Lady Aleena Van Staal (and friends!)

[Chipperz]

OK, this was meant to be a few paragraphs long, but it kind of got away from me.  Basically, while browsing the Painting and Modelling section of this site, I came across this model and completely fell in love.  To that end, I decided to make up an Inquisitor to use her as, picturing a swashbuckling fighter who uses her head and speed, rather than physical skill in combat, and even then, only uses combat as a last resort for when political intrigue and simple infiltration and destabilisation have failed (like...  Every game she finds herself in!).

Changes are in red!

Lady Aleena Van Staal

Cheery and possessed with an eternally optimistic outlook on life, Lady Van Staal ("Ali" to her friends) is the exact opposite of what many people think of when they imagine an Inquisitor.  With a flick of her flame-red hair and a quick smile, she can calm a mob or rouse an army.  She has every look and mannerism of someone who can coast through life with nothing but her looks, and knows it.

That is what makes her so dangerous for the cults and witches she fights – no one ever suspects her of having the heart or stomach to fight and kill, or even withstand the mind-bending horrors she encounters on a regular basis.

Ali was born to a wealthy noble family on the fairly peaceful world of Ichasta, the youngest of the five children (and only daughter) by Keiron Van Staal with his second wife, Perisa.  While her life was comfortable and she wanted for nothing, Ali knew that while her brothers could lead the lives they wanted, she was being groomed for being married off to another family to secure a trade agreement.  While her brothers learnt fencing and played sports, she was taught dancing and how to best order the staff to avoid resentment.  This plan, however, backfired – Ali proved very good at getting her own way and, while they were alone, she convinced her brother to teach her to fence, to allow her to play in their sports, and, just for a while, to imagine she was as free as they were.

This all changed just before her sixteenth birthday when a plot by a mutant supremacy group to kidnap her father went horribly wrong, killing Perisa and two of Ali's brothers and plunging the Van Staal ancestral home into a firefight between mutants and the Staal family bodyguards.  At the height of the battle, Ali was trapped with one of her brothers between a force of mutants and a group of bodyguards.  When her brother was hit by a shotgun blast to the back (she still isn't clear what side this was from), she felt her fear and confusion well up inside her and burst forth as a ball of blinding light, stunning the fighters on both side and giving her the chance to flee the scene.While her brother froze up, getting killed by a shotgun blast to the face, Ali took his sword and fought her way to freedom, gathering as many of the staff and non-combat personnel as she could.

After the Arbitrators arrived on the scene and drove off or killed the remaining mutants, she was left with a handful of other survivors to be questioned by the Arbites in their investigation.  In this particular instance, however, the interrogation was not held by an enforcer of any regular type, but rather by an Inquisitor, Aluthor Sirys.  The girl offered no resistance to the man, breaking down and crying, confessing to witchcraft and imagined corruptions of the soul that had led to her blinding the fighters, but the old Inquisitor listened on, becoming more convinced of her purity, even if she was a barely-trained psyker.  Eventually, he passed judgement on her witchcraft – she was to be sent to Terra on the Black Ships for training in the use of her powers.The girl was changed by the fight, less panicky, more in control of herself and those around her.  While she was still not a fighter by any stretch of the imagination, Sirys was impressed by the young noble girl's resolve to fight evil.  Interested in training her and instilling in her a devotion to the Imperium, Sirys sent her to fight in the Imperial Guard

After several years of training in the arts of pyromancy, At Sirys' request, Ali was seconded to a company of Ichastan PDF as a Sergeant, the lowest rank the Ichastan nobility could be recruited to. that had just been Shortly after her appointment, the Company was   inducted into the Imperial Guard to quell an uprising on the nearby world of Sevestiim.  While she saw very little fighting in the opening days of the campaign, she ran into Inquisitor Sirys again, this time investigating the cult's origins to try to predict what they would do next.  He took her company to fight a force of traitors in a city that was unlike anything Ali had ever seen, grey and blocky, completely unlike the bright, glistening spires of Ichastan nobility and the giant, continent-spanning cathedrals of Holy Terra.  As they fought through the city, the entire company were killed off, unseasoned and unprepared for the bitter resistance the traitors put up.  

Eventually, it came down to three fighters; Sirys, Ali, and a lone Guardsman Mastiff-Handler by the name of Halan Gheiss who, together, fought their way to the Traitor's command post.  After a bitter fight, the three of them managed to get to the leader – a vile, corrupted creature that could barely be considered human.  Unlike the last time she was in a life-threatening position, Ali knew what to do, blinding the creature and then blasting it – burning it alive.Ali got behind it as Sirys engaged it, taking her time and stabbing it in the back, piercing it's heart with a single blow.

Under no illusions of Ali's abilities and Gheiss' knack for survival, Sirys took them both on as part of his retinue.  It would be another two years, during the scouring of Eden's Fall that he would finally become convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Ali would make a fine Acolyte and, as he grew to respect her powers of persuasion, as well as her loyalty to both him and  promoted her to the position of Agitator, and over the next few years she infiltrated and brought many cults to light using both her aristocratic upbringing and her youthful innocence to engender if not trust, then at least a patronising sense of amusement.

After eight years, Aleena was brought back to Ichasta at the summons of her father who, after three hundred years of rejuvenating drugs, was dying.  It was on his death bed that he handed the Van Staal Sword to her, forsaking millennia of tradition and passing over his son.  With this act, he pledged the greatest noble house on Ichasta and all it's holdings to the Inquisition, so great was his trust in his daughter.

It would be ten two years later that Sirys would finally promote Aleena Van Staal to the position of full Inquisitor, with the consent of five other Inquisitors from the Segmentum who had worked with her at some point or another over the previous twelve years.  Shortly afterwards, Sirys would go to the Ultima Segmentum, leaving Ali with Gheiss, the two of them alone in the universe.

Since her promotion, Ali has set about infiltrating and destroying heretical cults, as well as expanding on her network of allies.  Although she would describe herself as a Puritan of the Amalathian faction, she has a vast vault of artefacts and forbidden tomes that she has "confiscated" from these cults to further study to get inside her enemy's mind – it can't be long until she realises she can use these against her enemies too...

Stats

WS - 6570
BS - 576251
S - 50
T - 52
I – 94
WP - 8277
SG - 9168
NV - 8189
LD – 87
Speed – 6

Lady Aleena Staal is Right Handed

Equipment – Force Sword The Van Staal Family Sword*, Refractor Field with On/Off function (Relics from her days in the Imperial Guard), 2 Throwing Knives, 1 Blessed Cold Iron Stake (Counts as a Knife, but ignores psychic and daemonic defences)

Powers – Blinding Flash, Fireball

Skills – Acrobatic (Ali's style of fighting is unarmoured, but ultra-mobile), Blademaster – Stake (Ali can put that stake into a witch's heart from six feet away), Dodge, Leader, Persuasive, It's...  Ceremonial!**

*The Van Staal Family Sword – It is a common myth on Ichasta that the sword wielded by thePatriarch of the Van Staal family was granted to them by the Emperor Himself – a sign of the family's divine right to rule in His name.  While this is probably untrue, it is of spectacularly fine craftsmanship, a shining example of the sword smith's art.  This creation is boosted further by ancient technologies that ensure the blade never loses it's edge or shine, as well as augmenting the wielder's movements, allowing even the most novice fighter the ability to perform feats of skill.  On top of this, it is the Patriarch's duty to have the sword blessed every twelve Standard years.  The blade is a Blessed Power Sword with the Deflection Daemonic Ability (it's not a daemon weapon, just remarkably easy to use)

*It's...  Ceremonial! – Aleena is the "Patriarch" of a major Ichastan Noble House which, together with her status as an Imperial Guard advisor Officer (no matter how briefly), gives her a bit of political clout, even without being an Inquisitor.  One trick she's particularly proud of is, when conducting investigations into the upper classes or in high security areas, convincing the security that her sword is a symbol of her position as an Ichastan noble.  At the GM's discretion, Aleena can make a SG check to keep her Force Sword in situations when she would otherwise have to turn in/leave her weapons, such as banquets or formal meetings.  She can retain the bearings of a dignitary even when undercover, so does not need to use her real name.

Alternative rule - if the GM's using the Persuasion rules, it allows Aleena to retain her weapons on a successful Persuade check.

[Kaled]

*It's...  Ceremonial! ... Aleena can make a SG check to keep her Force Sword in situations when she would otherwise have to turn in/leave her weapons, such as banquets or formal meetings...

Wouldn't some sort of opposed test against whoever she's trying to convince be more appropriate?  After all, some people are going to be easier to persuade than others.  Perhaps use a variation on PO's Inq2.0 rules for persuasion?

[Chipperz]

Ooh I like that!  Only reason I had it as a single Sg test was to make sure there was a minimum of dice rolling to get to the table, but I could see persuasion working nicely!  Should I keep it as either Persuasion OR a Sg test for GMs that don't use the Persuasion rules?

[Kaled]

Should I keep it as either Persuasion OR a Sg test for GMs that don't use the Persuasion rules?

I guess that depends - who normally GMs your games?  Can you suggest the persuasion rules to them?

[Chipperz]

I don't have a GM, I usually GM for other people.  This is just in case I ever luck out and find someone else to run a game, hopefully caused by moving.

[precinctomega]

I like her in almost every aspect except for one, big one: her psychic abilities.  The story of "rich kid's family is destroyed, in the course of which rich kid discovers psychic powers and gets recruited into the Inquisition" is a bit of a cliche on the Conclave, it must be said.  Abnett has a lot to answer for, what with most of his most popular Inquisitor characters being psychic in some fashion, but most Inquisitors are unlikely to be psykers, simply because the rigours of the Scholastica Psykana and strictures of the Imperium are such that the freedom offered to an Inquisitor would only be trusted to a psyker under highly exceptional circumstances.

A more original twist might be that, once she is the inheritor of her estate, a mysterious offworld agency claims authority to place her under wardship - this is a senior acolyte in the Inquisition, seeking to use her family's resources and connections to assist his master's agenda on her homeworld.  That would open the way for her to prosecute revenge on the mutants who killed her family, leading to a more significant place within the inquisitor's network...

A residual, pathological hatred for mutants would not be seen as a disadvantage in an inquisitor.

R.

[Chipperz]

OK, I've taken your point about the "She's a noble...  She's a psyker!" story, and completely removed it to focus on her as more of a leader and a character with excellent resources to fall back on.  Looking at the ammount of red on that post, it ended up with a hefty re-write   Also, to get round the fact that removing her psychic powers leaves her with no ranged abilities to speak of (throwing knives don't count :p), I've given her that sword to make her more of a "control" melee character.

Also, I added "Van" into her name, because Aleena Van Staal just sounds that little bit more "aristocratic"

I really hope I end up in a campaign that revolves around talking more than fighting...

[Flinty]

Simple nit-picking here - okay, shes aristocratic, presumably provided with the finest tutors/direct brain implants/the whole set of Encyclopedia Brittanica or whatever, but for a young lady who was taught dancing and staff management, an SG of 97 seems a little high?

I do see in her fluff that she gets by on her wits - her Initiative, Nerve and Leadership seem to reflect her ability to act quickly and concentrate on her goals. I see SG as reflecting educational level mixed with general knowledge and specific fields of expertise (GM discretion raising or lowering rolls as required).

Of course it may fit in your gaming group, so fair do's - but I would normally associate that raw brain power with someone considerably older, or if younger, who spent nearly all their time in the library and much less time perfecting thier fencing/shootin' skills. Maybe somewhere in the 60's - 70's tops?

[Chipperz]

Simple nit-picking here - okay, shes aristocratic, presumably provided with the finest tutors/direct brain implants/the whole set of Encyclopedia Brittanica or whatever, but for a young lady who was taught dancing and staff management, an SG of 97 seems a little high?

I do see in her fluff that she gets by on her wits - her Initiative, Nerve and Leadership seem to reflect her ability to act quickly and concentrate on her goals. I see SG as reflecting educational level mixed with general knowledge and specific fields of expertise (GM discretion raising or lowering rolls as required).

That makes sense.  I've always read it as being about the character's ability to learn, too but, even with that considered, 91 was getting into Techpriest levels, and she is NOT as smart as a techpriest.  60 is the upper end of "educated", and I'd think it's safe to assume she's picked up some knowledge above and beyond "education" over twelve years of infiltrating cults and hanging out with a wizened old inquisitor.

Also, I've just given her a decent cull to BS, too.  It might go lower because I don't see her as a particularly great shot.  To compensate, I've upped her Nerve by a few points - more than most Inquisitors, she makes a living walking unarmed into her enemy's lair, which has to count for something.

Gotta say, Ali's really shaping up.  The model's coming soon, and then I'll start work on Halan Gheiss!  Exactly how "rare" is a Bolter when your boss effectively runs a planet, anyway?

[Chipperz]

OK, the next member of my team!  I see Gheiss as being more of a powerhouse ranged fighter who has a lot of technical knowledge, but just doesn't have the wits to put it to great use.  Basically, the opposite of Van Staal.  I know the "I ain't gonna give you the satisfaction of watching me die!" route is a bit overplayed (almost as much as the grizzled veteran slowly but surely gaining respect for the plucky new officer!), but I felt it made sense.  Besides, this is 40k, home of cliched rubbish

Corporal Halan Gheiss

Halan Gheiss is the man Ali trusts, and hates, most in the universe.  Having fought side by side for over a decade, they know each other's strengths and weaknesses , and complement each other perfectly in most situations.  They'd just never admit it.

Gheiss was born in Block I-42, a massive factory/habitation area on Ichasta, and home to almost a hundred thousand workers who existed to toil in the manafactorums and mines of the planet.  Always wanting something more, Gheiss signed up with the Ichastan PDF at the age of eighteen and spent the next ten years acting as back up to the Arbites and garrisoning security checkpoints.  While he was never a particularly exceptional soldier, he had an aptitude for mechanics, and was as tough as a Grox.  Eventually, this got him a promotion and an assignment to a specialist Cyber-Mastiff squad.

It was three years later when his Company was inducted into the Imperial Guard, and the squad he was attached to got a new sergeant – a tiny girl by the name of Van Staal.  Like many of his men, he took a dislike to her, knowing she got her position by virtue of her birth, not skill, and there was talk that someone higher up had pulled the strings to get her position without her even going to officer's training.  On the three week trip to Sevestiim, he personally made it his mission to make his new sergeant's life hell, under the guise of "toughening her up" for the big fight.  Although it has never been recorded, and only the two of them know of it, the shock of losing her family and being taken from her home, combined with the relentless bullying, almost gave Aleena a nervous breakdown.

What was recorded was, two days before the ship was due to arrive at Sevestiim, a fight that broke out in the Platoon's quarters on the ship.  Instead of a breakdown, Ali had snapped and lashed out at Gheiss, the man's size and strength countered by the girl's speed and situational awareness.  As the fight was broken up, Ali left the man with a last hurled threat; "I'm going to be there to watch you die, peasant scum."

Upon landing on the planet, Gheiss' company was commandeered by an Inquisitor by the name of Sirys, who led them into an unfamiliar city to weed out a group of traitors who had taken it over.  As the rest of the company died, Ali and Gheiss kept fighting, unwilling to give the other the satisfaction of watching them give up first, until it was the two of them, and the old Inquisitor who had taken the company in the first place.

Together, the three of them (and Gheiss' Mastiff, Fang) fought their way into a bunker in the heart of the city.  Inside, they found the mutant leader of the rebels, a creature so vile and evil Gheiss could barely look at it.  As Ali and Sirys fought it, Ghiess and Fang guarded the door, stopping more traitors from getting in.  The fight was over quickly, as Aleena stabbed the creature in the heart, killing it and broadcasting the fact to the remaining defenders.  The battle for the city (Ghiess and Ali never did find it's name) was concluded shortly after, as more veteran units of Imperial Guard slaughtered the defenders as they laid down their arms.

Impressed by both, Sirys recruited both Ali and Gheiss into his personal retinue and, over time, a grudging respect grew between the two Ichastans.  When Ali needed retrieval from an infiltration, Gheiss would be there with his latest firearm and his trusty Fang, and when Gheiss was caught out by ambushers or flankers, Ali would be there to cover his back.  On no less than eight occasions over the next twelve years, Gheiss was shot and grievously injured, only to shrug it off and continue covering the young Acolyte.  After all, he can't give her the satisfaction of dying first.

WS - 52
BS - 63
S - 58
T - 67
I – 54
WP - 67
SG - 56
NV - 82
LD – 70
Speed – 4

Corporal Halan Gheiss is Right Handed

Equipment – Custom Bolt Carbine*, Laspistol, Knife, Flak Armour to all locations, Fang (Cyber-Mastiff with in-built Motion Tracker)

Skills – True Grit.

*Custom Bolt Carbine – Aleena used many of her connections to get this weapon built for Gheiss after she became an Inquisitor.  A light(er), stripped-down version of the boltgun, it fires custom built large calibre solid shotgun shells from an internal clip, but keeps the Bolter's signature muzzle sound for extra intimidation.  The Custom Bolt Carbine is a Bolt Carbine with a clip size of 8, 3D6+2 damage and a weight of 25.

[Myriad]

Well he is a bit of a cliche, as you say.  Still, it's a fairly good cliche, and inquisitors always need some good soldiers to go with all those acolytes.

And, it's always good for a man to have a dog 

[Chipperz]

While I'm thinking about clichés, I just wanted another justification for this particular one - I like the idea of a character who would go out of their way to prove an Inquisitor wrong. While the story is a bland stereotype, I rarely see warbands that would do more than echo their leader's views.

I'm hoping that the group I make for Ali end up having different views as well as being effective fighters, as I think it'd suit her more than a team of heavily-armed sychophants...

[Aidan]

Meh, I find that cliches are best either avoided or embraced; both work fine. The real problem occurs when people devise cliche characters unintentionally and then get really defensive about them. Or, as in the case of psyker inquisitors mentioned earlier, when the cliches actually go against the established canon. If you like an established character type and backstory, why not use it? Everything's been used at some point by somebody, the trick is to make your character enough of an individual that their storybook past can be overlooked.

As it stands, I think both these characters seem right enough. Or maybe I'm just not in my usual judgmental mood for once.

I came across this model and completely fell in love.

I must agree, it is a very nice model. Got one right away for one of my own warbands, too.

Also, I added "Van" into her name, because Aleena Van Staal just sounds that little bit more "aristocratic" Tongue

Yes, because we dutch are so very aristocratic. I shall forever mourn the fall of the Republiek der Zeven Provincien. Just realise that her family name is now 'of steel'. 

-Aidan.

[Chipperz]

Also, I added "Van" into her name, because Aleena Van Staal just sounds that little bit more "aristocratic" Tongue

Yes, because we dutch are so very aristocratic. I shall forever mourn the fall of the Republiek der Zeven Provincien. Just realise that her family name is now 'of steel'.  

-Aidan.

HA!  I didn't, but how's this for a coincidence - another character I have at the moment has the surname D'Acier, French (ish) for "of steel" too I guess I should just start calling every last one of my characters that

Also, my Lady Grigoryan came yesterday, and I ended up undercoating her by brush because I was so impatient to paint her up - gorgeous, gorgeous model.

OK, next up, a new character - a powerful fighter that's utterly unreliable.  She's fast, a great shot, and a borderline sociopath.  I also wanted a character who falls outside of the remit of Imperial law, who's only signed up with Aleena because she was forced to.  I wanna know a few opinions from you fine fellows now - do Vengeance and Klepto work, and who should I get for my fourth member?  I can't decide...

Anyway...

Nixx Saldanna

Nixx was born on a hollowed out asteroid in the Furelon system, the base of the Furelon Hounds pirates.  Easily one of the more attractive women on the base (of all several dozen of them), she became a poster child for the pirates at the age of thirteen, and was "inspiring" raids on Imperial shipping from the front by fifteen.  By thirty she was a lieutenant and planning their own attacks, with the first getting her a las-bolt to her right eye and by forty-two she was next in line for leadership of the entire group.

Things changed when Aleena Van Staal investigated the group for signs of heresy.  While she didn't find anything particularly heretical with the group (and, finding herself under the temporary guidance of an Istvaanian Inquisitor for the mission, even took it's potential to keep the Imperial fleet stationed in Furelon on guard as a good thing), she did note that the entire group were raised from birth to be excellent for her – great shots with training in covering team mates, experts at stealth and infiltration and generally calm under fire.

Aleena approached Nixx with an offer, help her, and get the Furelon Hounds as a personal army, and she wouldn't tell the Imperial Fleet exactly where to find them and use her Inquisitorial remit to obliterate the base and every man, woman and child on it.  Impressed by an outburst of that level of ruthlessness, Nixx agreed to help her out when called and, when she expects violence, Ali calls.

Sadly, Nixx isn't the most reliable of fighters, likely to run off if she catches the slightest whiff of a payday (or anything remotely valuable that seems unguarded), and is truly atrocious up-close and personal.  She also has a habit of torturing unconscious or otherwise helpless enemies, primarily with a time-honoured Furelon Hound mixture known as Vengeance – a cocktail of Stun and Barrage that's designed to knock a prisoner out while wrecking their body and mind, hopefully without killing them so they can be tortured when they wake up.

WS - 37
BS - 68
S - 47
T - 58
I – 74
WP - 78
SG - 51
NV - 54
LD – 72
Speed – 5

Nixx Saldanna is Right Handed

Equipment – Stubber, Pump Action Combat Shotgun, Shock Maul, Carapace Armour on Chest, Flak Armour (Abdomen, Groin and Legs), Advanced Bionic Eye with Appraisal Software*, Syringe with 5 Turn's worth of Vengeance**

Skills – Acrobatic, Catfall, Hipshooting, Klepto***

*Appraisal Software – A piece of software designed on the criminal circuit in the Furelon system, it is designed to calculate the value of anything concentrated on in every form of currency used on every nearby habitable planet, as well as determine the materials it is created from (to verify the objects scanned are genuine).  It's primary use in combat will, on a successful Sagacity check, determine any "non-visible" bonuses from a declared item – things like non-standard ammunition, gunsights and special armour types.  This will not determine "magical" or "psychic" effects, such as daemonic effects.

** Vengeance is a vicious drug that is designed to disable an opponent and ravage their bodies.  This has a chance of backfiring, however – if Vengeance doesn't knock it's target out, it will turn them into a frothing berserker that will easily break most bonds and attack anything in sight.  The intended victim of Vengeance must be stunned when they are injected.  The injected target must immediately take a Toughness test – if they fail, they are stunned for five turns, losing D10 from all their physical stats a turn.  After the game, they take a (non-modified) Toughness test, and will regain an amount equal to the amount they pass by.  If they pass the Toughness test, they gain double to all their physical stats for five turns and are Frenzied, but count everyone as an enemy.

*** - Klepto – Nixx is notoriously unreliable when valuables are concerned.  She will happily abandon her post and stop covering her allies if there are unguarded items that are of at least reasonable value around.  Lately, she has been getting better, but she still doesn't have a 100% track record when it comes to keeping her position around shiny objects.  Nixx must take a Leadership test every time she becomes aware of a new "unguarded valuable" (determined by the GM).  If she fails, she will ignore her role in the battle and focus on getting the object.  If Aleena Van Staal becomes aware of her abandoning her post, she can spend actions "reminding" Nixx to get back on objective – a successful Leadership test from Aleena will get Nixx back under control.

[Flinty]

A nice mixture of characters there - I do like the addition of Miss Saldanna, always good to have a loose cannon.

I would be careful about Vengace though -

The injected target must immediately take a Toughness test – if they fail, they are stunned for five turns, losing D10 from all their physical stats a turn.  After the game, they take a (non-modified) Toughness test, and will regain an amount equal to the amount they pass by.  If they pass the Toughness test, they gain double to all their physical stats for five turns and are Frenzied, but count everyone as an enemy.

- fine if thats an NPC, but players may not be too keen on loosing control of a character and essentially having thier actions dictated for the rest of the game.