#warhmmer

Rogue Trader TTRPG [Simplified]

One of the most fun sayings in Warhammer is "everything is canon", this means that the story is so forgiving and the setting is so big (it's literally the entire Milky Way galaxy) that practically everything fans come up with is possible within the setting. Not that it literally is canon, but rather that in such vast numbers, anything can be close enough to true that it's best not to question it. One of the armies, the Sisters of Battle, are all-woman soldiers/religious enforcers, and my friend painted three of them to look like Hatsune Miku, Kasane Teto, and Akita Neru. Who is to say that, among the millions of Sisters of Battle, there aren't three who look like Vocaloids?

When Ultio called out that we were being hailed, the command deck fell into hallowed silence. No one needed to ask which ship was sending the hail. The image upon the oculus took several seconds to resolve, and between the distance at hand and the interference of nearby Eyespace, it remained flickering and grainy. The throne before us was fashioned of carved bronze and Terran marble, that blue-veined stone rarer than an honest man in the Nine Legions. Its high back and broad arms were flanked by stands of braziers and ascending candles, painting the white rock amber and casting flickering shadows across the dark warrior seated there. Many legionaries and humans alike have mistaken Abaddon for his father, Horus. There was no way that this warrior could be mistaken for his primarch liege. His armour was black, as was ours. The ceramite layers were rimmed in gold, as were ours. It is said that our armour is black to obfuscate our past colours, and this is true, but I saw the very same mournful and hopeful defiance in the wargear of the warrior before me. The stain of failure clung to him as it clung to us, and rather than drape himself in funereal black out of a need for revenge, he had darkened his armour as a statement of atonement and redemption. He reclined like an idle king, too stalwart to slouch, too alert to be resting, his hand on the hilt of a black sword. Every one of us knew that blade’s legend. Many of us had lost brothers to its killing edge. Their blood had soaked into its black steel, running across the inscription marking its length. The oculus image was too flawed to read the words but I knew what they would say if the view resolved: Imperator Rex. The blade was forged to honour the Emperor, the king of kings, the Master of Mankind. The warrior’s hair was cropped close and whitened by time. A short beard framed the thin, scarred line of his mouth. Age had weathered his skin and frosted his hair, but his shoulders were unbowed, and no oculus distortion could hide the icy fury in his eyes. Vindication burned in that gaze. He had waited for us here, down the many decades, and he had been right to wait. He was us, through a lens of loyal zeal, through a mirror of indignant righteousness. I would have known this even before I tasted his knight’s brainflesh months before. I would have known it the second my eyes fell upon him, this ancient knight-king, enthroned on white stone and leaning upon a sword that had reaped an untellable number of lives during our doomed rebellion. Abaddon was standing, staring, his glyphed teeth showing through parted lips. He was as awed as the rest of us. Knowing what was waiting once we broke free was one thing, but witnessing it with our own eyes was quite another. A smile dawned across his features, and his warp-lit eyes gleamed. ‘Only you, Sigismund,’ he said to the knight-king, ‘would pursue a grudge to the very borders of hell. That’s a hatred so pure, I can’t help but admire it.’ The ancient knight rose, raising the blade in a warrior’s salute, one I recognised from fighting alongside the Imperial Fists in brighter, better days. He kissed the hilt, then pressed his forehead to the cold blade. ‘I suffer not the unclean to live.’ Abaddon’s grin deepened. ‘Blood of the Gods, it is good to see you again, Sigismund.’ ‘I uphold the honour of the Emperor. I abhor and destroy the witch. I accept any challenge, no matter the odds.’ Abaddon was laughing now. ‘A true son of Rogal Dorn. Never show emotion when a chorus of oaths and vows will serve instead.’ But they were not vows. Not really. They were promises. He wrote those oaths for his Chapter to follow, but they were his words – not vows for his knights to emulate, but a promise to his foes. Sigismund, once First Captain of the Imperial Fists, now High Marshal of the Black Templars, looked back at us from the bridge of the Eternal Crusader. And still he refused to address us. We were beneath him, undeserving of anything but his regal disdain. In contrast, our bridge erupted with sound. Shouts and murderous cries were hurled towards the oculus, as the relief of escaping our prison and the surreal truth of being confronted by our former foes finally broke over us. It banished the stunned and useless silence that had gripped us upon emerging into the Cadian Gate, and we baptised the moment in an orchestra of bestial roars and jeers. It was a tide of sound from human throats, mutant maws and legionary helm vocalisers, a throat-tearing wave of derision and fury that made the stinking air of the bridge tremble. There was joy in that sound, and bitterness, and rage. It was an exorcism. A purging. It was vindicta given voice. Sigismund looked at us as if we were nothing but howling barbarians. To him, perhaps we were. He still had not addressed us directly, and he did not change that now. He gave an order to his bridge crew and cast his cloak from his shoulders, freeing himself for the fight to come. ‘Attack.’