Confessor Itero's Warband

[Koval]

The poisoned arrow part is slightly evocative of Horus (which makes it seem slightly derivative), so I might be tempted to shy away from that angle. I'd also leave Ophelia VII alone, just on the basis that it's an important world in 40K canon -- most of us would have no problem with him making a pilgrimage there at some point, as long as it's a minor plot element, but actually setting stuff there is more of a grey area. Make up your own planet, it's fun.

Definitely try to expand upon the temptation aspect, and maybe expand upon his motivations for getting revenge on this Rogue Trader -- he's an ordained priest of the Emperor by now, he's got more important things to worry about. Similarly, expand on his relationship with Inquisitor Raven.

You also mention a relic bolt pistol. Don't just introduce it out of the blue, tell us where it came from and (more importantly) why he has it.

For what it's worth, wars within the Inquisition happen pretty much all the time, so I'm wondering whether the way you've closed it seems like over-dramatising something that's self-evident.

[Dorn]

Thanks for the helpful critic...

Yes, I will redo the poisioned arrow part. But there should be some kind of illness, that corrupts his body. He should have the aim to heal himself, but after finding the book everything gets worser and worser. He tries to do something good (gaining purity), but he all he does is corrupting his soul. I have to expande and rewrite the temptation part, before he sends out Arius.
I will also expand the parts about inquisitor Raven and the revenge on the rouge trader Xyphias. It should help to smooth the personalty of Desmosus and lead to his later behavior (killing everyone who is against him).

Personally I want to keep Ophelia VII, because it is a hook to the 40k universe and it explains why Eli's allies in the Adeptus Sororitas have not so much power there.

I thought the impact on the general politics of Ophelia VII will not be so extreme, because of following reasons:
1) I always thought there will be at least hundret cardinals on a such holy world like Ophelia VII. (Correct me if I am wrong) So if one of them falls, there are enough to replace him immediatly.
2) Maybe, I should have made it more clear, that the trial wasn't announced widely. Only a inner circle within the ecclesiarchy of Ophelia VII might know that there was something like that and according to the official fluff such trials are held at least daily on Ophelia VII. So in one city on Ophelia VII, there is this not very special trial. There wouldn't be a lot people there and most of them would be acolyths of Desmosus. If Gojar hadn't be ready for a fight, I think that Desmosus' plan of killing all the witnesses would have worked.
3) Desmosus is surly not the first ecclesiarchy representative, accused of heresy. So it wouldn't be such a special case. I might have led to a few more witnesses.
4) They surley try to hide such a scandal, so most people on Ophelia VII will never hear about the heresy of Desmousus. He simply disapeared...
5) The figthing took place in a few streets of one city on an enormus world like Ophelia VII. I think crimes and streetfights are also going to happen on a world like Ophelia VII. So also nothing so special here...

Why should we not fill the gaps GW left in fluff exactly for that? I think the gaps on Ophelia VII are big enough for that.

[Koval]

Why should we not fill the gaps GW left in fluff exactly for that?

As soon as you start doing that and directly using canon things for your own ends, though, you end up doing to Ophelia VII what loads of people in Inquisitor's infancy did to Witch Hunter Tyrus -- to the point where he apparently ended up with about a hundred and something different Interrogators that themselves ended up as Inquisitors, and many of these were apparently also his children, illegitimate or otherwise. Naturally, this was frowned upon

Again, most people around here would be okay with one or two name-drops of Ophelia VII for discrete things (he went there on a pilgrimage, for example), but beyond that, it's really just a respect issue -- in much the same way as we wouldn't turn round and use Confessor Itero or the Lux monastery for anything major without you telling us we can, because these are things you have created.

At the very least, even if you do continue to use Ophelia VII, I'd just keep in mind that it can be a cause for concern.

[Dorn]

I don't think u can compare a world like Ophelia VII with a single individual like the witch hunter Tyrus. While out of realism Tyrus couldn't had such a high amount of acolyths, there are quiet a lot of trials on Ophelia VII like it is discribed in official fluff. And the trial of Eli Itero is just one of them. The fluff gap is big enough to put some small drops in it.
I would understand, if the trial had a bigger impact on Ophelia VII (e.g. total destruction, deamons running around, citys burning,...), but the trial is some small fight in the shadows, if u see it on the planet scale.

The matter of respect is of an other nature. We are constantly using GW fluff and GW left gaps to be filled by fanfiction. If someone had created his own fiction (like I did with Eli and his warband), it is commonly not supposed to be expanded by others, simply because it is his own fanfiction... So I think also those two cann't be compared.

I might rewrite Desmosus' fluff and make him a cardinal of an other shrineworld... ok... but the trial of Eli Itero will take place on Ophelia VII, simply because this world is exactly made for ecclesiarchy intern matters and it is "isolated" enough to seal off Eli's know allies... Desmosus doesn't expect the Inquisition.

I really thankfull for your advice, but at some points it is difficult for me to agree with u.

PS: How can it be a cause for concern? I still don't really understand that. I understand it in the Tyrus case, but not really in this case.

[MarcoSkoll]

To give my take on your question...

I don't see it as just about possibility, it's about plausibility.

I personally dislike using canonical worlds on the basis that it makes the universe seem so small. This is an empire of a million worlds... why does everything keep happening on the same hundred or so?

A lot of 40K background reads like: Necromunda gets attacked by Ahriman. So the Cadian 8th, Valhallan 597th, Salamanders, Imperial Fists and the Ultramarines turn up. Then Ursakar Creed beats Tzeentch at chess and Marneus Calgar punches a Lord of Change into orbit.
Quite aside from the fact this kind of writing frequently requires characters to be in about seventeen places at once (or are anachronistic), it makes these worlds all seem like they're around the corner from each other.

A lot of people's first Inquisitor warband will be something like an Inquisitor from Armageddon with a Terran preacher, Catachan Medic and Lucian Tech-Adept following them around.
Now certainly, an Inquisitor from Armageddon is possible. But likely no more than a few Inquisitors in the entire galaxy would be from Armageddon. A preacher from Terra is also possible... but again, very rare. In combination with all the others, it looks like the Inquisitor's Navigator (I believe he's called Tuomas Tuomason) is stuck on "101 famous planets to visit before you die".

The conflicts with canon are also more likely than you might imagine. It's easy to miss a detail about a world from some novel or other that conflicts with what you're writing, and the canon is often expanded and changed with time.

~~~~~

You are right in that a trial could happen on Ophelia VII without upsetting their apple-cart. However, is that either likely or necessary?

Let's say Desmosus was willing to drag Eli ten thousand light years to put him on trial. That's an exceptionally long way with the dangerous travel in the Imperium, and would probably take years. That's quite a dedication to putting on a kangaroo court. (And the further afield you go, the more implausible Inquisitor Gojar's intervention becomes).
But that still only puts the chance that Ophelia VII is in the area at around about a single percent.

Similarly, is Ophelia VII so special that no other big cardinal world could possibly suffice for the trial? I can't see why.
To be honest, I'd say that a sham trial probably wants to be somewhere that won't also put you under scrutiny - and the second most sacred and pious world in the Imperium isn't a great choice there.

Yes, it's possible - and use of canonical worlds makes more sense than canonical characters... but it's still likely to devolve into a cycle of implausible coincidences.

I'll admit to having had a character come from a canonical world, but that's a world where the sum total of the fluff barely extends past a single page in a decade old White Dwarf. Even a lot of serious WH40K veterans don't remember it exists.