First ever warband: Adepta Sororitas (kinda)

[Imsety]

Hey there I'm new to Inquisitor, and new to the conclave, and I'm very much looking forward to getting my first foray into this awesome game off the ground! So without any further introduction, I give you my first ever attempt at an Inquisitor character:

Adrasteia Proserpine, former Sister Superior of the Order of the Martyr's Sword

Adrasteia Proserpine was born and raised on the shrine-world Sophalia. Sophalia was first founded when the Imperial Saint of the same name led a crusade to free the planet from the clutches of a chaos cult. In the most pivotal battle of the crusade Saint Sophalia killed the warlord who ruled the planet, but sustained grievous injuries and died on the battlefield, a martyr to her cause. Decades later an uprising across the planet, instigated by the descendants of the hidden survivors from the original chaos cult, threatened to engulf the planet. The Adepta Sororitas holding the capital were forced to retreat into their convent and all seemed lost. Then a miracle occurred. Saint Sophalia emerged from the reliquary crypt where her remains had been kept, reborn in the prime of her youth. Taking up her sword she led the remaining battle sisters in a devastating counter-attack. With her help the sisters were able to cleanse the capital and hold out against the chaos forces until reinforcements arrived. When the planet was once again under the control of imperial forces, all that could be found of Saint Sophalia were her old yellowed bones, laid within a suit of archaic armour and with her holy blade by her side. The sisters who survived the uprising, now recognising more than ever the holiness and power that relics like the bones of Saint Sophalia and the sword that she had wielded possessed, founded the Order of the Martyr's Sword; a militant order dedicated to saving holy relics that lay in enemy hands or were lost on wild worlds beyond the boundaries of the Imperium.

Raised from a young age in an Adepta Sororitas Covenant and constantly surrounded by the history of her world, Adrasteia developed a powerful fixation with the tales of Saint Sophalia and other Imperial Saints. Adrasteia grew into an extremely pious and knowledgeable woman, with high hopes for her future in the Order of the Martyr's Sword.

Adrasteia's single-minded dedication and focus in the face of danger impressed her superiors and she was promoted to the rank of Sister Superior, in command of her own squad of Sisters. Inspired by the tales of the resurrection of Saint Sophalia, Adrasteia used the privileges of her new rank to delve into the archives in search of knowledge regarding the soul's interaction with the body. In particular, the possibility of souls returning from their place by the Emperor's side and incarnating themselves in order to enact miracles of resurrection in times of dire need.

Adrasteia worked tirelessly to compile manuscripts and tomes from the archives to write her own manuscript of condensed knowledge, a masterpiece of research and insight. In the conclusion of her treatise, Adrasteia mused that if the Saints could reach across the veil of death and re-join the living world, perhaps the living faithful could pierce that same veil with prayer and great dedication, and with the help of relics closely tied to the Saints' lives as mortals, in order to contact the Saints and, if the need was great enough, beseech them to return. She bound her manuscript and filed it away into her order's archive where, buried within a labyrinth of information, it faded into obscurity.

In the year 929.M41, when Adrasteia was 35 years old, the Ecclesiarchy declared the instigation of the Korasian Crusade. A cluster of Cardinal worlds, the Korasian system had long been isolated by intense warp storms. To their dismay, when they eventually re-established contact the Ecclesiarchy found that the Cardinals had lost control of their worlds and that the populations had fallen into barbarism and false idol-worship. The Korasian Crusade, formed of contingents from several militant orders of the Adepta Sororitas along with Imperial Guard regiments raised by nearby planets and a small contingent of Imperial Navy ships, set out to bring the Korasian system back into the fold.

The Order of the Martyr's Sword sent many Sisters to join the crusade, and Sister Superior Adrasteia Proserpine led her squad to war. Whilst the main army took the fight to the rebels, the Sisters of Adrasteia's order focused on their mission: the recovery of the relics that had been held in various tombs and sepulchres across the previously pious worlds of the Korasian system. Adrasteia's squad fought with fervour and prowess and succeeded in several daring raids on old religious institutions, now barbarian strongholds, gaining them commendation and various crusade medals.

By 933.M41the Korasian system was nearly fully subjugated. En route to Korasian VI, the last barbarian world standing at what was now tail end of the crusade, Adrasteia began experiencing vivid dreams and fragmented waking visions. When her foot first touched the surface of the planet she fell into a convulsive fit and lost consciousness. She felt a presence in her mind that radiated power, and it told her that her prayers would be answered and all her ambitions realised on Korasian VI. She awoke convinced that the Emperor had great plans for her and that her deep set burning desire, the final proof of the theories she had concocted as part of her overpowering obsession with the Saints, was within reach. As the military campaign to subjugate Korasian VI began, Adrasteia was contacted by an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor named Maxentius Amset. Amset ordered her to take her squad and destroy a slum den that he suspected of being a centre for barbarous activity and heretical religion. Annoyed at being taken away from her relic hunting, but unable to refuse the Inquisitor, Adrasteia led her squad to the den.

The raid was swift and brutally efficient, the rabble that inhabited the den were mercilessly routed with sword, bolt and fire. In the depths of the warrenous den, Adrasteia came across a small boy of five or six, locked in his room praying to an altar. An altar carved into the shape of the Aquila, its wings supporting a book. The boy hesitated for a second, and then threw himself at her feet, begging for clemency. He said his name was Constantine Demetris, and though he was the son of barbarous deviants he claimed to be a secret follower of the 'old religion', guided by historical texts and the holy book he had discovered in the ruins of an imperial temple. Convinced that Adrasteia was a divine angel of retribution, Constantine thanked her for destroying the oppressive cult that had persecuted him all his life. Adrasteia remained unconvinced and prepared to kill the boy, but first she examined the book he had been praying to.

When Adrasteia emerged from the smoking shell of the den she did not emerge empty handed. Under one arm was a badly singed book, bound in cracked leather and with curling gold lettering embossed on the front cover: 'Liber Animus'. And cradled in the other she carried the exhausted boy. She cast her eyes to the sky and offered up a prayer to the Emperor in thanks, utterly convinced that his voice had led her to this moment and given her this ultimate tool, a book containing secret and powerful lore pertaining to souls, birth, death and rebirth which would help her to finally succeed in her most holy Magnum Opus.

She was interrupted by the outraged cries of fellow Sisters who demanded that the boy and the book, tainted by the barbarians as they obviously were, be put to the torch. A defiant Adrasteia proclaimed that the book was a gift from the emperor himself, a clear indication of his favour with Adrasteia and her quest, and that to call it, and by extension the faithful boy who worshipped it's teachings, impure or corrupt was vile heresy. Accusations flew, words grew heated and weapons were drawn. Suddenly the squad erupted into violence.

Adrasteia was a veteran and a skilled fighter but despite fending off and dispatching most of her squad she was badly wounded and fell to the ground, unable to continue the fight. One other sister remained standing and she limped over to Adrasteia's prone form. She removed her helm and Adrasteia's, and knelt down to look her in the eye. Muttering a rite of purification, she prepared to summarily execute her.  But in the confusion, everyone had forgotten Constantine. Thrown clear of the fight by Adrasteia, he recovered his senses in time to see the Sister advancing on his guardian angel. Taking a knife from one of the many bodies littered before the remains of his home, Constantine leapt upon the Sister's back and plunged his knife into her unarmoured neck, stabbing her again and again in a protective frenzy.

Adrasteia patched herself up and returned to the crusade's flagship to recuperate, reporting to her superiors that her squad had been wiped out in a valiant last stand and that she had barely managed to escape, taking the faithful Constantine with her. Some found it hard to believe this version of events, among them Inquisitor Amset. He travelled to the scene of the fight and was able to determine the true nature of the events that took place. Contacting the Canoness of the Order of the Martyr's sword, Amset asked that Adrasteia be captured with minimal disruption and held until he returned to the ship.

However, he hadn't counted on the righteous fury of the canoness. Ashamed and angry beyond all reason that a member of her order would become a traitor the canoness hastily pronounced to the entire crusade that Adrasteia Proserpine was a heretic, to be hunted down and killed immediately.
Driven by fear and anger at what she perceived to be a betrayal by her Order, Adrasteia struck hard and fast whilst she still had the element of surprise.  Fully armed and armoured she stormed the reliquary vault aboard the ship that contained the spoils of the crusade. Catching the guards, who had expected no trouble in a ship full of loyal crusaders, unaware she slaughtered them out of hand and entered the vault. Whilst Constantine filled bags with valuable jewellery, currency and gems Adrasteia stole two potent protective relics. The skull of Saint Eran the Vigilant and a sanctified witch hunter's stake, carved from the femur of Saint Lucasta (said to protect its wielder from hostile sorceries and smite the impure).

As she grasped the stake it flared brightly and a bolt of holy power arced up Adrasteia's arm, charring flesh and leaving great rents in her skin. She barely managed to stifle a pained scream, biting her lip so hard she drew blood. She took Constantine and fled before the retribution of her order came down upon their heads. Locating one of the unscrupulous mercenaries that had been following the crusade in the hope of gaining profit, Adrasteia offered him the commodities she had stolen from the vault in return for passage. His greed overcame his reservations and the mercenary agreed to take Adrasteia and Constantine aboard his ship and leave the system.

Adrasteia has now had several decades to study the Liber Animus. She has unlocked the secret of powerful 'incantations of beseeching prayer' that allow her to reach beyond the veil and beseech the saints dwelling in the afterlife to come to her aid. These holy powers have given her a degree of control over the souls of the living and the ascended. Closely studying the means through which souls pass from life, Adrasteia has been able to extend her lifespan with the Emperor's grace and is currently over 110 years old.

As part of her quest to resurrect a Saint, Adrasteia has transformed her loyal companion Constantine into a prototype for her living Saint. Through a series of gruesome procedures, both physical and mental, she was able to push Constantine to the very brink of death, perhaps even slightly beyond, before using a combination of cybernetics, stimulant drugs and her newfound powers to drag him back into the world of the living.

Most recently Adrasteia's quest has culminated in what she perceives to be a true success for her beliefs. Final proof that the heretics that hunt her still and seek to prevent and undo her work, the Emperor's work, are misguided fools. Her Magnum Opus. She has brought The Most Blessed Imperial Saint Evander back from the dead...

Stats:
WS: 69 BS: 71 S: 52 (62) T: 54 I: 63 WP: 84 Sg: 70 Nv: 68 Ld: 80

Right handed

Talents: Fanatic will
Adrasteia ignores the effects of Fearsome characters, and treats Terrifying characters as Fearsome instead

Burned right arm
Adrasteia has no light injury box on her right arm

Sorcery of faith
To use her psychic powers Adrasteia must perform complex prayer chants, formulaic gestures etc. In addition, she adds five to the difficulty of any power

Psychic powers: Blood boil, Regenerate, Warp strength, Banishment

Equipment: Hand flamer

Relic of St. Lucasta the Pure
Reach: 2 Damage: D6 Parry penalty: 15%. Against Pyskers the relic of St. Lucasta may cause a stun effect as a shock weapon. Against heretics, traitors or those touched by chaos (GM's discretion) it also counts as being loaded with Bloodfire Toxin. Daemonic characters add a further D10 to their injury total when struck by the relic.

Relic of St. Eran the Vigilant.
By projecting her mind through the focus of St. Eran's skull Adrasteia can use it as a psi-tracker auspex

Hexagrammic wards

Armour: Power armour except for head (strength bonus in brackets)


So there you have her! Apologies for the ridiculously long background Comments/criticisms are more than welcome. Once any final tweaks are finished with Adrasteia I'll write up Constantine, then the mysterious Saint Evander.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Koval]

Hey there I'm new to Inquisitor, and new to the conclave, and I'm very much looking forward to getting my first foray into this awesome game off the ground! So without any further introduction, I give you my first ever attempt at an Inquisitor character:

I'll try to be nice, but I used to be a teacher so I can't promise anything; if I look like I'm being overly harsh, I'm actually trying to help you write a good character. I've also put a similar note at the end.

Canoness Adrasteia Proserpine, former Palatine of the Order of the Blessed Enquiry

Bearing in mind what you've said further down about her basically giving herself the title of Canoness, I'll look at her actual rank of Palatine and conclude that maybe you're pitching it a little high considering what's happened to her. Is downgrading the Palatine part to just Sister Superior not an option?

Adrasteia Proserpine was born and raised on the shrine-world Hagia, the famous birthplace of Saint Sabbat and the place of her reincarnation. Raised from a young age in an Adepta Sororitas Covenant she developed a powerful fixation with the tales of Saint Sabbat and other Imperial Saints and it became her area of expertise.

I should point out that if this your first character, staying away from worlds mentioned by GW is probably a good idea. In particular, stay away from Abnett's worlds, as I've seen enough people base their characters' fluff around elements borrowed from Abnett. You're blending canon with fanon, which is generally frowned upon among the larger 40K community. Why not make up something of your own? It'll show us how imaginative you can be.

Adrasteia grew into an extremely pious and knowledgeable woman, with high hopes for her future in the Order of the Blessed Enquiry, an order devoted to finding and protecting sacred relics.

This particular Order Pronatus is already taken. Make your own! It's more fun.

Adrasteia's dedication and focus in the face of danger impressed her superiors and she was promoted to the rank of Palatine, in command of her own small task force of Sisters.

Orders Pronatus are non-militant Orders, so I'd imagine that dangerous encounters would be few and far between.

Inspired by the tales of the resurrection of Saint Sabbat, Adrasteia used the privileges of her new rank to delve into the archives in search of secret knowledge regarding the soul's interaction with the body.

Err, why? The Ecclesiarchy has its own version of events, why should she want to know any different?

This was to be the beginning of her dealings with the warp.

Not sure about this one, as there are plenty of Thorians out there who don't actually have an awful lot to do with researching Warp mechanics.

She discovered that as well as collecting relics of Imperial Saints, her order had a second library vault hidden within the first that contained various other forms of powerful weapons, artefacts and tomes.

Okay. Please don't make things up about existing organisations. Imagine if I started writing a story about your characters, in which I had them do things that made you turn round and go "no, they wouldn't do that". The golden rule around here is not to interfere with GW's fluff.

Here's an example: back when Inquisitor was still young, there were enough people using, say, Tyrus in their fluff that if we took them all at face value, he'd have mentored something like a hundred and seventy Interrogators, individually, and had thirteen children and a dog who also grew up to be Inquisitors. And yet none of this actually happened because he was GW's character and GW didn't say he did any of these things.

Exercise those creative muscles! Go on, you know you want to.

Armed with her new knowledge, Adrasteia set out with her task force with a blazing purpose set in her heart: to find a way to reach beyond the veil of death and commune with a Holy Imperial Saint.

She's Adepta Sororitas. She knows perfectly well that the souls of the faithful stand by the Emperor's right hand. Not sure about this one.

Guided by clues found within her order's records Adrasteia's taskforce roamed across the imperium

She probably won't have done this, as the Warp isn't hyperspace -- it takes a fair amount of time to even go between sectors. Crossing between Segmenta will take longer, and the amount of time it takes to trek all the way around the Imperium and back again would be best measured in years. There's also the small problem of needing a ship, which won't necessarily be the easiest thing to come by. You don't just go to the used ship dealer and buy one -- they're huge things with crews usually numbering in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, many of which will have to be Adeptus Mechanicus to keep the ship's systems ticking over.

But to her frustration, they came no closer to her ultimate goal.

No surprises there.

Guided by perceived portents and half-remembered figments of her dreams, Adrasteia made her way back to the Sabbat Worlds and to the planet Cociaminus.

Again with the direct interaction between canon and fanon...

When she arrived on the surface with her taskforce she was contacted by an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor who was conducting an investigation in the capital city. Irritated at the distraction, Adrasteia nonetheless attended the summons. She was ordered to use the military arm of her taskforce to aid the Inquistor's acolytes in a raid on a slum den that he suspected as being a centre of heretical cult activity within the city.

The raid was swift and brutally efficient, the rabble that inhabited the den were mercilessly routed with sword, bolt and fire. But when Adrasteia emerged from the smoking shell of the den she did not emerge empty handed. Under one arm was a badly singed book, bound in cracked leather, and cradled in the other she carried a young boy. She cast her eyes to the sky and offered up a prayer to the Emperor in thanks, utterly convinced that his voice had led her to this moment.

I really don't like this bit at all. The book's fair enough if she's already gone completely crazy (though it's only just okay), but suddenly recovering this boy makes no sense when we've got nothing about him to go on.

She was interrupted by the outraged cries of the Inquisitor's retinue who demanded that the boy and the book, tainted as they obviously were, be put to the torch.

And quite right too...

A defiant Adrasteia proclaimed that she judged to boy to be pure

Why?

and that, as an object of power, the book was under the jurisdiction of her Order and would be dealt with as she thought proper.

Considering that the Adepta Sororitas themselves come under the jurisdiction of the Ordo Hereticus, I don't really think that saying no to this so-far-nameless Inquisitor is a very wise move.

When the servants of the Inquisitor drew their weapons

Oh, there we go.

Adrasteia signalled to her loyal Battle Sisters, who promptly gunned down the vastly outnumbered acolytes.

Again, Orders Pronatus are not Orders Militant. They may well have had a few guns, but you're making out like Adrasteia has several actual Sisters of Battle under her command.

She returned to her ship before news of her actions had a chance to spread and travelled with haste to the Blessed Enquiry's convent on Hagia, but when she arrived she was not given the welcome she was expecting.

Well, word does tend to travel faster than voidships do.

One of the sisters in her task force reported the events on Cociaminus to the Canoness, fearing that Adrasteia had gone too far.

About time...

Adrasteia was summoned before the Canoness and told that she had been stripped of her rank and membership and cast out as a Sister Repentia until such time as she atoned for her transgressions.

Under the circumstances I imagine becoming a Sister Repentia would be incredibly kind and lenient.

Seized with an all-consuming desire to complete her great work, and enraged at the betrayal, Adrasteia refused her punishment and stalked out of the chamber.

If she's refusing to atone for her sins in the eyes of the Emperor, why is she not yet being labelled a heretic?

She acted quickly, gathering together her most devoted sisters (those who she had been training since they were young children) and storming the library.

I genuinely dislike this, as these particularly devoted Sisters would have to be more or less brainwashed in order to break away with her, rather than stay and continue to serve the Order (and therefore the Emperor). While derogatory names for the Adepta Sororitas do include "brainwashed harpies", usually it's referring to absolute faith in the Emperor...

She stole two powerful holy relics of protection and warding:

And these relics are just out in the open, unguarded?

The skull of Saint Eran the Vigilant and a rod carved from the Femur of Saint Lucasta the Pure, said to protect its wielder from heretical magics and smite the impure.

We finally see some of your own input as regards these relics, although "Eran the Vigilant" is a straight example of this trope, as "Vigilant" is exactly what Eran means in Hebrew.

As she grasped Saint Lucasta's relic it flared brightly and an energy backlash arced up Adrasteia's arm, causing horrific burns.

On the one hand, it's a fairly standard cliché (being a non-lethal version of this), but on the other hand it's good to see her finally get her comeuppance, even if we knew it was coming.

Her face locked in a rictus snarl, Adrasteia clutched the relic tightly and, half mad with pain, stumbled into the secret vault.

I'll be honest; I saw this one coming a mile away. It would either be that or screaming loud enough to wake up the dead Saints (who might be none too pleased that their bones are missing)

Retreiving her most treasured books she fled the convent and the planet with her Sisters and her forbidden cargo.

And nobody thought to pursue her? How about the Canoness ordering that she be brought to justice?

In a mindless fit of anger and paranoia she slaughtered all her followers

This conveniently gets rid of the "most devoted Sisters" that, er, haven't done anything since she told them to come with her, although she could've just left them behind as soon as she'd left the Canoness' presence. Not only does that make more sense, it also opens the door for characters tasked with hunting her down.

except the boy from Cociaminus

You didn't actually mention that he'd been brought along.

and her ship vanished into the warp. Adrasteia sent the boy away to a secret sword-school to be trained to fight

Barring what happens on certain feudal worlds, 40K isn't the ancient/medieval Far East where you might have had schools run by reclusive old masters and dedicated to swordplay, martial arts and all that jazz. While we do have things like Crusader Houses and Death Cult shrines, "secret sword-school" just doesn't cut it when it's popping up out of nowhere. We have no way of knowing whether this boy's any good with swords, and come to think of it neither does Adrasteia. And who's to say the boy won't just blab to whoever asks the right questions?

and then she fled to the darkest corner of the imperium to hide from the coming retribution.

As one does, I suppose...

The Order of the Blessed Enquiry has since been destroyed by the Inquisition due to their possession of several heretical chaos artefacts. Adrasteia is the only surviving member of her order

We're mixing canon and fanon again -- see the above Tyrus example for why she might simultaneously be the only survivor, not the only survivor, and not a survivor at all.

and has thus granted herself the title of Canoness.

Why? Seems a bit odd.

Using her forbidden knowledge, and the secrets held within the pages of the book from the Cociaminus cult, Adrasteia has spent the last few decades unlocking the potential of her soul and has come far in her holy quest to pierce the veil in the name of the Emperor.

Conviction is strength, I suppose, although she's apparently decided to jump off the slippery slope and embrace Xanthism.

Stats:

WS: 60 BS: 59 S: 52 T: 54 I: 63 WP: 84 Sg: 70 Nv: 68 Ld: 80

If she's aiming to be a hard-as-nails survivor-type then her combat stats are a teensy bit low -- I'd bring her WS and BS up, as she's had several decades to bring those up to snuff.

Talents: Force of will, Burned right arm (Permanent light injury)

Why does she have Force of Will when the in-game effects don't reflect her background? And a better way of wording that arm injury would be "no Light Injury box on her right arm", as the way you've got it at the moment, her right arm will only ever be Lightly Wounded and can never go up to, say, Acute.

Psychic powers: Blood boil, Regenerate, Warp strength, Banishment

Oh dear. Psychic Sister of Battle. And even worse, these psychic powers come from nowhere. If you want sorcery as a result of that book, that's fine, but make it clear that it's sorcery (with, presumably, an even heftier penalty than usual for when things go wrong) -- don't just make her a psyker for no reason.

Equipment: Hand flamer, Relic of St. Lucasta the Pure (Treat as shock maul and hexagrammic wards)

I'd be tempted to make the relic do something else entirely, something more original than just a shock maul with hexagrammic wards -- otherwise how are we to know it does what your fluff says it does? And why is Adrasteia now immune herself?

Relic of St. Eran the Vigilant (Psi-Hunter Skull)

You've made no mention of turning Saint Eran's remains into a hunter-skull...

Armour: Power armour except for head

Fair enough, I suppose.

Note: Whilst the relic of St. Lucasta only smites the impure, the relic recognises the flaws in every soul and considers them all to be impure thus affecting everyone it touches

I'm not altogether convinced by this. You should make the relic have extra special effects against heretics, traitors, and Chaos characters (do note that I'm not thinking purely along the lines of damage here), rather than just doing the same thing to everyone. Giving it a blanket effect doesn't make much sense when it can't distinguish between a Guardsman, whose only "crimes" are being lax in his devotions and looking at porno slates, and a Chaos Lord who has slaughtered millions in the name of the Dark Powers.

So there you have her! I decided not to use the Adepta Sororitas faith point rules seeing as she's deviated fairly significantly from protocol

"Deviated" is probably putting it a bit mildly when she's now practicing sorcery...

Couple of questions: How much ammo should my characters have for their weapons?

I usually run with two or three reloads for a main weapon (depending on power and magazine capacity), and one for a sidearm.

And how do I represent Adepta Sororitas power armour in her rules as opposed to the space-marine kind?

Exactly as presented in the rulebook, I suppose.

can you guess who it is?

It's totally not the boy who's been sent away to a secret 14th-century martial arts school.

Thanks in advance for any help!

I know it looks like I have a very strange definition of "help", so if I sound cranky, I apologise -- in taking the character to pieces, my intent is to help you iron out the bugs and get things to make as much sense as possible. It's not meant to flame.

It's odd to think that a lot of what you've presented could be fixed quite easily just by ditching all the Gaunt's Ghosts tie-ins.

[MarcoSkoll]

Koval has addressed several of the main points I'd make:

- Canon and Fanon are ill-advised things to mix. It's all too easy to come into conflict with other players, a new book in whichever series, etc.
An extreme example of why it's bad would be deciding something about the 2nd or 11th Space Marine Legions. Everybody and their dog has done this, which is why these legions are apparently invisible rainbow-coloured hermaphrodite triple agents.

- The orders Pronatus are not militant orders. While I can imagine they have association with the military orders (there have got to be times when relics  do have to be recovered with violence), she herself would not be a battle sister or directly in command of them.

- She keeps... questioning. She's not very strong of faith (seeing as faith is pretty much defined as "accepting things without questioning") and thus an unlikely candidate for a Sororitas. This sense of independence isn't that well explained and seems to interfere with a lot of the ideas in the story.

- I find it unlikely that an Inquisitor would get gunned down by Sororitas.
> Aside from a repetition of "Pronatus =/= Militant".
> If they're not as mad as Adrasteia, they are loyal to the Emperor - and an Inquisitor is the Emperor's right hand man. They'd consider him a higher authority.
> Inquisitors aren't stupid. If the circumstances were just as you say, trying to win a firefight when outnumbered & outgunned is clearly a very bad idea. Any of my Inquisitors would probably deliver a "Then I wish to take the matter up with your order".
When said meeting came, they'd then have ensured that just about every imaginable ally* was on hand to make it clear that refusal was not an option, and Adrasteia was to be executed on the spot.

*Aside from a metric butt-tonne of Imperial Guard and Inquisition Stormtroopers, expect a large number of Navy ships in orbit, and (if they could swing it) a couple of Space Marines to accompany them - decked out in the best armour and armaments they could muster - directly into the meeting room.

- Refusing a punishment... and as Koval says (aside from it being a very lenient punishment), at this point, she would have been labelled a heretic. Plus, the canoness was kinda foolish to assume that someone who'd refused (and killed) an Inquisitor would comply! Were I the canoness, I would definitely have made sure that room had a lot of very well armed people in it.

~~~~~

I'm not immediately going to review the profile, seeing as I have to compare how it relates to her background - and it doesn't seem hugely informative to say "I think you need to rethink this, that and the other in your background" and then compare to that same "this, that and the other" or whatever assumptions I make about how you would/should rethink those parts.

[Hum_Con]

To provide a counterpoint to some of what was stated above, firstly I would take any advice on background as exactly that, advice. These are your characters and if you like the background then everyone else's opinion is essentially irrelevant. I would certainly ignore that stuff about blending "official" background or canon and your own stuff. We each of us carry our own version of the 40K universe around in our head which will be a blend of everything we have read from different sources and editions. No-one has been exposed to everything and we all have our own thoughts and perspectives none of which is any more or less valid than anyone else. This is a work of fiction to provide background for a game, not a field of scientific study.

That said, I have a few thoughts. There is a distinction between the militant and pronatus orders defined in background and there is no reason for Adrasteia to be a pronatus, she could comfortably be a battle sister. I can easily buy into the notion that book has influenced her and her fellow sisters, after all entire Space Marine legions have become corrupt as a result of exposure to a single chaos artifact. That said, refusing her punishment seems needlessly foolhardy and might have lead to her being gunned down on the spot. Smarter for her to accept her punishment publicly and then act exactly as she did.

I think you should name the Inquisitor. I note that his retinue was gunned down but you don't say what happened to him. I am assuming he survived and could be an interesting antagonist.

I am hoping to find out more about the book and the mysterious boy, I am guessing you are not down with either of them.

Any thoughts on what model to use?

[Imsety]

Thanks for the constructive criticism You don't need to worry about me getting offended or anything, it's my first character and I realise that it's very, very far from perfect! And I'll end up with a much better character if she gets torn down and built back up with the help of people with far more experience.  Right, now to attempt to address some of those problems:

Bearing in mind what you've said further down about her basically giving herself the title of Canoness, I'll look at her actual rank of Palatine and conclude that maybe you're pitching it a little high considering what's happened to her. Is downgrading the Palatine part to just Sister Superior not an option?

I'm not really that familiar with the Sororitas ranking system, but assuming a sister superior is something akin to a sergeant then that sounds about right.

I should point out that if this your first character, staying away from worlds mentioned by GW is probably a good idea. In particular, stay away from Abnett's worlds, as I've seen enough people base their characters' fluff around elements borrowed from Abnett. You're blending canon with fanon, which is generally frowned upon among the larger 40K community. Why not make up something of your own? It'll show us how imaginative you can be.

Regarding the Canon/Fanon, I think I had some notion of somehow grounding her in the known universe, but now I can see the problems with that. Or rather, that it is in itself a problem So I'll go through each canon element one by one and do a bit of editing methinks.

I chose Haiga for a couple of reasons: It's a shrine world and it was the location of the resurrection of a saint. I thought this would be a good way to sow the seeds of her, admittedly insane, ambitions. So those will have to be key features of the planet she's born on: holy, with some sort of very obvious references to death and resurrection. I'll work on that.

This particular Order Pronatus is already taken. Make your own! It's more fun.

Again, I'll isolate the key reasons for my choice here and use those as a basis for my own Order. Firstly the fact that relic collecting will mean she encounters a lot of dead saints. Adrasteia is insane, that much is clear, but what started out as a simple fixation is cultivated by her environment and lifestyle and grows to the point where she will eventually become a heretic. So the dead saints and the fact that the order she joins is already somewhat tainted by chaos are key factors. However, now I'm making my own order perhaps giving it a more military bent would be appropriate, rescuing relics from warzones and non-imperial worlds and suchlike, justifying the 'guns blazing' approach found in the rest of the story.

Err, why? The Ecclesiarchy has its own version of events, why should she want to know any different?

Not sure about this one, as there are plenty of Thorians out there who don't actually have an awful lot to do with researching Warp mechanics.

This is where she starts to lose her way, but at this point I think she's still faithful. She's not looking for any information that will contradict the Ecclesiarchy's version of events, she just wanted to know more. Had she been a member of a completely untainted Order this probably wouldn't have gone any further. As for her 'dealings with the warp'; again, maybe I worded it badly. She's developed this interest in souls and, more alarmingly, souls coming back to the world. That is; beings in the warp crossing over into the material. Obviously that's not how she sees it, in her mind she remains incredibly faithful. Maybe I should have explained that more clearly rather than just 'her dealings with the warp'.

Okay. Please don't make things up about existing organisations. Imagine if I started writing a story about your characters, in which I had them do things that made you turn round and go "no, they wouldn't do that". The golden rule around here is not to interfere with GW's fluff.

She's Adepta Sororitas. She knows perfectly well that the souls of the faithful stand by the Emperor's right hand. Not sure about this one.

Yeah I made some pretty huge assumptions :L Now I'm going to have my own order this won't be a problem, they can have all the secret heretical vaults they like!
Just because they're with the Emperor doesn't mean she can't communicate with them! Her madness is really starting to show here. She's still faithful to the Emperor, in her opinion. She doesn't set out to contradict the official line, but she is completely incapable of seeing anything to do with her obsession as heretical. To her this is the most holy thing and she can't be convinced otherwise because by this point her entire life has only served to nurture these thoughts in her head. Perhaps I should make it more obvious that at this time Adrasteia is on the slippery slope down into insanitys, and she just lost her footing

She probably won't have done this, as the Warp isn't hyperspace -- it takes a fair amount of time to even go between sectors. Crossing between Segmenta will take longer, and the amount of time it takes to trek all the way around the Imperium and back again would be best measured in years. There's also the small problem of needing a ship, which won't necessarily be the easiest thing to come by. You don't just go to the used ship dealer and buy one -- they're huge things with crews usually numbering in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, many of which will have to be Adeptus Mechanicus to keep the ship's systems ticking over.

I think I got a bit carried away there! It's more likely she took part in some expedition or crusade, with her Order and possibly some others providing one or two ships for an army to go questing in. This gives her the opportunity to go exploring, maybe even pillage a few sepulchres with her squad, but as a part of a larger endeavour.

Again with the direct interaction between canon and fanon...

I'll admit, I just used that planet because I'd already used Haiga. Any planet will do for this part really as chaos cults can be found on any planet.

I really don't like this bit at all. The book's fair enough if she's already gone completely crazy (though it's only just okay), but suddenly recovering this boy makes no sense when we've got nothing about him to go on.

Reading back over it I see what you mean, she really has no reason for these actions. There's always more going on in your head than you write down on the page and I guess that I'd justified it to myself without explicitly stating anything. The book is called the Liber Animus and given its very specific subject matter, its direct relevance to her quest, and the fact that she's found it in a place she was directed to by 'holy visions' make it obvious to her that this is a gift from the Emperor (though the not-so-subtle subtext here is that she's probably being manipulated by chaos). As for the boy, this is a rather clumsy attempt to work the other character into her backstory. I need to think of some sort of reason for saving him that would appeal to Adrasteia's heavily skewed mindset, or introduce him in some other fashion. Hmmm...

Considering that the Adepta Sororitas themselves come under the jurisdiction of the Ordo Hereticus, I don't really think that saying no to this so-far-nameless Inquisitor is a very wise move.

Once again I got a bit carried away here. Perhaps involving someone as powerful as an Inquisitor wasn't the best idea. Although, just to make sure you don't think I'm as mad as my character, I never intended for her to simply gun down an Inquisitor! Just some of his acolytes. I think that this could be reduced to a conflict between the Sisters under her command, some of whom are (quite rightly) outraged by Adrasteia's actions whilst others bow to her 'superior' holy wisdom. Probably the brain washed ones that crop up again later.

Under the circumstances I imagine becoming a Sister Repentia would be incredibly kind and lenient.

If she's refusing to atone for her sins in the eyes of the Emperor, why is she not yet being labelled a heretic?

Her crimes are now the summary execution of some Sisters who stood in the way of the 'work of the Emperor'. I'm not sure how serious a crime this is in the eyes of her canoness, but upscaling the punishment shouldn't be a problem. She refuses it anyway. At this point I think the canoness probably does declare her a heretic. Unfortunately I'm not sure that a single squad of loyal Sisters would really help her survive, so I'm tempted to put her rank higher again so she has more influence. That way she can have more brainwashed sisters and can therefore start a (very) miniature civil war, which would give her much greater chances of survival than just her against an Order. As for her brain-washed sisters they are still faithful to the emperor Emperor unto death and beyond, but their point of view in this situation is simply that Adrasteia is right and the canoness is wrong. That the canoness is the one going against the Emperor. If Adrasteia was able to convince them of that then I think the rest of their actions would make sense.

And these relics are just out in the open, unguarded? 

No but at this point she's fighting the Order anyway so mounting an offensive to take the relics makes sense.

We finally see some of your own input as regards these relics, although "Eran the Vigilant" is a straight example of this trope, as "Vigilant" is exactly what Eran means in Hebrew.

On the one hand, it's a fairly standard cliché (being a non-lethal version of this), but on the other hand it's good to see her finally get her comeuppance, even if we knew it was coming.

Clichés are clichés for a reason, tried and tested!

And nobody thought to pursue her? How about the Canoness ordering that she be brought to justice?

As for the fleeing part, I'm not entirely sure how she's going to get away. Pursuit could be delayed by a suicide vanguard of loyal Sisters but as we've established that Adrasteia would have great difficulty acquiring a ship I'm not really sure as to how to get her out of the system. I'll think on it.

Barring what happens on certain feudal worlds, 40K isn't the ancient/medieval Far East where you might have had schools run by reclusive old masters and dedicated to swordplay, martial arts and all that jazz. While we do have things like Crusader Houses and Death Cult shrines, "secret sword-school" just doesn't cut it when it's popping up out of nowhere. We have no way of knowing whether this boy's any good with swords, and come to think of it neither does Adrasteia. And who's to say the boy won't just blab to whoever asks the right questions?

Seeing as he's going to be wielding chain weaponry and be fantatically faithful to the Emperor, perhaps she could leave him with a Redemptionist sect. As for his motivations in keeping quiet, I'll cover his thoughts on the matter in his character bio (which I'll write when I'm finished salvaging Adrasteia )

She's made herself canoness for two main reasons: she considers the original canoness to be a heretic and thus unworthy of the title, and seeing as she's the only remaining member of her order (as far as she knows) she's in charge and has no-one to say otherwise

If she's aiming to be a hard-as-nails survivor-type then her combat stats are a teensy bit low -- I'd bring her WS and BS up, as she's had several decades to bring those up to snuff.

Her fighting characteristics are low because I was worried I'd fall prey to 'Super Awesome Character Who Can Do Anything' Syndrome, but I may have over-compensated. I shall give them a boost.

Why does she have Force of Will when the in-game effects don't reflect her background? And a better way of wording that arm injury would be "no Light Injury box on her right arm", as the way you've got it at the moment, her right arm will only ever be Lightly Wounded and can never go up to, say, Acute.

The force of will was meant to represent her combination of insanity and faith leaving her with little in the way of fear and much in the way of 'righteous' anger. Perhaps that could be represented more clearly in the fluff, but I'm not sure where I'd mention it. I'll change the wording on that injury

Oh dear. Psychic Sister of Battle. And even worse, these psychic powers come from nowhere. If you want sorcery as a result of that book, that's fine, but make it clear that it's sorcery (with, presumably, an even heftier penalty than usual for when things go wrong) -- don't just make her a psyker for no reason.

Yes it's certainly sorcery from the Liber Animus. I glossed over a lot of experimentation into technology and sorcery that she's been undertaking (in the name of the Emperor) but much of that will be covered in the fluff for my other two characters so I didn't want to write a load of stuff which will just overlap with their bios. As for the penalties when things go wrong i'm not entirely sure how to go about changing the rules for this as i have no experience with the system

I'd be tempted to make the relic do something else entirely, something more original than just a shock maul with hexagrammic wards -- otherwise how are we to know it does what your fluff says it does? And why is Adrasteia now immune herself?

You've made no mention of turning Saint Eran's remains into a hunter-skull...

It's currently a shock maul with hexagrammic wards because I'm unsure about making any new rules or changing current ones with absolutely no experience of how they work in practice. So it's that way for the sake of simplicity rather than because that's how I want it. The turning St. Eran into a hunter-skull thing is another example of her recent experimentation that I've glossed over. Maybe I should write that stuff into her bio after all

I'm not altogether convinced by this. You should make the relic have extra special effects against heretics, traitors, and Chaos characters (do note that I'm not thinking purely along the lines of damage here), rather than just doing the same thing to everyone. Giving it a blanket effect doesn't make much sense when it can't distinguish between a Guardsman, whose only "crimes" are being lax in his devotions and looking at porno slates, and a Chaos Lord who has slaughtered millions in the name of the Dark Powers.

Another example of bad rules for simplicity's sake. This has nothing to do with the story, I'm just unsure of how to design the rules for the relic as it should be.

Exactly as presented in the rulebook, I suppose.

In the equipment section it has power armour, but I assumed those were the rules for the big, strength enhancing stuff that the space-marines wear. Are there different rules for the different armours or are they just treated the same?

Marco, I belive that by replying to Koval's post I've also covered your comments but if there's anything I've missed let me know.

Hum_con, thanks for your comment. I think in this case I did rely a little heavily on pre-established canon and I think it'll be good to be a bit more original, but I certainly agree that 40k 'canon' is more of a thematic backdrop for our use than a rigidly defined world. But everything in moderation You know, you've made me re-think some of what I just said, keeping an inquisitor involved somewhere will certainly give her an interesting rivalry. I'm just worried he'd have killed her whilst she was still just an ordinary Battle sister :L Accepting the punishment, walking away and then doing the complete opposite does sound a lot more sensible, I'll incorporate that I think.

As for models I have no idea. I've written these characters with little or no thought to modelling, so I think I'm going to have a very tough time representing them on the board with my limited (verging on nonexistant) modelling experience. May have shot myself in the foot abit there I'll put a cry for help in the modelling forum when we're done here

Any further thoughts or any comments on the above is very welcome, then I'll start the heavy editing of my original post

Thanks again everyone

[MarcoSkoll]

I'll have to apologise for not being able to go through all your new post just yet, Imsety... I'll need a bit more time to go over yours, so I'm just responding to Hum_Con for the moment.

I would certainly ignore that stuff about blending "official" background or canon and your own stuff.

While I would say that it is not an irredeemable sin, it definitely has its problems.

Often it reads like name dropping, in there to give the fluff the illusion of authenticity - often with wild coincidences like characters in a warband hailing from a selection of worlds that reads like "The top 20 most famous", frequently not even in the same segmentum.

But mostly, it's contradiction - the missing Legions were the easy example I used earlier - and there are any number of people who've written their own versions of those, with few versions coming even close to matching.
Inquisitor is a background heavy game, so doing things that essentially involve re-editing the core canon the game is based on (as changing "Nobody knows shaft about the missing legions" is)... I don't like it as an idea.

Yes, I know that "Everything you have been told is a lie". But EYHBTIAL is, at best, an excuse - it's sometimes necessary for unforeseen contradictions that are too much effort to reconcile after the fact, but when the whole mess can be easily avoided (and the author can show some more of their own creativity) by using an ersatz, it's not a good one.

Canon should of course be derived from, but that should be a one way process.

~~~~~

I should of course admit to (before some smart alec brings her up against me) Sgt Daniela Kronen, who breaks a lot of the above rules, but she was based off some of my very favourite 40k artwork/fluff so closely to the point that there really wasn't anything left I could change. So she did end up as a Mordant 303rd Acid Dog.

[Imsety]

Quick thought. Having only just read the article about Holy Relics in Inquisitor I'm thinking that the femur of Saint Lucasta would make a pretty good force stake, if you sharpened it. Also, it could possibly be anointed or function as a Simulacrum Imperialis to represent how holy it is. Just some ideas that occurred to me as I was reading the article.

[Koval]

Thanks for the constructive criticism You don't need to worry about me getting offended or anything, it's my first character and I realise that it's very, very far from perfect! And I'll end up with a much better character if she gets torn down and built back up with the help of people with far more experience.  Right, now to attempt to address some of those problems:

Thank you for understanding my intent -- reading back through my analysis I realise I'm starting off okay and getting crankier and crankier as I go on, which wasn't really what I was aiming for. So at least we're now on the same page.

I'm not really that familiar with the Sororitas ranking system, but assuming a sister superior is something akin to a sergeant then that sounds about right.

Among the Orders Militant at least, Superiors are squad leaders. This might mean they're in charge of a regular Sororitas squad, or they could be in charge of elite units like Celestians, Dominions or Seraphim -- now, although I'm less sure about Dominions, one expects Celestians and Seraphim to be extremely pious types. Palatines, being officers (I expect about Lieutenant or Captain equivalent, although that's a very rough approximation), are also expected to have a certain degree of religious zeal. While I don't want to create the wrong impression, the expectations for the Sister Superior of a "normal" squad of Sororitas are still high but not as high.

Regarding the Canon/Fanon, I think I had some notion of somehow grounding her in the known universe, but now I can see the problems with that. Or rather, that it is in itself a problem So I'll go through each canon element one by one and do a bit of editing methinks.

Good call. One of the better ways to start is by finding elements you like and adapting them to make your own distinct versions. That's basically what half of fiction-writing entails anyway.

I chose Haiga for a couple of reasons: It's a shrine world and it was the location of the resurrection of a saint. I thought this would be a good way to sow the seeds of her, admittedly insane, ambitions. So those will have to be key features of the planet she's born on: holy, with some sort of very obvious references to death and resurrection. I'll work on that.

Well, rather than being quite as overblown as Sabbat, you could have a more "straightforward" parallel with Lazarus (with the Saint revered on this planet taking on the role of Jesus). I could, admittedly, have gone with a less clichéd example there, or brought something in from other media (Final Fantasy example: "White Mage casts Raise on his/her deceased comrade"), but that's the first one that springs to mind for when the holy figure in question is the one doing the resurrecting rather than being the one brought back.

The bigger question now is why I'm bringing Christianity into this when it's not even my religion

Again, I'll isolate the key reasons for my choice here and use those as a basis for my own Order. Firstly the fact that relic collecting will mean she encounters a lot of dead saints. Adrasteia is insane, that much is clear, but what started out as a simple fixation is cultivated by her environment and lifestyle and grows to the point where she will eventually become a heretic. So the dead saints and the fact that the order she joins is already somewhat tainted by chaos are key factors. However, now I'm making my own order perhaps giving it a more military bent would be appropriate, rescuing relics from warzones and non-imperial worlds and suchlike, justifying the 'guns blazing' approach found in the rest of the story.

Bring in an Order Militant that has close connections with an Order Pronatus would help a fair bit. It could even be that the things in the Order Pronatus' vaults are all genuine, untained Imperial relics (many of which are simple curios with no associated properties), but Adrasteia's latest operation goes a bit wrong when she recovers a bit more than she initially assumed and doesn't want to hand it over...

This is where she starts to lose her way, but at this point I think she's still faithful. She's not looking for any information that will contradict the Ecclesiarchy's version of events, she just wanted to know more. Had she been a member of a completely untainted Order this probably wouldn't have gone any further.

See above. Maybe her interest is entirely benign and only takes on this more radical turn after she recovers this book.

As for her 'dealings with the warp'; again, maybe I worded it badly. She's developed this interest in souls and, more alarmingly, souls coming back to the world. That is; beings in the warp crossing over into the material. Obviously that's not how she sees it, in her mind she remains incredibly faithful. Maybe I should have explained that more clearly rather than just 'her dealings with the warp'.

I think you should have -- it helps when she's got a specific subject of interest. And again, maybe it starts off being totally benign. She could have heard of saints coming back to life, prompting what starts off as a totally innocent bit of research, but which later goes a bit wrong.

Yeah I made some pretty huge assumptions :L Now I'm going to have my own order this won't be a problem, they can have all the secret heretical vaults they like!

Or none at all, depending on whether the story requires them.

Just because they're with the Emperor doesn't mean she can't communicate with them!

Well, she might like to think so...

Her madness is really starting to show here. She's still faithful to the Emperor, in her opinion. She doesn't set out to contradict the official line, but she is completely incapable of seeing anything to do with her obsession as heretical. To her this is the most holy thing and she can't be convinced otherwise because by this point her entire life has only served to nurture these thoughts in her head. Perhaps I should make it more obvious that at this time Adrasteia is on the slippery slope down into insanitys, and she just lost her footing

I'm reminded of Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard from Dragon Age II, convinced she's doing the right thing even when she's completely lost it. Conviction Is Strength, after all, and delusions of righteousness are fun.

I think I got a bit carried away there! It's more likely she took part in some expedition or crusade, with her Order and possibly some others providing one or two ships for an army to go questing in. This gives her the opportunity to go exploring, maybe even pillage a few sepulchres with her squad, but as a part of a larger endeavour.

Good call, and this can then tie into the book.

I'll admit, I just used that planet because I'd already used Haiga. Any planet will do for this part really as chaos cults can be found on any planet.

Good move.

Reading back over it I see what you mean, she really has no reason for these actions. There's always more going on in your head than you write down on the page and I guess that I'd justified it to myself without explicitly stating anything. The book is called the Liber Animus and given its very specific subject matter, its direct relevance to her quest, and the fact that she's found it in a place she was directed to by 'holy visions' make it obvious to her that this is a gift from the Emperor (though the not-so-subtle subtext here is that she's probably being manipulated by chaos).

Or maybe there was something in the book that meant she suddenly felt she had this urge to pick it up, preying on her interests and obsessions to cause her lapse in judgment.

As for the boy, this is a rather clumsy attempt to work the other character into her backstory. I need to think of some sort of reason for saving him that would appeal to Adrasteia's heavily skewed mindset, or introduce him in some other fashion. Hmmm...

She could simply have picked up this accomplice after she lost the plot and ran away.

Once again I got a bit carried away here. Perhaps involving someone as powerful as an Inquisitor wasn't the best idea.

Involving an Inquisitor is okay, just don't leave him nameless and faceless, and maybe don't have him actually physically present unless necessary.

Although, just to make sure you don't think I'm as mad as my character, I never intended for her to simply gun down an Inquisitor! Just some of his acolytes. I think that this could be reduced to a conflict between the Sisters under her command, some of whom are (quite rightly) outraged by Adrasteia's actions whilst others bow to her 'superior' holy wisdom. Probably the brain washed ones that crop up again later.

To paraphrase Marco, they're going to consider an Inquisitor -- especially an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor -- to be a higher authority than their squad leader. There are ways around this, like removing the Inquisitor (either literally, figuratively, or lethally)

Her crimes are now the summary execution of some Sisters who stood in the way of the 'work of the Emperor'. I'm not sure how serious a crime this is in the eyes of her canoness

Probably "very serious" given the nature of her work...

but upscaling the punishment shouldn't be a problem. She refuses it anyway.

Depending on how far up the chain we go, I'm not sure she'd be in a position to refuse execution. It'll also depend on whether she's armed, as I don't imagine she would be...

At this point I think the canoness probably does declare her a heretic. Unfortunately I'm not sure that a single squad of loyal Sisters would really help her survive, so I'm tempted to put her rank higher again so she has more influence.

I don't think many Sisters would remain loyal to her at all. She could, however, be socially aware -- not everyone in the Adepta Sororitas is socially oblivious, after all -- thus giving her a slightly better chance of survival once she gets away and does away with everything that visibly ties her to her Order.

That way she can have more brainwashed sisters and can therefore start a (very) miniature civil war, which would give her much greater chances of survival than just her against an Order. As for her brain-washed sisters they are still faithful to the emperor Emperor unto death and beyond, but their point of view in this situation is simply that Adrasteia is right and the canoness is wrong. That the canoness is the one going against the Emperor. If Adrasteia was able to convince them of that then I think the rest of their actions would make sense.

The Canoness would have the benefit of experience and seniority here -- she has a greater understanding of the Emperor's will than a "mere" Sister Superior would, and her faith is absolute. Unless there's overwhelming evidence to support Adrasteia I don't see that there'd be many Sisters turning out to back her up.

No but at this point she's fighting the Order anyway so mounting an offensive to take the relics makes sense.

If you want to play the Designated Anti-Hero card, you could have her get to the reliquary (and possibly arming herself) through some sort of subterfuge, then gunning down the reliquary's guards before they know what's hit them. It eliminates the idea that she's suddenly got the Order turning on itself.

Clichés are clichés for a reason, tried and tested!

You're thinking of tropes -- clichés have an "overused" connotation about them unless subverted.

As for the fleeing part, I'm not entirely sure how she's going to get away. Pursuit could be delayed by a suicide vanguard of loyal Sisters but as we've established that Adrasteia would have great difficulty acquiring a ship I'm not really sure as to how to get her out of the system. I'll think on it.

Stowing away is the most obvious solution, but that's been done before.

Seeing as he's going to be wielding chain weaponry and be fantatically faithful to the Emperor, perhaps she could leave him with a Redemptionist sect. As for his motivations in keeping quiet, I'll cover his thoughts on the matter in his character bio (which I'll write when I'm finished salvaging Adrasteia )

A Redemptionist sect wouldn't be a good fit if he's going along with Adrasteia practicing sorcery. If she's from a militant Order, what's to stop her from training him herself? That way she'll get a better idea of where he's strong and where he needs more work, and it gives her a chance to get in some practice of her own. Marksmanship training with lasguns would be pretty straightforward, as you can recharge them by leaving the batteries out in the sun or chucking them into a fire (and most voidships will have loads in the arms lockers), and melee training could start off with mundane weapons before working up to something more lethal.

She's made herself canoness for two main reasons: she considers the original canoness to be a heretic and thus unworthy of the title, and seeing as she's the only remaining member of her order (as far as she knows) she's in charge and has no-one to say otherwise

Delusions of grandeur as well, eh? This should be made clearer.

Her fighting characteristics are low because I was worried I'd fall prey to 'Super Awesome Character Who Can Do Anything' Syndrome, but I may have over-compensated. I shall give them a boost.

I was actually thinking in terms of what's sensible for the character. If she's had ages to practice, she's going to have higher stats than WS 60 and BS 59. To use one of my own characters as an example, Commissar Alice Fenn (who's in her late 30s, compared with however many decades Adrasteia's been around) has the same WS 60, and the only reason it's not higher is because she's been too busy with internal affairs and keeping order to get enough practice.

The force of will was meant to represent her combination of insanity and faith leaving her with little in the way of fear and much in the way of 'righteous' anger. Perhaps that could be represented more clearly in the fluff, but I'm not sure where I'd mention it. I'll change the wording on that injury

I think that in this case it might be better to have her ignore Fearsome characters, and consider Terrifying characters to be "only" Fearsome.

Yes it's certainly sorcery from the Liber Animus. I glossed over a lot of experimentation into technology and sorcery that she's been undertaking (in the name of the Emperor) but much of that will be covered in the fluff for my other two characters so I didn't want to write a load of stuff which will just overlap with their bios.

Gav Thorpe's Path series has a lot of overlapping info, but it works pretty well because of how it's done. For example, Korlandril's unveiling of The Gifts Of Loving Isha is the same throughout all three books, but in one book we see the scene from Korlandril's point of view, in the second we see the same scene from Thirianna's perspective, and in the third we see it through Aradryan's eyes; each time we see something different about the scene and what's running through the characters' heads. So you could quite happily address the sorcery here as Adrasteia understands it, and then you could have Bob and Charlie (or whatever your other characters' names are) see something different in what Adrasteia's doing.

As for the penalties when things go wrong i'm not entirely sure how to go about changing the rules for this as i have no experience with the system

For sorcery, I'd bump up the difficulties of all powers by 5, and add the requirement that Adrasteia has to be able to speak/gesture/do whatever the sorcery itself requires -- sometimes it's words, sometimes it's gestures, sometimes it requires blood (and conveniently her head is unarmoured, so she could have some scars on her face), sometimes it's something else entirely. I might also be tempted to add D3 to her Injury total per degree of failure when she suffers a psychic overload. So for example, she's trying to cast Blood Boil on someone and fails by 26 -- that's two full steps of 10%, so she takes the Willpower damage twice and adds 2D3 to her Injury total.

It's currently a shock maul with hexagrammic wards because I'm unsure about making any new rules or changing current ones with absolutely no experience of how they work in practice. So it's that way for the sake of simplicity rather than because that's how I want it.

Okay. Here's how I'd do it:
Saint Lucasta's Femur counts as an improvised weapon. Against psykers, it may stun opponents in the same manner as a shock weapon. Against traitors, heretics, sorcerers and Chaos characters, it additionally counts as being loaded with Bloodfire toxin. Daemonic characters struck by Saint Lucasta's Femur add a further D10 to their Injury total when hit.

The turning St. Eran into a hunter-skull thing is another example of her recent experimentation that I've glossed over. Maybe I should write that stuff into her bio after all

If it flies, that's one thing. If not, perhaps she's somehow turned it into a psi-tracker rather than a hunter-skull.

In the equipment section it has power armour, but I assumed those were the rules for the big, strength enhancing stuff that the space-marines wear. Are there different rules for the different armours or are they just treated the same?

Space Marine power armour actually crops up in Brother Artemis' rules -- in addition to being AV 10 and boosting the wearer's Strength, it comes with extra ablative armour and has a lot of extra built-in features.

Quick thought. Having only just read the article about Holy Relics in Inquisitor I'm thinking that the femur of Saint Lucasta would make a pretty good force stake, if you sharpened it. Also, it could possibly be anointed or function as a Simulacrum Imperialis to represent how holy it is. Just some ideas that occurred to me as I was reading the article.

Turning it into a power stake would be a bit tricky because it also relies on it having a power field, not just being a blessed weapon. I imagine that if she's properly weaponising it, she'd have to turn it into a power weapon herself, and there's the tricky part as she's a fugitive. I'll concede, however, that making it Anointed would be another option.

[Imsety]

My original post has now been heavily edited to incorporate the many changes to her background and stats. Let me know what you think

[Koval]

Alright then, let's have a look. Again, apologies if I sound overly snappy.

Adrasteia Proserpine, former Sister Superior of the Order of the Martyr's Sword

Better, it's your own Order so that's good.

Adrasteia Proserpine was born and raised on the shrine-world Sophalia. Sophalia was first founded when the Imperial Saint of the same name led a crusade to free the planet from the clutches of a chaos cult. In the most pivotal battle of the crusade Saint Sophalia killed the warlord who ruled the planet, but sustained grievous injuries and died on the battlefield, a martyr to her cause.

Seems fairly standard Saint stuff so far. I tend to have my saints beatified posthumously, just because Living Saints are supposed to be as rare as hen's teeth, but by the same token there's not much wrong here.

Decades later an uprising across the planet, instigated by the descendants of the hidden survivors from the original chaos cult, threatened to engulf the planet. The Adepta Sororitas holding the capital were forced to retreat into their convent and all seemed lost. Then a miracle occurred. Saint Sophalia emerged from the reliquary crypt where her remains had been kept, reborn in the prime of her youth. Taking up her sword she led the remaining battle sisters in a devastating counter-attack. With her help the sisters were able to cleanse the capital and hold out against the chaos forces until reinforcements arrived. When the planet was once again under the control of imperial forces, all that could be found of Saint Sophalia were her old yellowed bones, laid within a suit of archaic armour and with her holy blade by her side.

Again, this sort of thing is hardly an everyday occurrence, but it does culminate in the founding of an Order Militant so it seems okay so far.

The sisters who survived the uprising, now recognising more than ever the holiness and power that relics like the bones of Saint Sophalia and the sword that she had wielded possessed, founded the Order of the Martyr's Sword; a militant order dedicated to saving holy relics that lay in enemy hands or were lost on wild worlds beyond the boundaries of the Imperium.

Minor wobble here; they're apparently an Order Militant and an Order Pronatus at the same time. While Orders Militant will have relics, and are obviously better equipped to retrieve them than an Order Pronatus, they'd need connections if relic-hunting is their raison d'etre. This isn't hard to sort out, though, as they could just have been founded alongside an Order Pronatus, their main shrines being in relatively close proximity to each other (in much the same way as some universities have different campuses within walking distance of one another)

Raised from a young age in an Adepta Sororitas Covenant and constantly surrounded by the history of her world, Adrasteia developed a powerful fixation with the tales of Saint Sophalia and other Imperial Saints. Adrasteia grew into an extremely pious and knowledgeable woman, with high hopes for her future in the Order of the Martyr's Sword.

This sounds more feasible now that we've got this sense of immersion. I know a good number of people for whom their reason for enjoying something is as simple as "I know more about this than I do about Subject XYZ, so I can get into it more".

Adrasteia's single-minded dedication and focus in the face of danger impressed her superiors and she was promoted to the rank of Sister Superior, in command of her own squad of Sisters.

Fair enough, although mention developing leadership qualities -- you're going to make a pretty poor squad commander if you don't know how to lead your troops.

Inspired by the tales of the resurrection of Saint Sophalia, Adrasteia used the privileges of her new rank to delve into the archives in search of knowledge regarding the soul's interaction with the body. In particular, the possibility of souls returning from their place by the Emperor's side and incarnating themselves in order to enact miracles of resurrection in times of dire need.

I'd have thought that she could do that anyway, but maybe we could turn it around so that actually being promoted prompted her to enhance her faith, and that's how she chose to do that.

Adrasteia worked tirelessly to compile manuscripts and tomes from the archives to write her own manuscript of condensed knowledge, a masterpiece of research and insight.

Okay, we're running into trouble here. She's a soldier, not an academic researcher, so while she's certainly at liberty to compile all this stuff, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "masterpiece". She's not exactly writing a doctoral thesis, and in fact you can write essays and dissertations for years while still producing only mediocre work. Case in point, anything I've done on an academic level, though thankfully my essay-writing days are long gone.

In the conclusion of her treatise, Adrasteia mused that if the Saints could reach across the veil of death and re-join the living world, perhaps the living faithful could pierce that same veil with prayer and great dedication, and with the help of relics closely tied to the Saints' lives as mortals, in order to contact the Saints and, if the need was great enough, beseech them to return.

The faithful will surely have been trying this for millennia, with rather inconclusive results at best...

She bound her manuscript and filed it away into her order's archive where, buried within a labyrinth of information, it faded into obscurity.

Okay, and if it's a masterpiece as you suggest, why is it being allowed to "fade into obscurity" when it's more likely to be used as reference-material? If you want it to fade into obscurity, simply don't make it a "masterpiece".

In the year 929.M41, when Adrasteia was 35 years old, the Ecclesiarchy declared the instigation of the Korasian Crusade. A cluster of Cardinal worlds, the Korasian system had long been isolated by intense warp storms.

I'd make it a sub-sector, to be honest, as that'll be rather a lot of habitable worlds in the same system, and Crusades -- proper ones, at least -- tend to happen on larger scales than "retake this system" anyway.

To their dismay, when they eventually re-established contact the Ecclesiarchy found that the Cardinals had lost control of their worlds and that the populations had fallen into barbarism and false idol-worship.

As tends to happen when worlds are cut off by Warp storms. We're exploring such a world at the moment in the Dark Heresy Skype sessions, and let's just say that there's a reason few things currently make sense.

The Korasian Crusade, formed of contingents from several militant orders of the Adepta Sororitas along with Imperial Guard regiments raised by nearby planets and a small contingent of Imperial Navy ships, set out to bring the Korasian system back into the fold.

A rather small crusade -- it sounds a bit more like Army Group Exolon (from the novel Gunheads), during Operation Thunderstorm. All we'd have to do is sub out the Mechanicus for the Adepta Sororitas and throw in some Navy and we turn Exolon into your group. Crusades are big.

The Order of the Martyr's Sword sent many Sisters to join the crusade,

Well, yes.

and Sister Superior Adrasteia Proserpine led her squad to war. Whilst the main army took the fight to the rebels, the Sisters of Adrasteia's order focused on their mission: the recovery of the relics that had been held in various tombs and sepulchres across the previously pious worlds of the Korasian system.

Although you have to admit they'd have taken the opportunity to crush a few heretics along the way.

Adrasteia's squad fought with fervour and prowess and succeeded in several daring raids on old religious institutions, now barbarian strongholds

Oh, there we go.

gaining them commendation and various crusade medals.

Medals don't strike me as overly appropriate for the Adepta Sororitas -- I'd be tempted to call them "honours" instead, as that could also refer to non-physical means of recognition.

By 933.M41the Korasian system was nearly fully subjugated.

Depending on whether you blow this out to a sub-sector I might be tempted to lengthen the crusade's duration.

En route to Korasian VI, the last barbarian world standing at what was now tail end of the crusade

Convenient. If the crusade has to come in from the system's edges, they either weren't in the right position to hit Korasian VI yet, or the genius behind it decided to come from outside, hit the innermost planet first, and work back out again.

Adrasteia began experiencing vivid dreams and fragmented waking visions.

About what? Were they largely incomprehensible, or was there actually something there that she could understand?

When her foot first touched the surface of the planet she fell into a convulsive fit and lost consciousness. She felt a presence in her mind that radiated power, and it told her that her prayers would be answered and all her ambitions realised on Korasian VI.

I'm guessing that something's taken advantage of how... I don't want to say "open", but something like that... her mind is.

She awoke convinced that the Emperor had great plans for her and that her deep set burning desire, the final proof of the theories she had concocted as part of her overpowering obsession with the Saints, was within reach.

Well, that was easy...

As the military campaign to subjugate Korasian VI began, Adrasteia was contacted by an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor named Maxentius Amset.

Okay, so he has a name now. That's cool.

Amset ordered her to take her squad and destroy a slum den that he suspected of being a centre for barbarous activity and heretical religion. Annoyed at being taken away from her relic hunting, but unable to refuse the Inquisitor, Adrasteia led her squad to the den.

There's got to be more to it than "there are heretics here". You've told us there are heretics everywhere on this planet. And why just one squad?

The raid was swift and brutally efficient, the rabble that inhabited the den were mercilessly routed with sword, bolt and fire.

If Amset's telling Adrasteia to go here for a reason, there's got to be more to it than just "rabble" that are done away with in the space of one sentence.

In the depths of the warrenous den, Adrasteia came across a small boy of five or six, locked in his room praying to an altar. An altar carved into the shape of the Aquila, its wings supporting a book.

So there's an Imperial shrine locked away in the back of an enemy lair? Are these people idiots as well as heretical? ...wait, don't answer that

The boy hesitated for a second, and then threw himself at her feet, begging for clemency. He said his name was Constantine Demetris

I can't ever take characters called Constantine seriously. I've seen enough "first characters" done by people who think "I wanna be cool, I'm going to call him Constantine" that it's actually become an over-used name...

and though he was the son of barbarous deviants he claimed to be a secret follower of the 'old religion', guided by historical texts and the holy book he had discovered in the ruins of an imperial temple.

Uhh, for a five- or six-year-old boy that's also terrified out of his wits, he's really eloquent. No chance you could make him a bit older?

Convinced that Adrasteia was a divine angel of retribution, Constantine thanked her for destroying the oppressive cult that had persecuted him all his life.

He's five or six. "All his life" doesn't sound right coming from a six-year-old.

Adrasteia remained unconvinced and prepared to kill the boy

But of course, he's clearly a gabbling lunatic.

but first she examined the book he had been praying to.

It would have had to be actively distracting her if she was about to execute this boy. If that's the case it needs to be clearer.

When Adrasteia emerged from the smoking shell of the den she did not emerge empty handed. Under one arm was a badly singed book, bound in cracked leather and with curling gold lettering embossed on the front cover: 'Liber Animus'. And cradled in the other she carried the exhausted boy.

It needs to be made clearer why she's decided to spare both.

She cast her eyes to the sky and offered up a prayer to the Emperor in thanks, utterly convinced that his voice had led her to this moment and given her this ultimate tool, a book containing secret and powerful lore pertaining to souls, birth, death and rebirth which would help her to finally succeed in her most holy Magnum Opus.

Okay, so we've gone from one "masterpiece" that's faded into obscurity, to a magnum opus to which we've not actually seen any references so far. I must admit I'm scratching my head a bit here.

She was interrupted by the outraged cries of fellow Sisters who demanded that the boy and the book, tainted by the barbarians as they obviously were, be put to the torch.

Well yes, these Sisters clearly have the right idea.

A defiant Adrasteia proclaimed that the book was a gift from the emperor himself, a clear indication of his favour with Adrasteia and her quest

Does she have any evidence to back this up?

and that to call it, and by extension the faithful boy who worshipped it's teachings, impure or corrupt was vile heresy. Accusations flew, words grew heated and weapons were drawn. Suddenly the squad erupted into violence.

I imagine there has to be a trigger for this violence. So far, it's gone from words to GUNS BLAZING DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA

Adrasteia was a veteran and a skilled fighter

So are most of her squad, I imagine, and you've made no mention of how many Sisters there are in the squad or how they're armed -- we don't know how feasible this would actually be.

but despite fending off and dispatching most of her squad she was badly wounded and fell to the ground, unable to continue the fight.

Er... how, by whom, and by what?

One other sister remained standing

Slightly cliché that there's only one left.

and she limped over to Adrasteia's prone form.

You need to mention that she's also injured before she starts limping.

She removed her helm and Adrasteia's

Removing Adrasteia's helmet I can sort of understand, but removing her own makes no sense. They're not angels of mercy.

and knelt down to look her in the eye. Muttering a rite of purification, she prepared to summarily execute her.

What a strange custom this Order has -- I'd have imagined this other Sister to have stood over her, aiming her bolter, pulling the trigger, blam, "such is the fate of all heretics"

But in the confusion, everyone had forgotten Constantine.

Leave it to a six-year-old child who is probably soiling himself in terror to save the day.

Thrown clear of the fight by Adrasteia

You don't "throw clear" a small child while you're wearing power armour, and expect that he'll be unhurt and/or quiet...

he recovered his senses in time to see the Sister advancing on his guardian angel. Taking a knife from one of the many bodies littered before the remains of his home, Constantine leapt upon the Sister's back

Wasn't he exhausted earlier?

and plunged his knife into her unarmoured neck, stabbing her again and again in a protective frenzy.

I'll be honest, I don't like this bit much at all, just on the basis that a small child, who by all rights should be terrified out of his wits, and nursing a few painful bruises from having been "thrown clear" by someone in power armour, has just leapt onto a Sister of Battle's back and is now knifing her to death. I would honestly feel happier if Adrasteia took advantage of her Sister's apparent idiocy in taking both their helmets off, and either brought up a weapon while the nameless Sister's guard was down, or simply brained her with a bit of masonry. Leaving it to a small child really beggars belief.

Adrasteia patched herself up and returned to the crusade's flagship to recuperate

I'd imagine that she'd have returned to whichever ship her Order had come in on, else gone to their field base.

reporting to her superiors that her squad had been wiped out in a valiant last stand and that she had barely managed to escape, taking the faithful Constantine with her. Some found it hard to believe this version of events, among them Inquisitor Amset.

I imagine that quite a lot of people would find it hard to believe...

He travelled to the scene of the fight and was able to determine the true nature of the events that took place. Contacting the Canoness of the Order of the Martyr's sword, Amset asked that Adrasteia be captured with minimal disruption and held until he returned to the ship.

"Minimal disruption"? I can appreciate it if Amset wants to keep things a bit hush-hush, but this is a rather strange way of putting it. I'd simply say "detained", despite the obvious "you're in trouble" connotations.

However, he hadn't counted on the righteous fury of the canoness. Ashamed and angry beyond all reason that a member of her order would become a traitor the canoness hastily pronounced to the entire crusade that Adrasteia Proserpine was a heretic, to be hunted down and killed immediately.

Amset hadn't counted on the Canoness being an idiot either, from the look of things -- if the idea of one of your own Sisters being a heretic is shameful, it might be more appropriate to let the Inquisition deal with it and issue some sort of cover-up, unless the Canoness' words included the old favourite "though it shames me to admit this stain upon the honour of the crusade and the Emperor..." or similar.

Driven by fear and anger at what she perceived to be a betrayal by her Order

I might add "shock" to that list, as suddenly being declared Public Enemy #1 has a definite "WTF?" factor about it.

Adrasteia struck hard and fast whilst she still had the element of surprise.

Hang on, isn't she supposed to be recovering from her injuries?

Fully armed and armoured

She's got access to her wargear? She even has time to put her armour on? This crusade's a bit slow on the uptake.

she stormed the reliquary vault aboard the ship that contained the spoils of the crusade. Catching the guards, who had expected no trouble in a ship full of loyal crusaders, unaware she slaughtered them out of hand

This strikes me as an overly casual disposal of these guards.

and entered the vault. Whilst Constantine filled bags with valuable jewellery, currency and gems

Hang on, where's Constantine suddenly come from?

Adrasteia stole two potent protective relics. The skull of Saint Eran the Vigilant and a sanctified witch hunter's stake, carved from the femur of Saint Lucasta (said to protect its wielder from hostile sorceries and smite the impure).

I might get rid of the brackets, and add the word "and" after Saint Lucasta. Comma optional.

As she grasped the stake it flared brightly and a bolt of holy power arced up Adrasteia's arm, charring flesh and leaving great rents in her skin. She barely managed to stifle a pained scream, biting her lip so hard she drew blood.

This despite her being fully armoured? Must be a pretty powerful relic.

She took Constantine and fled before the retribution of her order came down upon their heads.

She's got an entire crusade descending on her, so again, this seems to be a rather casual telling of events.

Locating one of the unscrupulous mercenaries that had been following the crusade in the hope of gaining profit

Mercenaries should have been introduced earlier.

Adrasteia offered him the commodities she had stolen from the vault in return for passage. His greed overcame his reservations and the mercenary agreed to take Adrasteia and Constantine aboard his ship and leave the system.

This solves the problem of getting a ship fairly nicely, although that mercenary's ship is now going to have a hell of a time losing the rest of the crusade.

Adrasteia has now had several decades to study the Liber Animus. She has unlocked the secret of powerful 'incantations of beseeching prayer' that allow her to reach beyond the veil and beseech the saints dwelling in the afterlife to come to her aid.

Er, given the nature of the "afterlife" in 40K, it's far more likely that she's summoning Tzeentchian or Slaaneshi daemons rather than "saints".

These holy powers have given her a degree of control over the souls of the living and the ascended.

See above. This amounts to little more than sorcery.

Closely studying the means through which souls pass from life, Adrasteia has been able to extend her lifespan with the Emperor's grace and is currently over 110 years old.

Which will put young Constantine at around 80. He's going to need some of "the Emperor's grace" at some point as well.

As part of her quest to resurrect a Saint, Adrasteia has transformed her loyal companion Constantine into a prototype for her living Saint. Through a series of gruesome procedures, both physical and mental, she was able to push Constantine to the very brink of death, perhaps even slightly beyond, before using a combination of cybernetics, stimulant drugs and her newfound powers to drag him back into the world of the living.

Oh dear. Sounds like he Came Back Wrong depending on how dead he was.[/quote]

Most recently Adrasteia's quest has culminated in what she perceives to be a true success for her beliefs. Final proof that the heretics that hunt her still and seek to prevent and undo her work, the Emperor's work, are misguided fools. Her Magnum Opus. She has brought The Most Blessed Imperial Saint Evander back from the dead...

Or so she thinks. Again, it's more likely that she's summoned a daemon that wants her to think it's this Saint Evander. Which then leads back into Psychic Sister of Battle.

Stats:
WS: 69 BS: 71 S: 52 (62) T: 54 I: 63 WP: 84 Sg: 70 Nv: 68 Ld: 80

Better. Might drop the Ld a bit, though.

Talents: Fanatic will
Adrasteia ignores the effects of Fearsome characters, and treats Terrifying characters as Fearsome instead

Makes sense.

Burned right arm
Adrasteia has no light injury box on her right arm

Permanent damage from the power-stake to which she's now immune, I take it.

Sorcery of faith
To use her psychic powers Adrasteia must perform complex prayer chants, formulaic gestures etc. In addition, she adds five to the difficulty of any power

Psychic powers: Blood boil, Regenerate, Warp strength, Banishment

Mechanically speaking, this is better than "Psychic Sister of Battle" as sorcery can be performed by anyone who's reading the right books of forbidden lore. You know the ones. The Necronomicon, the Mysterium Xarxes, the Twilight series... the list goes on.

Equipment: Hand flamer

Still no reloads?

Relic of St. Lucasta the Pure

I'm a little surprised that she's immune to its effects if it's already judged her once to be impure.

Relic of St. Eran the Vigilant.

Looks fine.

The rest of her things look sensible for what she is.

Once any final tweaks are finished with Adrasteia I'll write up Constantine, then the mysterious Saint Evander.

It's entirely possible that stuff for these two will influence a couple of things in Adrasteia's story.

[MarcoSkoll]

As tends to happen when worlds are cut off by Warp storms. We're exploring such a world at the moment in the Dark Heresy Skype sessions, and let's just say that there's a reason few things currently make sense.

... like much of the population, who do not speak a recognisable form of Gothic.

I imagine there has to be a trigger for this violence. So far, it's gone from words to GUNS BLAZING DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA

If we're portraying the book as a tainted (and possibly mildly sentient/sapient) artefact, I get the idea that it could interfere in subtle fashion.

... however, the problem I can see there is that these are Sororitas. Their strength of faith is anathema to such things.
Still, if it is a powerful evil artefact, it would only take one sister to snap and turn a Mexican standoff into a blood bath.

This could perhaps also explain why the other sister removes her helmet in something of an Idiot Ball moment - but I think I'd prefer her helmet had taken damage. Maybe the left eye autosenses had crapped out or something and it was actually a hindrance.

You need to mention that she's also injured before she starts limping.

To be fair, I would have thought saying she's limping (in the same sentence as it mentions she survives) was supposed to be the indication she's injured. It's perhaps not how I would have worded it, but it's acceptable.

Leave it to a six-year-old child who is probably soiling himself in terror to save the day.

A child corrupted by long exposure to an unnatural artefact, I'd add.

Constantine leapt upon the Sister’s back and plunged his knife into her unarmoured neck, stabbing her again and again in a protective frenzy.

I'll be honest, I don't like this bit much at all, just on the basis that a small child, who by all rights should be terrified out of his wits, and nursing a few painful bruises from having been "thrown clear" by someone in power armour, has just leapt onto a Sister of Battle's back and is now knifing her to death. I would honestly feel happier if Adrasteia took advantage of her Sister's apparent idiocy in taking both their helmets off, and either brought up a weapon while the nameless Sister's guard was down, or simply brained her with a bit of masonry. Leaving it to a small child really beggars belief.

Even with the above said, I agree.

If you actually look at a Sister of Battle, there's not really such a thing as an unarmoured neck, particularly from behind!


Between a gorget, pauldrons and an armoured backpack, the neck is not easily attacked. And seeing as power armour is supposedly environmentally sealed, there is presumably a sealed neck-ring (similar to this whatsit I drew earlier this year) for the helmet to lock onto as well.

A better version would indeed be Constantine being pretty useless directly, but being enough of a distraction to let Adrasteia "finish the job".

~~~~~

Other than that, I mostly agree with your points.

[Imsety]

Oof, we'll get there eventually

Minor wobble here; they're apparently an Order Militant and an Order Pronatus at the same time. While Orders Militant will have relics, and are obviously better equipped to retrieve them than an Order Pronatus, they'd need connections if relic-hunting is their raison d'etre. This isn't hard to sort out, though, as they could just have been founded alongside an Order Pronatus, their main shrines being in relatively close proximity to each other (in much the same way as some universities have different campuses within walking distance of one another)

I'm inclined to leave it as a single order, perhaps split into two convents. One with a military bent and the other more of an Order Pronatus style , however this would make classifying the Order of the Martyr's Sword an interesting prospect.

I'd have thought that she could do that anyway, but maybe we could turn it around so that actually being promoted prompted her to enhance her faith, and that's how she chose to do that.

I agree, less 'being given permission' and more 'gaining a vested interest'.

Okay, we're running into trouble here. She's a soldier, not an academic researcher, so while she's certainly at liberty to compile all this stuff, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "masterpiece". She's not exactly writing a doctoral thesis, and in fact you can write essays and dissertations for years while still producing only mediocre work. Case in point, anything I've done on an academic level, though thankfully my essay-writing days are long gone. 

I tend to exaggerate and write from a character viewpoint so this leads to some confusion. Just because this is Adrasteia's masterpiece doesn't mean it's anything more than the mediocre research of a bookish battle sister! May need to clarify this but it will lose a bit of the character's eye view feel if I make it too clinical.

The faithful will surely have been trying this for millennia, with rather inconclusive results at best...

She's not necessarily original in her ambitions.

I'd make it a sub-sector, to be honest, as that'll be rather a lot of habitable worlds in the same system, and Crusades -- proper ones, at least -- tend to happen on larger scales than "retake this system" anyway.

I'm a bit lax on my imperial geography (spaceography?) but a sub-sector sounds about right.

A rather small crusade -- it sounds a bit more like Army Group Exolon (from the novel Gunheads), during Operation Thunderstorm. All we'd have to do is sub out the Mechanicus for the Adepta Sororitas and throw in some Navy and we turn Exolon into your group. Crusades are big.

I'll have to increase the grandeur of the crusade somewhat, but at the same time I want to avoid making it too big. I'll find a compromise.

Medals don't strike me as overly appropriate for the Adepta Sororitas -- I'd be tempted to call them "honours" instead, as that could also refer to non-physical means of recognition.

Agreed

Convenient. If the crusade has to come in from the system's edges, they either weren't in the right position to hit Korasian VI yet, or the genius behind it decided to come from outside, hit the innermost planet first, and work back out again.

I think I'll change the name of the planet so it's location can be less obviously deduced from it's name.

About what? Were they largely incomprehensible, or was there actually something there that she could understand?

I'm guessing that something's taken advantage of how... I don't want to say "open", but something like that... her mind is.

Well, that was easy...

I feel that perhaps I've understated her visions, but at the same time I was attempting to stop myself from writing reams of unneeded fluff that no-one would read Still, far from being easy the visions and sendings are only able to convince her of these things through radically influencing her mind over a period of time. Prising her psyche apart by exploiting the cracks in her 'armour of faith'

There's got to be more to it than "there are heretics here". You've told us there are heretics everywhere on this planet. And why just one squad?

As a less established character at this point I'm unsure of Amset's motivations, though I have this feeling that he's less honest than he appears. Any suggestions regarding Amset are very welcome

If Amset's telling Adrasteia to go here for a reason, there's got to be more to it than just "rabble" that are done away with in the space of one sentence.

In an attempt to be concise I have an annoying tendency to downplay combat. Perhaps a couple more sentences with some appropriate adjectives will give more of a sense of struggle.

So there's an Imperial shrine locked away in the back of an enemy lair? Are these people idiots as well as heretical? ...wait, don't answer that

I always seem to either understate or exaggerate! In my head what I've rather foolishly referred to as a 'den' is an extensive warren of tunnels, rooms and connected buildings. Somewhere among this maze I don't think it would be altogether difficult to hide a small shrine in a corner no-one ever visits.

I can't ever take characters called Constantine seriously. I've seen enough "first characters" done by people who think "I wanna be cool, I'm going to call him Constantine" that it's actually become an over-used name...

I was unaware of my following of newbie tradition how does Eirik Demetris sound?

Uhh, for a five- or six-year-old boy that's also terrified out of his wits, he's really eloquent. No chance you could make him a bit older?

He's five or six. "All his life" doesn't sound right coming from a six-year-old.

Suddenly, Eirik undergoes a decade of aging before our eyes and becomes a young man! Done

It would have had to be actively distracting her if she was about to execute this boy. If that's the case it needs to be clearer.

Not sure how to make a book actively distract her short of making it sparkle and declare in confidential and slightly smug tones "I'm magic I am!"

Okay, so we've gone from one "masterpiece" that's faded into obscurity, to a magnum opus to which we've not actually seen any references so far. I must admit I'm scratching my head a bit here.

Yeah that was a reference to something in the first draft that I since edited out, namely about her setting out to resurrect a saint. Leaving this hovering unconnected in mid-literary-air. Not sure whether to edit this out or edit the other bit back in somewhere uptext

Does she have any evidence to back this up?

Faith is sort of based on lack of evidence, and Adrasteia isn't short on faith! Sightly broken faith admittedly, but faith nonetheless.

I imagine there has to be a trigger for this violence. So far, it's gone from words to GUNS BLAZING DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA

I think a steadily escalating argument that erupts into violence can be assumed, and there's enough text here already without me going into dialogues.

So are most of her squad, I imagine, and you've made no mention of how many Sisters there are in the squad or how they're armed -- we don't know how feasible this would actually be.

Leaving it vague lets me put her squad at exactly the right amount for her to almost defeat, without getting into any arguments with someone about whether the number I choose is feasible.

Er... how, by whom, and by what?

You need to mention that she's also injured before she starts limping.

Glossing over combat to avoid filling pages with fluff. Of course if you'd read a (badly written) novel about my character then I could write it for you

Removing Adrasteia's helmet I can sort of understand, but removing her own makes no sense. They're not angels of mercy.

What a strange custom this Order has -- I'd have imagined this other Sister to have stood over her, aiming her bolter, pulling the trigger, blam, "such is the fate of all heretics"

She does that in a very generous move to deliberately allow herself to be killed and help me move the story along, because I'd written myself into a corner

Leave it to a six-year-old child who is probably soiling himself in terror to save the day.

You don't "throw clear" a small child while you're wearing power armour, and expect that he'll be unhurt and/or quiet...

Wasn't he exhausted earlier?

I'll be honest, I don't like this bit much at all, just on the basis that a small child, who by all rights should be terrified out of his wits, and nursing a few painful bruises from having been "thrown clear" by someone in power armour, has just leapt onto a Sister of Battle's back and is now knifing her to death. I would honestly feel happier if Adrasteia took advantage of her Sister's apparent idiocy in taking both their helmets off, and either brought up a weapon while the nameless Sister's guard was down, or simply brained her with a bit of masonry. Leaving it to a small child really beggars belief.

Two reasons for the whole 'six year old killing a battle sister' debacle: Aforementioned cornering, and to convince Adrasteia that as well as sparing his life keeping him around would be worthwhile. I'll admit that this whole sequence of events is the weakest link in the fluff but my poor writing skills are showing their limits I'm afraid.

I'd imagine that she'd have returned to whichever ship her Order had come in on, else gone to their field base.

I think I'll change it to a base set up on the world, less traveling involved.

"Minimal disruption"? I can appreciate it if Amset wants to keep things a bit hush-hush, but this is a rather strange way of putting it. I'd simply say "detained", despite the obvious "you're in trouble" connotations.

Amset hadn't counted on the Canoness being an idiot either, from the look of things -- if the idea of one of your own Sisters being a heretic is shameful, it might be more appropriate to let the Inquisition deal with it and issue some sort of cover-up, unless the Canoness' words included the old favourite "though it shames me to admit this stain upon the honour of the crusade and the Emperor..." or similar.

Possibly change it to a direct announcement by Amset rather than through the Canoness. He's less likely to care about the Order's reputation and as I mentioned above may have an ulterior motive.

Hang on, isn't she supposed to be recovering from her injuries?

Damn your rational mind! You are of course correct, but I don't really see a solution. Either she's fighting injured here or she emerges from her previous trials relatively unscathed, either of which is fairly implausible.

She's got access to her wargear? She even has time to put her armour on? This crusade's a bit slow on the uptake.

Again, dual implausibility. Either she has her gear or she escapes without the use of armour or weapons.

This strikes me as an overly casual disposal of these guards.

See uptext for comment on glossing over combat, although admittedly I take it a bit far here.

Hang on, where's Constantine suddenly come from?

He's been lurking in the shadows, where all the stuff I don't write about is

This despite her being fully armoured? Must be a pretty powerful relic.

Or not so powerful seeing as it only seems to be capable of performing this feat once.

She's got an entire crusade descending on her, so again, this seems to be a rather casual telling of events.

Once again glossing over stuff that would take a lot of text to write up fully. Fights, hiding, running etc. all to be assumed I suppose.
They're probably less worried about the one escaping heretic than the whole planetfull they have anyway, so  the entire crusade isn't going to be pursuing them.

Which will put young Constantine at around 80. He's going to need some of "the Emperor's grace" at some point as well.

Eirik has become a part machine, part chemically preserved sentient zombie (in the name of the Emperor) so aging is less of a problem.

Er, given the nature of the "afterlife" in 40K, it's far more likely that she's summoning Tzeentchian or Slaaneshi daemons rather than "saints".

See above. This amounts to little more than sorcery.

Or so she thinks. Again, it's more likely that she's summoned a daemon that wants her to think it's this Saint Evander. Which then leads back into Psychic Sister of Battle.

Oh of course, this is all evil chaos trickery. I understand that fully, and that was certainly my intention. I simply wrote the fluff from Adrasteia's deluded point of view. As evidenced by the 'what she perceives as' disclaimer I snuck in there. Evander's fluff will definitely have a thing or two to say regarding her 'holy' powers

Permanent damage from the power-stake to which she's now immune, I take it.

I'm a little surprised that she's immune to its effects if it's already judged her once to be impure.

I see the whole backlash of power thing to be a one-time reaction rather than a constant feature of the relic so no immunity need be assumed.

Anything in your post I didn't directly respond to will probably be incorporated in the re-edit, I just didn't feel the need to write my agreement with them

Marco: Perhaps stating the book's influence more explicitly would help here. But i definitely like the idea of Eirik causing some distraction or weakness. It gives him something to do without being unrealistic about his abilities, thanks for the suggestion


Right, looks like i've still got a fair bit of work to do! Another evening of pondering and editing ahead methinks
So yeah, maybe this time she'll be finished. I can but hope

Thanks again!

[Koval]

I'll reply in depth when I get home from work tonight, but I'll just say for now that it's easy to add in a little more detail with a couple of extra words here or there. Adrasteia's injury, for example, could be a bolter shell glancing off her knee and jarring it through her armour, or a power maul smashing her in the side, or a solid kick in the right (or wrong) place. Similarly, the Mexican standoff could well be broken by one of Adrasteia's squad deciding she's heard enough and opening fire. We're not looking for a whole new book of the Bible here, but little details make for a clearer picture.

As regards this book, if it's a sorcerous tome it probably has its own psychic sentience. That could be what's causing the distraction, breaking the standoff, subtly influencing things because it wants Adrasteia to reclaim it.

Changing the boy's name to Eirik is much better -- for a start, it's a more normal-sounding name, and I'm put more in mind of Magneto than of John Constantine (which is a good thing, although that's more because Sir Ian McKellen was a pretty good Magneto in the otherwise subpar live-action X-Men films, and Keanu Reeves was a bit of a lame duck as Constantine)

Again, I'll reply properly when I'm home; it's something to think about while I'm out. And again, thank you for putting up with me looking like I'm being all shouty and RAAARGH.

[Imsety]

I'm afraid that my posts will be coming through at odd times because i'm currently living in New Zealand so our time zones are ever so slightly out of sync I can definitely see what you mean, just adding a few words could make a real difference. Adrasteia III will have all sorts of interesting details!

The book is probably exerting and influence here, the 'presence' which has been delivering Adrasteia's visions certainly has something to do with it. I prefer to infer these influences rather than just outright state anything, preserve a bit of mystery and all that, but i'll hint more

No worries, i'm not one to take things personally. Especially when the object is to help me

[Adlan]

Perhaps writing some of it in the form of an incharacter journal, or little scene would help you achieve the feel of Adrasteia's point of view, and have a backstory that's easier to read if you are worried about length.

I'm inclined to leave it as a single order, perhaps split into two convents. One with a military bent and the other more of an Order Pronatus style , however this would make classifying the Order of the Martyr's Sword an interesting prospect.

Why not have her as part of newly founded Order established to protect a the Convent of an Order Pronatus. She's associated with protecting the relics, and accompanying retreival teams. Her attempt at a master piece is like some of the Order Pronatus sisters learning some of the combat rites and training a little with the Martyr's Sword.