know a guy" who knows a guy.
Spoiler: Elena Kollek
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A pretty young woman with violet eyes. Back on Midpoint station, she charmed Luis into showing her around the von Drakkan ship, including the artifact rooms. Not that it was difficult to charm the naive feral. Of course, she really is a professional infiltrator working for Inquisitor Zarkov, who was investigating some the cold trade operations of the von Drakkan dynasty. Now that that assignment is wrapped up, she has also been reassigned to Helius, where perhaps she will cross paths with Luis again. He bears her no ill-will, but will certainly be on his guard around her next time.
Spoiler: Magos Petrovskii
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The leader of the congregation of Omnicron-5038, Magos Petrovskii is a bulky figure, in contrast to many of the spindly tech-priests that would be in most Imperial citizen's first thoughts. More of a priest than an engineer, Petrovskii has endeavoured to spread the word of the Omnissiah throughout the surrounding area of the hive, being willing to engage Imperial citizens in debates of doctrine and theology on his sojourns, as well as offering blessings on any technologies brought to him. Some discerning citizens have noticed a correlation between the reduction in vagrancy in the area and increasing numbers of servitors tending the enclave, but few have thought to make a point of it, seeing it as a benefit rather than anything more sinister.
Spoiler: Noman Sturm
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Somewhere in the lower-spires of the hive is a street-preacher of the Imperial Creed named Noman Sturm. A former sergeant in the Astra Militarum, Noman was discharged after many years of service. While not an officially sanctioned member of the Imperial Ministorum, his faith in the Imperial Creed is strong. He is an older man to tends to the faith of the lower-hive inhabitants, fostering a strong belief in the protection of the God-Emperor of Mankind. He bears many scars from the brutal warfronts he participated in, and some of his limbs have been replaced with crude augmentation.
Spoiler: Url and Zeik
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Url is the caretaker of a small hab where the acolytes are staying in the underhive of Hapheastein. Url has receding grey hair, and deep lines across his square face. His son is a taller thinner version of his father, carrying more muscles and a face pocked with a number of hairy moles. The two carry shotguns.
Spoiler: Bail "Shortstick" Georgy and Leetus
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Georgy and Leetus are two members of Clan Tora, and dress in the gang's colors of heavy tattered fabrics in purple and dark red. Georgy is tall with greasy hair and a crooked tooth grin, and is the more talkative and sharp witted of the two. His companion is a stooped boy with a pimpled face and patchy peach fuzz.
Spoiler: Sola
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Sola is a representative of Clan Raptore. She was responsible for explaining what happened with the Xenos weapons in the underhive. She is young, and surprisingly beautiful for an underhiver, with piercing green eyes and short brown hair. A mess of scar tissue bisects her right eyebrow from what looks like a some sort of blade wound. The acolytes know she is stealthy, and was likely following them in the underhive during their first mission.
Locations
The game is set in the Angevin Subsector, in 813.M41. The Angevin Subsector is the primary subsector of the Ixaniad Sector and the Subsector in which our story is set. The Ixaniad Sector is a sector of the Imperium of Man located within a ragged stellar cluster of the Milky Way Galaxy that also includes the Calixis, Scarus and Askellon Sectors of the Segmentum Obscurus. The Ixaniad Sector has many heavily populated and important worlds, but it lies a great distance from the Imperium’s heartland and, like so much of the Imperium of Man, it must ultimately fend for itself. Like all Imperial territories, this sector is at risk from the chronic dangers facing humanity: war, mutation, xenos activity, the mark of Chaos, and so on.
Spoiler: Hive World Helius
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Helius is one of the major hive planets, renowned for its pumping and refining of high grade promethium from the planet's core. Though there are different flavors to the worship of the Emperor on Helius, He is generally worshiped as a god of the sun, and fire and purity. It is common to see a squeezed image of the Imperial Aquila on Helius, where the twin eagles are pushed together so as to almost appear to be a sunburst. Among the major products that Helius provides to the surrounding subsector and sector are large volumes of high grade Promethium, as well as elite patterns of Meltas, Flamers, and fire resistant armors. Furthermore, the slag produced from the refining of promethium is also used to produce a large percent of plasteel and other carbon based plastics used on Imperial ships and architecture.
Spoiler: Hive Hapheastein
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Of the six major hives on Helius, the retinue is stationed in the largest, Hive Hapheastein. Hapheastein is made up of an underhive, a midhive where the retinue's base is, and an upper hive with spires that tower up above the toxic clouds of pollution to bask in the holy light of twin suns around which Helius circles. The wealthiest nobles command massive promethium refineries, battling for wells in land and see across the planet Helius. Their spires climb high above the low clouds of toxic smog to put them into view of the planet's twin suns. Sun exposure, darker skin and clothing in the colors red, orange and yellow are all indicators of wealth and nobility on Helius, while underhivers often have to scrounge for the warmest garments possible where there is no sunlight or consistent electricity to provide heat.
Travel in the Upper Hive levels can be performed by aircraft, by rail train, and by a series of complex elevators that only the Noble families have access to. The mid and lower hive regions are dependent on small and personal vehicles for local travel and a series of less well maintained rail lines for more extensive travel. Unlike in the upper spires, the rail trains in the mid hive and below are poorly maintained, prone to problems with air filtration and breakdown. Furthermore, the rail tunnels have been built practically on top of each other, resulting in a labyrinthine series of tracks that sometimes lead to dead ends, and it is not uncommon for an entire train to disappear all together in some of the lesser regions.
Hive Hapheastein is home to about 6.5 million documented Imperial citizens. The frequent births and deaths are so complicated to keep track of that the Administratum has given up any attempt to track the citizens of the underhive. Recognized essentially as non-citizens, the underhivers in Hapheastein live in complete and utter lawlessness, with the Planetary Enforcers only working to guard the passages between the Underhive and the mid hive. Mutation is not uncommon in the Underhive, where toxic waste runs down the walls and drips from the ceilings like an urban and acidic tropical rain forest.
Spoiler: Station Tollares
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This huge space was once the terminus of an inter-hive rail system before it broke down and was never repaired. Quickly taken over by squatters, the cavernous space has turned into a vast marketplace, where all sorts of goods and services can be found. When not guarding the safe-house, Luis can often be found here, dicing away his pay, or visiting some of the vice-dens hidden away in the corners. Or simply enjoying a cup of bittercaf to wash down the bilge-rat skewers sold by the food vendors.
Spoiler: The Commisar Tavern
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The Commissar, far from what its name would suggest, is a semi-legal drinking establishment serving as a center for recreation and vice in the mid-Hive. While the establishment itself is legal, much of the business that goes on in this den are questionable. It is a place of few questions and fewer answers.
Spoiler: The Shrine of Saint Peresian
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A small church in the mid-level of Hive Hapheastein devoted to the God-Emperor and a local saint named Peresian who lived several hundred years ago. The small cloister of Ministorum clerics who maintain the shrine are often forgotten in the great beaurocracy of Hive Hapheastein. Severine has, on occasion, gone here for worship and service. She likes the gloomy, cramped interior of the shrine as it reminds her of the darkened cloister she spent so many years in before coming to the Inquisition’s service.
Spoiler: Omnicron-5038, Forge-Enclave of the Machine-Cult
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Owing to its exports, the Cult Mechanicus maintains a strong presence on Helios. One way in which this presence is felt is through the forge-enclaves. Part church, part workshop, Omnicron-5038 is one of thousands of forge-enclaves scattered throughout Hive Hapheastein. Located within the mid-hive, the towering edifice serves as a reminder of the influence of the Adeptus Mechanicus, as well as a place of worship for those hive-dwellers who believe foremost in the incarnation of the Emperor-As-Omnissiah. Although this occasionally leads to clashes with those who see the servants of the Machine as borderline-heretics and believe in the sanctity of the flesh, the demi-maniple of combat servitors that serve as the guards of the enclave prevent this from escalating too far.
Spoiler: Feral World Quasuitt (By Dojango)
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Interrogator Janis's report on Qausuitt:
Planetary classification: Class Theta
Tithe grade: De minimus
Population: Est., ~5 million
Planetary Capital: None
Planetary Governor: None (the administratum has not had anyone screw up so badly as to be assigned as governor here. A few penitent scribes monitor the planet from a small orbital.)
Large icecaps up to 2 km thick cover the planet north and south of the 40th parallel. Semi-nomadic tribes subsist on the planet's unusually rich sea-life in the habitable region of the planet between the 20th parallels. Strange xeno ruins dot the landscape, wisely avoided by the local tribes. Several of the ruins are Eldar in origin, while others are clearly [REDACTED]. Most are from unknown origins. Strangely enough, Professor Klausing maintained that several human ruins, nearly 50,000 years old were located as well, even under extreme interrogation, see the [REDACTED] for further information. While investigating the activities of the von Drakkan dynasty, my teams recovered a number of dangerous artifacts, which have been destroyed per containment procedure 15. One of the planetary natives was in the employ of the late Tarquin von Drakkan and provided useful information in the investigation. He is completely ignorant of the true nature of the [REDACTED] and so I have forwarded him to the reserve cadre for induction into whatever retinue you see fit
Spoiler: Feral World Kesh (by Wyndeward)
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Kesh was a failed colony that devolved into semi-barbarianism, its people living in the ruins of once proud cities and living a tribal hunter-gatherer existence, albeit one with relics of the planet's grandeur. Hunters on Kesh hunted with crossbows made from the springs of derelict vehicles. The people of Kesh are believers in the Imperial cult, believing that the God-Emperor judges their life based upon their kills and scarify themselves with mementos of the hunt to prove their worth.
Spoiler: Hive World Kofika
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Located on the Hive World of Kofika, the scholam affectionately known as Glory House was one of the pre-eminent educational institutions in the region. It accepted wayward youths and orphans from across the sub-sector. It even boasted that many of the planetary administrative positions, Ministorum positions and commanders of the Kofikan Guard regiments were graduates of this scholam.
In truth, Glory House was a bastion for indoctrinating the youth of the Imperium to radicalism, heretical ideologies and even warp-sorcery. While Glory House was, eventually, raided by the Inquisition over a hundred years ago, Kofika endures.
And the Inquisition is still trying to root out all those graduates from Glory House who have survived the scholam’s destruction.
Spoiler: Forge WorldLathe-Het
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The primer inter pares of the Lathe Worlds, Lathe-Het is the seat of power for the High Fabricator of the Lathes. Having moved beyond its past as a simple manufacturing complex, the Lathe-Het of the present is a vast complex of data-repositories, with this possession of knowledge making it one of the most powerful worlds in the Calixis as a whole.
Others among the Lathes see this as weakness, viewing Lathe-Het's preoccupation for data over manufacture as both dangerous and a sign of its decline, and accusations of heretek and worse fly through the noosphere.
However, beneath the ideal hides a darker truth. Factionalism runs rife on such an important world, with magi warring for data and loftier positions within the Grand Atrium. Many of the repositories have been destroyed and much of the data that Lathe-Het prizes itself on possessing is now lost. Each cycle, hundreds of expeditionary teams are sent into the deepest of the ruined data-crypts and beyond in the hope of salvaging anything still of value, in order to shore up the Fabricator's position, whilst also ensuring that any corrupt data is swiftly purged before it has a chance to spread throughout the disaffected populace of the forge world.
Re: OOC: DH Sacrifice is Purity
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