I'm writing again

It has been some weeks now since the convoy left Karseille, its compliment of dignitaries, serfs, cargo and tourists keeping themselves occupied within the confines of the halls and vaulted chambers. This journey was no different from any other that Lady Ostia Haldus had taken with the Imperial Guard, Rogue Traders and Astartes,, were it not for the destination being presented.

Outside Imperial controlled space.

Ostia rested her chin wearily on her arm, looking out into the whirling twisted yet vibrant Immaterium through the wide diaglass porthole, her mind going through the events of the last year. The numerous conflicts with the Iron Warriors, the growing relationship with R'Tan, the revelation that her Sister Lucelle was not only alive but was now the soul of WARDEN, and had been protecting her all this time. Loss of allies,, friends,,

Ostia rubbed her eyes with her free palm, grumbling at why her mind decided to retrace her steps of late, like it was trying to find a singular point that led her to this moment and always coming up empty. "I need some recaff,," muttering with a scowl, her metallic prosthetic clicking and ticking when they swing down to pick herself up from the window sill.

Her guest chambers aboard this cruiser was,, soft. It smacked of low imperial nobility with its tapestries and ornate rugs, and for some cursed reason a four post bed with more textiles hung from its posts. Why could these people not just given her a more rank-n-file bunk room with a cot and called it a day? Ostia sighs as she tries not to aggravate herself further, her metal limbs carrying her out of the chambers and out into the hall, mindful at least not to rip the fine woven rug on the way.

Dampened treads now a rhythmic clicking as Ostia navigated through the corridors, the Imperial having collected her large mug of recaff with no real destination in mid though,, her mind yet again doing the insufferable thing of reminiscing of past events.

She idly chuckles at the thought of how R'tan might be reacting when he finds out of this sudden trip Ostia has undertaken, knowing the large oaf would no doubt be trying to get to her in all manner of ways. Ostia had left some vox-messages for him prior to the departure, ensuring they would at the very least reach his company, updating on the current happenings at Karseille and her well-being as well as this trip towards,, well, outside of Imperial Space. (She had to phrase this carefully so not to actually say it was that far away,, but is not sure she succeeded.)

"Mademoiselle Haldus? Do you wish to enter la soute?"

Ostia blinks as she finds herself having walked all the way down towards one of the cargo hangers, where WARDEN was being held during this journey. Her mind being brought back by thanks of the Karseillais Guard who had been tasked with this entrance, the young man appearing a little confused by the distant gaze Ostia had when walking towards him.

"Ah, yes please. Uhhh,, Merçi." Ostia responding hesitantly, attempting a bit of Karseillais that she has picked up from her numerous talks with Noémie Durand and her peers. The guard gives a warm chuckle before thumbing the access panel with his free hand, offering a welcome answer to Ostia's honest attempt of his native tongue "Á l'aise."

So, who are these characters?

OSTIA

Ostia Vitia Haldus Began as an RPG character for a brief 4-session Knight Scion interlude my Tabletop group started after a Rogue Trader campaign. I never built her with the intentions of long-form storytelling but I think it's a bit of an understatement to say she grew on everyone.

Her backstory is a bit scattered across asks on this blog, but the long and short of it was that she was pressured into the Throne by a politically minded mother after the Knight killed her older sister. She's a bit of a grump, and exists as a ball of combat prowess, and has been fighting for most of her life as a way of running from her own past actions.

There's a bit more information on her and the RPG in the following asks/posts: Bing Bong Boink

R'TAN

R'tan, my beloved. <3

R'tan came to exist entirely out of the post-RPG story fever wherein I realized I wanted to keep Ostia around but no longer had an RPG to situate her in. Being a scion, it was an opportunity to have a 40k OC actually work with Space Marines and not have it be super out of left field, and I wanted to embrace that. The Salamanders are tied for first on fav loyalist chapters so here we are.

THEN R'tan ended up being the most loveable and wholesome thing since a warm blanket on a winter day, and here we are.

Originally workshopped to be a tragedy, his lore has thankfully taken a more wholesome bent, but I have both floating around the blog.

Sad times Not sad times

👀👀??

Yes. I know some folks aren't fans of shipping, so I try to keep it not the focus, but just look at them. To die for.

In reality, while writing it, I like the idea of the human being the one worn down by circumstance while the giant post-human weapon is far enough removed from regular life to weather everything with a smile and a joke. It's a fun dynamic. I try to keep things canon/lore-friendly since I know folks like that but I won't budge on these two.

Zorael

I have not forgotten about my gentle boy, he'll be joining the crew.

Zorael was a Blood Angels Deathwatch librarian I played for a single fever dream of a session. Wowie what a rollercoaster that was. Mute after surviving Ultramar, he's a soft-spoken (telepathically) Astartes who's a bit superstitious. He uses Augury through a hand-crafted tarot deck, but when he's not in combat does tend to get up to a certain amount of mischief.

I haven't gotten too far into his nonsense yet, but he'll be getting smushed together with everyone else aboard the Ardent Monarch in the lore soon so fear not.

Speaking of...

The Ardent Monarch and her Crew

+Various others

The crew of the Ardent Monarch was the rather oddball Rogue Trader RPG group that immediately preceded Ostia's inception. We had to stop as our titular Rogue Trader became too busy with RL stuff, and it was going to be a bit strange to have arguably the heart of the ship switch to being a semi-sidelined NPC.

However, the group and their adventures were delightfully cursed and featured the amount of extravagant excess, petty noble squabbling, and over-the-top bombastic violence you'd expect from Rogue Traders.

Two characters who are also entering the Lore very soon and farther away are Gavus Thren and Ludwig Martel

Gavus will be in the Fic proper in the next part or so. His introduction side plot can be found here along with some extra lore bits. Ludwig will be a bit of an antagonist. While his entrance is a ways off, The illustrious Darka-art blessed me with a design for him, and I simply had to do the vignette to show it off. He's the last major introduction for a major character that I have planned, though, so technically all the pieces for the story have been mentioned in one way or another.

READ ORDER: Character Page for context (You're here!)

Conclusions for the RPG end and Ostia's state of mind pre-meeting R'tan

Introductions (Ostia + R'tan meeting for the first time)

Into the Obscura (The Fic proper - I will warn you, the first couple parts of this were written first so I apologize in advance for the poor writing)

Any additional semi-canon and non-cannon content for Ostia and Co. are in Obscura Adjacent, which is usually just doing drabbles or character interactions as requested via asks here.

For all the characters, I always tag their names, so if you're interested beyond these rundowns you can find more. (I've included them all below for easy clicking) Or just ask, I'm happy to rehash stuff!

These are just the main ones as well, Beanguard is much beloved, but I've run out of space for his pictures. Just know he's a very nice, smooth man who tries his darndest. WARDEN, Ostia's Knight, is possessed by the soul of her dead sister Lucelle. Marius, Ostia's second, grieving the loss of her father and watching her suffer just like him.

Recently everyone expressed their love for my Scourge so her (El-Shay) and Marc and now characters as well. While not featured in the fanfic they are beloved by me.

There are also now some scattered posts tagged as the Drakesblood AU, wherein the roles are reversed with Ostia as the Space Marine and R'tan as the Imperial Knight Pilot. This will likely be a creative exercise and not really a full-blown fic, but if you see a giant blood angel GF around that's where that's coming from.

This list is non-exhaustive. I make a point of coming back and editing it as things happen and people are added to the crew. It's the least I could do since I've got it pinned!

If Lu had her way she'd make it happen. I've got a scene in the works for Ostia having to dress up and going down to Lucelle and WARDEN for final styling advice.

I've done a few already over the past year, but not everyone!

-Ostia and R'tan would both fall to Khorne. There's underlying resentment in both of them that's just so, so likely to bubble over in times of stress as anger, it makes sense in their most vulnerable that's how they'd respond.

-Zorael would likely just end up just aimlessly wandering as the red thirst consumed him. Maybe he'd go to Nurgle, but I see him less worshipping chaos and more just becoming hopeless and becoming a monstrous space vampire.

-Klara would 100% go Tzeentch. She's too curious to settle for the Dark Mechanicum. Weird warp tech time with her, likely has the 'best' time outside the imperium.

As for Bean and WARDEN... Hmmmmm

-WARDEN would end up consuming Lucelle, and if things were bad enough to fall she likely wouldn't try too hard to resist. As such, given the Machines Spirits already tends to righteous anger, it would likely also be pretty Khorne inclined.

-Bean, oh man... Bean I think would be a Nurgly boy. There's too much hope, too much love of life, I couldn't see him going any other way.