Where life has no value, death has its price

[Tartarus]

Hello conclavers,
This is my second thread in more than a year, and a follow up to the first which can be found here.

A new member to add to the wardband, as they're coming up somewhat lacking in combat capability. Also a more role playable character than Kys, who is not particularly subtle or stable. Written in the same interview style, and again pretty lengthy.
~

Where life has no value, death has its price

Mercier Aurdrine Chabal de Levesque

"Atos IV is my planet of birth. Hive 565. Me and my father were hive hunters- we cleaned up the filth that the underhive threw up so that the folk up-spire didn't have to have their pretty little stomach's turned. Started off small- Rattus Rattus, fever weasles- barely made enough on the rewards to keep us fed and sheltered. But as I grew and learned, so our prey changed to more profitable and dangerous creatures. Still, it was never enough to get us out of midhive, and I was ambitious.

Bounty for humans is always bigger than for creatures. More difficult to catch, and a client is always willing to pay a little extra for revenge. My old man, he steered clear of head hunting. Too dangerous a game for his liking. My first bounty was a small time thief, who'd stolen from the wrong broker. It was... interesting. I didn't have my armour at that stage, didn't have enough money for a decent piece, but with a bit of improvisation I got the bastard. Didn't tell my father of course, but as I got caught up in the game, my rep grew, eventually the old man found out what I was up to.

Disowned me, said I was putting his business in jeopardy. I wasn't upset. I'd been planning on moving on for months, it was just a case of building up enough cash and enough of a reputation to get by without having to catch fething stinkhounds and rats all day. I'd enough money to get by for a while, and enough of a reputation in hive- nothing like nowadays, mind- but enough to get me work. I became a full time head hunter, fell in with some real nasty pieces of work. A good thing too, they showed me how to survive in this trade.

Survival is the game. I could tell you all sorts of stories, stuff that'd probably make even your hairs curl. Maybe my conscience isn't as clean as I make out, but I've survived, and that's more than most have in my business. The armour is a big part of that- I realised early on that if I protected myself like every other fether I'd die just as easily. Started off as regular carapace, guard issue I think. Coerced a magos into rigging me up a power pack, the refractor field cost me an arm and a leg, but I've survived when I've seen goons in flak crumble like paper. The whips, now, no one expects whips. You can't block a whip with a sword, you can't choke a man with an axe. Las is standard. You want to survive, you go las. I've seen fancy autoguns jam, I've seen bastardised xeno tech run out of ammo, but you can always rely on las, and you want to survive, you want reliability.

Survival gives you the time to get experienced, get skilled, get effective. I've done that. In my time I've done all sorts. Assassinations, some mercenary work. I've killed thieves and rapists, cardinals and chancellors. I'm not too fussy as long as there's a decent pay off in it. My reputation... yeah, it's pretty big. And if I say so myself, pretty well deserved. I'm one of the best, at least among those I've met. Sure, you hear stories of these insane bounties who go take hits on planetary governors and go toe to toe with astartes, but this side of the galaxy I'm about as real as it gets.

Aul and Taus I met a few years back- four or five, I can't remember. Ipsis II, had a contract- legit, imperial contract, mind- to take out a high ranking ecclesiarch. Could have been a pontifex. Anyway, he'd been rubbing the governor the wrong way and the governor wanted him gone, wanted a message made of him. Pretty standard job I thought. The priest was holed up in his manor, which was more of a fortress, with a small army of guards- standard church staff, plus some mercs he'd hired in.

None of this particularly concerned me. I'd managed to procure a set of plans for the manor, and with a little stealth and cunning managed to get half way to his personal chambers before any alarms went off. I knew immediately something was wrong, I'd not even killed anyone yet, and all of a sudden sirens were blaring. The governor had said he wanted a message made of this killing. I'd intended to do something elaborate with the priest's corpse, but if I had to throw in butchering a few of his hired goons it wouldn't hurt the image.

However, the alarm was not, as I'd thought, for me- in fact, security along my route decreased as the guards were rushed to the front sector of the manor. I found my way to the cardinal's personal chamber's pretty easily. The old man only had a couple of guards with him, didn't put up much of a fight, and he put up less of one. The main part of my job done, I got busy with making a 'message' of the corpse, with a few long nails and a paintbrush. I reckoned I had about a quarter of an hour before security diverted their attention from whatever the ruckus was to realise the priest had stopped calling in.

I'd got the bastard nailed to the ceiling, and was half way done on the aquila- turns out a paintbrush works just as well for blood- when the doors burst open, some crazy eyed fether clearly off his mind crashes in with a guard impaled on his arms. That was, I think, a little awkward- he couldn't get to me up on the ceiling, I didn't really want to go to him... He started screaming for 'Aul', and in swept a second man in dark robes, sword in hand, a gunslinger on his heels with both barrels smoking.

Now that was an interesting conversation. After Aul flashes his seal we stopped pointing guns at each other- even I know not to mess with the Inquisition- and once Kys had calmed down and they seemed less keen to kill me I detached myself from the ceiling. Turns out, Aul's investigations had lead him to the priest being involved in some dark powers mumbo jumbo, and he was out to dispense the Emperor's justice. They'd slaughtered their way through a small army to get to the heretic, and found him pinned to the ceiling over an aquila painted in his own blood, me with brush in hand. He liked my work, and asked me to accompany him back to Taus' ship. Well, one doesn't say no to an inquisitor.

He did some quick research on me, not that I have a strict resume, and was suitably impressed. He offered me a place on his operation, with better pay than I've ever been seriously offered. A rogue trader of Taus' class with the backing of an inquisitor can turn a mean profit, as it happens. So after collecting my reward from the governor, I stuck about, and I've not looked back since. The work is fun, and interesting. Sometimes a challenge, even for me. Taus and his crew are good company, and even the inquisitor has his moments. We can continue his mad quest after the 'Great Horned One', we can start the next Great Crusade, we can try to fly through the Eye of Terror and back as long as I get paid. I'm all about survival, and I've got a feeling that if I follow Nathanial Aul, I'll survive."

WS 69
BS 77
S 58
T 55
I 78
Wp 57
Sg 57
Nv 74
Ld 64

Equipment: 2 Laspistols with Motion Trackers, 2 Neural Whips, Levesquian Armour*

Abilities: Acrobatic, Catfall, Fast Draw, First Strike, Gunfighter

*Levesquian Armour
de Levesque's distinctive custom armour has been added to and customised for nearly two decades. Partially-powered semi carapace, it has all sorts of nasty surprises hidden away.
Armour 5 on all locations, +5 Strength, incorporates a Refractor Field, Infrascope and Synskin, counts as a pair of Armoured Gauntlets that are Shock Weapons in unarmed combat, any hits that penetrate the back of the Chest have a 20% chance of causing the power supply to detonate- act as a Frag Grenade detonating, from which the Armour (Including Refractor Field) bears the wearer no protection.

~

I'm considering mixing it up even further and creating a (I suppose spin-off?) warband based on some of the crew of Taus' ship, but at the moment those are just ideas getting kicked around.

Cheers!
Tartarus.

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

Why is it that the only image I have of this guy is Boba Fett?

[Wifstrand]

You may have come up with the greatest and most awesome tagline ever.

[Inquisitor Goldeneye]

Why is it that the only image I have of this guy is Boba Fett?

He reminds me more of the villan out of 'Iron Man 2', what with the whips and all.

It's a good character concept, though, and I do like the back-story.




Also, I'm with Wifstrand, the thread title does need to be read out by that fellow who does the film-trailer voice-overs.

[Tartarus]

You may have come up with the greatest and most awesome tagline ever.

The tagline's from Sergio Leone's 'For a Few Dollar's More' (which is an absolutely brilliant film and I recommend it to everyone). I thought it fitted the ethos of the 40K bounty hunter.

Of course Boba Fett was somewhat inspiring- he is the epitome of the sci fi bounty hunter (along with maybe Rick Deckard). Haven't seen Iron Man 2, so couldn't comment, but I felt that the whips were something interesting and unusual.

[Wifstrand]

Speaking of whips, what about the Underworld movies? In one of them a Vampire dual-wields a pair of whips.