Dark Heresy-Rogue Trader-Deathwatch-Black Crusade-Only War

[Samantha Bentley]

I was born into a poor family. So poor that when I was five or six, I can’t remember, I was sent off to an orphanage. It was for the best you know and I hold no grudges against my parents, I even met them once when I was what, seventeen I think, before I got shipped out for missionary work. Never seen people so proud in their entire lives and even more so when they saw what had become of me.

I got sent to a frontier work as altar girl, one of those worlds brought into the fold slowly, the locals not really taking all that well to us just yet. A lot of riots against anything Imperial. One night they were at our chapel, they killed the priest when he tried to calm them and left us no choice but to bar the doors and hold out as long as possible. They came at us with pitchforks and torches, the kind of image the Ecclesiarchy gladly uses as an example of what the ignorant masses look like. There were a few dozen of them and only five of us. They grabbed what they could to defend their selves: those heavy candle sticks, a decorative sword. I had the old man’s shotgun and made sure every shot counted. But alas, they were too many and when the dawn broke, I was the only one left, the others had died horribly, either hacked to pieces or choosing to die in the burning chapel. I fought myself a way out, first by shooting and when the slugs ran out, by clubbing any inbred ******** who got too close. When relief finally did come, a squad of Cadians mounted in a Chimera, they didn’t take any chances with the locals any more. As their sergeant put it, the locals had gone too far a long time ago and this was payback.

It was the start of a long, long genocide masked as a military campaign. I took a piece of stained glass from that chapel as a reminder of what had happened that day. With nothing to hold me back I joined that patrol, becoming an impromptu missionary and protector of faith. I learned pretty soon that our enemies, while rational folk, weren’t in the mood to talk with nosy outsiders. That’s how I got this scar on my arm here. I was holding a sermon and all of the sudden they rushed me with machetes and pitchforks. Good thing I was issued a knife and two guards, otherwise I’d be fertilizing the plants there. After we blasted our way through that service I threw my books away, swapping them for a Mars pattern and cobbled together flak armour. ******** it, they want to play rough, bring it. At that point I was through being pushed around when they told me to hold a book aloft and have the Emperor do the talking for me. No, I was done talking, so was the Emperor, I let my Mars pattern do the talking after that point onwards, trading missionary work for grunt work. I fit in easily enough, it felt like I was destined for soldiering.

And wouldn’t you know it, I met the right guy while I was at it. A grunt, like millions of others. But he had something about him you know? Tall, handsome, good in bed, what more could a girl ask for? We were quite a couple, went out on patrols together, shared the same tent, bitched at each other when things got a bit too much. But in the end, we were meant for each other, we knew it. Ha, everybody knew it sooner or later. So much so that one late night he proposed to me, bent his knee, held my hand, a whole crowd of squaddies looking on as he sincerely popped the question, how could I say no to that? We had it all figured out, all we had to do was pull through and we’d be set for life. We just had to mop up the last enemy remnants and patrol the area.

BOOM!

An explosion, someone triggered a booby-trap. I lost my arm in the blast, my lover was torn in two. I remember as the rounds whipped in around us that I was hysterically trying to stuff his intestines back into his ruptured gut and when that didn’t help I resorted to holding him, weeping, begging him not to leave me. It was a weird reaction whenever I think back to that moment. Why did I do that? Why did everything rational leave me at that point? The medic had to knock me out cold to help me, I just refused to let go of him. It’s a shitty way to go really. All I have of him is a picture and a Guard issue engagement ring that I wear around my neck now instead of the Aquila. It’s not a ring see? Just a bent grenade pin that he hung onto for good luck. We were supposed to marry after this was all over, we’d start a trading outpost or the like there, ‘cause you know, this was their world, it was promised to them and they got it. We’d have our own little place, raise a million kids, grow old together. Only some ******** a*****e ruined it all for us with that bomb. After the war I was taken back in by the convent, given the full post-traumatic treatment and I’m not going to lie, it worked out for me. I came in as a quiet, weeping wretch, but in their care I came out almost as I was before.

Well, minus one arm. I’ve been here ever since.  

[Aku Kami Kurayami]

Lets see if I am any good at Necromancy...

So I have run a good, two year long campaign with Rogue Trader shortly after Into the Storm had come out. It was my first time GMing and the group wasn't all quite familiar with the 40k Universe, let alone Rogue Trader, just the internet's memes and general descriptions to guide them. Either way, we started off with the adventure in the back of the core book to massive success and thus the adventures of Cornelius Cashmere LVII and Company versus their dreaded enemy Gucci von Prada LVI began. After the initial adventure they went on to play a few house written adventures including saving Ntharis the Agri World from pirates taking over the planet, screwing over a rival Rogue Trader of Footfall for stealing their shipment of Manstopper Rounds, and then finally finishing off Gucci in a race for a Halo Artefact which turned out to be a Tzeentchian Daemon Prince trapped in an artefact all according to plan.

Either way, much fun was had. Around the time we were playing this, our group had started watching Firefly. Some of us had seen it before, I myself had only seen pieces of it when it originally aired, but it was wholly welcome with RT. I also watched Cowboy Bebop again and played Mass Effect 2 around this time and it got me thinking. Since my friend's knowledge of 40k was mostly cursory and our group has a knack for making extensive houserules or setting changes, I decided to take it upon myself to change the setting and a bit of the style of the game.

Basically, it's RT, with space ships, trading, and rampant adventure, but toned down to roughly DH levels. Instead of being a member of Dynasty, you are in a situation similar to Mal's or Spike and Jet's, slumming it from day to day while going on adventures. In addition to this, I have punched out rules for playing Tau and Eldar, as well as letting Kroot take other careers. I have been working on it on and off for the better of a year or so now, but I have been making pretty good strides in it as of late. If anyone wants to look at it and give me feedback please do. Constructive criticism is the best.

Revolver 40k

You will find out quite quickly that my group and I are rather silly about certain things. Enjoy.