Neophyte Prost

[Shannow]

Neophyte Prost

Neophyte Prost was recruited to the Drako Legion from his planet askerland, chosen for his strength and pure righteous desire to serve the emperor with his blood and life. Sadly it was realised all too soon that his body would not accept the final and most important piece of his transformation to be a saviour of mankind as a sword of the Emperor. The black carapace. Despite his success in all other trials and his prodigious height, strength and reflexes he would serve the rest of his life as a serve to the Drakonian Marines whom so nearly were his brothers,

Ten years in this service he lived aboard the Legions warships Lacremento, and despite the servile quality to his life his faith did not waver even once, and viewed himself only as being punished by the Emperor for some fell deed he could not remember, but one that clearly warranted this bitter pill of failure.

However it was to come to pass that nearing the beginning of his eleventh year of service, a terror struck the Lacremento. Dropping suddenly out of warpspace on course to ram the Lacremento was a vile and most villainous Chaos Cruiser its prow rending the hull of the Lacremento and allowing the heathens to board.

Despite his best efforts even besting one of the cursed marines with a welding arc, he was wrested to his knees by the demons and pulled into the gaping abyss of their ship as they fought a retreat from the power that were his masters.

In the months that followed the Lacremento was joined by its sister ship the Ardent Prayer, which happened to have aboard Inquisitor Vestas, as they pursued the wretched creatures across the void of space. It had seemed that their warp engine had been damaged in collision with the Lacremento and their jumps were getting smaller and smaller. Eventually in orbit of the agri-planet Hastos, the undamaged Ardent Prayer (as the Lacremento lagged behind in its wounded state) boarded the Chaos cruiser and in doing so discovered the captured Prost.

Inquisitor Vestas was and is a hard and cold man, subject to the heresy of the world for 167 years of his service as he was at the time and he did not take lightly the claims of Prost that he was pure of spirit. Eventually Prost convinced Vestas of his loyalty and serves him faithfully as his guardian, joyful even now that he serves the emperor.

Prost always wears the three purity seals granted to him by  Vestas, one for each of the trials that he bore to prove his loyalty. One for the removal of his nose, one for the removal of his jaw and one for when Vestas burned out his eyes to remove the images that they had seen.

Since this time however, in the 40 years that have passed. Vestas has fallen foul of his own curiosity and sunk gradually into the realm of chaos to dabble in its power. It was only at this point that Prost revealed he had not been untainted by his time in the hands of evil. He sees not as a man would through the bionic eye (though he wore them through fear of reprisal), but as a man who saw warp space in its complex madness. Vestas in his new deviancy preyed on Prost as an experiment and developed a pair of warp glasses for him, that he claims protect him from the madness of the infinite.

It is difficult to judge how far these two who once held high the banner of our lord the Emperor have fallen. But fallen they have.



Stats to follow.

C&C please.

Rob

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

With the exception of a few wierd chapters (the Blood Angels among others) who have access to fluff-breaking machines which implant everything at once Marine Chapters recruit too young to allow for any past life experience - much in the manner of the Agoge they take a child and mould him into the warrior he is to become.
These children are generally not chosen for their devotion but for their potential (their bravery, their determination... loyalty can be ingrained during the training process).
Reading back it's not clear but it seems to me to imply a life before hand.

Because of the severity of the training and the way the Imperium works, implantation failure must be invariably fatal - If the Catalepsian Node is implanted and the Neophyte does not learn to control it then he will be driven insane and die or be killed as a danger to others (lack of sleep will kill you faster than lack of water). If less fundemental zygotes fail (eg the Ossmodular, which only effects the Neophyte's skeleton) then, either the way it fails will kill the Neophyte (rampant uncontrolled bone growth, repeated multiple fractures akin to severe osteoporossis...) or the continued training/Apothecaries will kill him in the case of rejection...
In the case of the Black Carapace, which is interfacing directly with the central nervous system across the entire body, including the autonomic system, a failed implantation would likely be a very painful but mercifully quick end.

It's also less and less likely as training and implantation continue that rejection will occur - the various drug therapies and, more importantly, the way certain zygotes prepare the body for later implantation.

Of course that doesn't factor in the 13th Founding and similar experiments but unless it were a regular failure of the Chapter then it's unlikely that it would be anticipated and thus you arrive at some of the accidents from Dr Hallsey's Diary from the Halo: Reach special edition...
Even if you allow a vanishingly small chance of survival from the implantation that must then be followed by a vanishingly small chance of surviving the training...
Such chances begin to smack of cliche...

[Shannow]

Hmmm I suppose my only defence here is that Inquisitor deals with the long odds and improbabilities within the 40K universe,,,,other than that 'bugger'.

[DapperAnarchist]

The other defence is the various references to the neophytes who failed - not only among the Space Wolves and Blood Angels, but also other chapters. While the death toll is large, the group that failed and the group that died are not identical...

[Adlan]

I actually had a 40k army based around the idea of a chapter that's geneseed had been corrupted and they'd lost the use of the black carapace. Pure scouts army, very fun in city fight, but as all the other impants worked, they were marines in every other respect.

As I understand the process, this guy would also be a marine, just unable to use power armour as effectively.

The hidden taint is a fun Plot line, but how did he do it? For example, my inquisitor was exposed to a vast amount of chaos taint over the years, and this is (ambiguously) what gave him his psychic powers, he passed inquisitorial scrutiny by being pumped full of the stuff that makes psycannon round work by a rival inquisitor. It wasn't fun for him.

Is he going to be a pc, npc part of a warband or on his own?

[Shannow]

Bah wrote a long reply and internet crashed....so short version her we go....

@Adlan - I'm want to use him as a PC (not that I get to play much!) as the brawn behind Vestas' brain, so need to model Vestas soon. The reason he got away with warp vision is because I figured it would take a psyker to detect it and because Vestas and Prost were isolated in undercover ops and Vestas was sinking into chaos i went un noticed. And the reason he didn't tell Vestas was because he thought it was a gift from the emperor and little whispering voice he too to be the emperor told him to keep it secret till the point Vestas was corrupt.

Thanks for all comments so far!