Kevins of the Wild 2: Adventures in Warpland

The Kevins are once more gathered together -- with the exception of Psy and Fixy kevin -- in the ship's cathedral, following the adventure to the Dread Pearl.

Bishop Kevin is presiding, and leads the crew in a eulogy for Wheely Kevin. The casket is empty save for a chair and a pair of pants.

He allows us a moment of silence before shouting "NEXT!" and the next casket is dragged in.

57 services later, Leftenant Kevin takes the team aside to give the good news: The Kevins have this thing called "Shore Leave", now. Also, after months of extensive testing ("Kevins within Kevins within Kevins, within Kevins. Affirm." "Affirm." "What's it like to be paid?" "Unknown.") I, Fixy Kevin, am finally out of the brig.

Shore Leave appears to have been granted en masse -- the dock is filled with Kevins, and the pubs creak collectively in fear. The locals flow out, and the Kevins flow in.

As promised, Lieutenant Kevin buys us the first round, and toasts Wheely Kevin. Whom I knew from Technical College. I put him in the wheelchair during the exam for my degree, sure, but I liked to think we were close.



Our clique (Me, Healy Kevin, Smarty Kevin, and Grizzly Kevin) are talking about intoxicating substances (Amasec, that water from Vaporious) when Sleazy Kevin takes this opportunity to show up to peddle his shitty cocaine.

"Heck off, sleazy kevin, we don't want your crap cocaine around here," Healy Kevin says.

"Nah, this is new stuff," he promises. He presents some interesting-looking lho sticks. "These are better than any obscura."

Grizzled Kevin wants to buy the drugs, but he's got no money, so he distracts Sleazy Kevin and then punches him clean out. He steals every drug he's got, and starts handing out the fancy sticks, a green, crystalline substance wrapped in gold foil.

Not strong enough to resist peer pressure, I light up first. And I hear screaming for a moment before I black out.


I wake up with everyone else in a place that definitely isn't the bar. We're sprawled on the floor in the middle of a forest -- everything is ridiculously green, and the trees are dense.

The sky overhead is a brused color. We're definitely not on Footfall.

Fighty Kevin asks Grizzled Kevin to climb a tree. But he doesn't climb trees, he pushes them over. And to prove it, he does so, with a splintering of wood. And a squelch sound?

We check it out carefully. I approach with staff in hand. It's a swamp. Or a mire.

As we're peering at it through bloodshot eyes, something long and thin picks me, Healy and Fighty Kevin up off the ground!

Grizzly Kevin slaps the vines, dealing some damage.

Smarty Kevin tries to negotiate with the vines. He promises them women later for freedom now, but nothing. It seems like these are harder to buy than the Incel board.

Healy Kevin tries to wriggle free. She doesn't.

I apply leverage to the vines with my staff, and I free myself, readying my lasgun.

Fighty Kevin gets out, and pulls out his monospear.

The vines react; the one that has Healy Kevin strangles. The one that had me shoots a cloud of spores at me from a flower. It misses, but another one gets Fighty Kevin good, and breathing is hard.

Grizzly Kevin keeps working at the vines holding Healy Kevin.

Slighted by the vines, Smarty Kevin opens fire on the vines -- it's like High Scholum all over again. The vines recoil in pain.

Healy Kevin frees themselves, and draws their flamer.

I land a shot on the vines as well, getting a scream from the plant.

Fighty Kevin, struggling to breathe, nonetheless manages to plunge his spear into the heart of the plant and kills it.

The plants spray more spores at Healy Kevin. Grizzly Kevin slaps them around some more.

Healy Kevin, now free and armed, burns their flower monster.

Fighty Kevin stabs mine and finishes it off.

As combat ends, Healy Kevin administers antidote to themselves and Fighty Kevin.

As we examine the plants (smell like meat, and look like rotting flesh), there's the sound of walking feet. And as we watch, the forest seems to move to part for a figure.

A feminine figure, rather pointy and to some of the party, familiar -- she looks a lot like the statue salvaged from the Dread Pearl?

We introduce ourselves. Her name is Isha. She has a husband, "Very Busy Man".

She greets us warmly, and apologizes for not reaching us sooner. She invites us to "come along", and we do so, taking advantage of her ability to part the forest.

We eventually reach a small cottage; the outside appears to be dripping slime, but it looks to be in good condition, a thatched cottage with chairs outside and a kettle on a fire. Isha takes a seat and invites us to do the same.

She recaps how we got here. She knows where Footfall is, mentioning some of "her people" who occasionally speak to her from there. The way she speaks of it, we're nowhere near the Halo stars, it sounds like.

We are in the Garden -- here, she and her husband grow flowers. She grows the brighter colors, in contrast to her husband's preferred blues and blacks.

Then the ground shakes as immense footsteps approach. Trees don't part for this one. He swims into view -- an immense, bloated creature wearing a hat and tie, a greater daemon of Nurgle, guts hanging out and corpulent.

He shrinks down to a more reasonable size, and Isha plants a small kiss on his cheek. We politely introduce ourselves to this monstrous, but clearly pleasant creature with a very jolly voice, "Very Busy Man".  He corrects me on the name -- Nurgle. But most people call him Grandfather or Pappy.

We speak with him. Long story short, we are indeed in the warp. And we are in so much danger. But he's nice enough. He saw Psy Kevin, he passed through briefly. Nurgle sent him on, although he's not sure what happened after that. A darn shame. He's willing to send us along after him, if needed.

We snap a commemorative photo for Aquilagram. We all take a point of insanity... and tag @WinterYork. We'll have to wait until we get Astropath signal to upload it, though.

Nurgle has some opinions of the other gods.
Khorne is nice enough, provide you catch him on a nice day. The problem is, he hasn't had a nice day in about 12 billion years.
Slaanesh... best not to go there. But Healy Kevin can just... do whatever.

Anyway. Nurgle makes a door appear out of some trees.

Before we leave, Nurgle has a letter for us. It's addressed to Hadarak Fel... If we get the chance, we should say hi to the Eldar for Isha.

He gives us a gold tooth for the trouble, and bids us farewell.


I open the door, and I'm no longer in the Garden. Ashen fields surround us. "God damnit," Smarty Kevin says. "We're in New Jersey."

Ahead of us, we can see a figure sitting in the ashes. As we get closer, we realize he's huge. Huger than Grizzled Kevin, even. Clearly a space marine, his armor is ashen white and his pauldrons blue.

He greets us with a slow, heavy voice. He tells us that we are... here. Very helpful. Here is not a safe place for mortals to be wandering. He speaks slow and ponderously, devoid of emotion.

He will guide us out. He brushes ashes off the ground, and picks up two very familiar chain axes... remarkable craftsmanship. Made for unification.

I ask him what his name is. Akaios, he thinks. It's been a while. He turns to the horizon, and starts walking -- slowly -- so we can follow. He suspects we're not from his time. I mention we're from M41, and he confirms he's from M30.

He's depressed as hell. He needs to leave, but he can't; he and his brothers are damned. It's a very somber walk.

As we walk, we approach structures, mountains and citadels in the distance. There's another figure in the distance, hunched and without power armor. We're being watched.

Healy Kevin waves and bids it hello, and all we get back is a laugh. A laugh I've heard before. A laugh I don't like one bit.

It's my Ex. A bloodletter. I ask to borrow one of Akaios' axes. He agrees, and gives me a now-familiar axe -- Wrack.

Grizzly Kevin puts his hand on my shoulder, and passes me a literal fistful of leaves. I chow down and suddenly, I feel like a bear. I bellow a challenge at this bear-like bloodletter, and challenge it to a fight.

I proceed to have the coolest duel of my life, burying the borrowed chainaxe in it just as it punches me out cold.

I find myself adrift in a sea of stars.

"Dude! Dude! Wake up!" I open my eyes with an unsticking feeling to see a flaming skull leering over me. I'm sitting in the sidecar of what appears to be a daemonically posessed motorcycle. A space marine with a flaming skull for a head drives it.

I took bear leaves, and apparently I know how to fucking party. Doomrider is his name, and Astral Projecting is apparently what I'm doing. He'd be glad to give me a ride back to my physical body.

"Wake up!"

I open my eyes again. For a moment there, I was cool. Then they avert their eyes from mine again. I'm surrounded by the other Kevins and Akaios. I sit up, and for a moment, I see Doomrider, before he vanishes into a portal.

I confirm that I won the fight, and return the axe to Akaios. To my surprise, he returns the axe to me, and Ruin to Healy Kevin.

He dusts off the ground to reveal skulls -- 88 of them. He asks us to remember him, remember the War Hounds as what they were, and not what they became. I tell him I only see a loyal War Hound, and I'll never forget Akaios of the War Hounds.



We rematerialize in a realm of purple, gold, and silk. Soft music flows. There's a large bed, silk drapes on the walls, mood lighting and incense in the air... and an ork? The ork is confused, unarmed, and just wants a fight.

A tantalizing voice calls from beyond a series of veils. "The Ork, I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting visitors."

It's Healy-Kevin's time-share god.

Slaanesh materializes a bag of cocaine for Grizzly Kevin, and he buries his face in it, becoming Polar Kevin for a time.

We stay and chat for a while, but it's eventually time to go. The exit door leads to a long corridor.

There are two doors -- one with a symbol like a meteor, and one labelled in Gothic, "Armageddon". The ork wants a fight, so I guess we'll head out through Armageddon?

The Ork smells the air that blows through, and is thrilled. He smells a fight. He's going to take it, and make great the name Gazgul Mad Urak Thrakka.

Whoops. Oh well, we make an exit through the other door.



We find ourselves in a mirror maze. Healy-Kevin seems to have a knack for navigating it, though, so we follow his lead.

We find ourselves in a central, eight-pointed star at the center of the maze. And sitting on a glass bench in the middle, with no pants and no wheelchair... Wheely Kevin.

He's not who he used to be. But he still has that same shit-eating grin, and I Remember why I didn't feel that sorry about  putting him in the chair to start with.

We talk a while. But talk runs thin, and we want out. Or we never wanted out. Or we've always wanted out. And the way out is through the Blue Horrors that are now surrounding us.

Only holy weapons or a psyker will save us here, and we have none. But we do have bear leaves.

"Well, are you going to eat the bear leaves or not? For the Emperor."

Standing atop the walls of the Infinite Maze, dressed in a long cloak, carrying a bolt pistol, a makeshift staff, and a ridiculously wide hat -- Psy Kevin. He jumps down, and with a strike of his staff, keeps the blue horrors at bay.

We chow down on the bear leaves, and...


We come to, and catch up with psy-kevin. It's been... a while. He's seen a lot.

But for now, two errands.

First, we return to the ashen wasteland. Istvaan V. We find a cave, and inside, white helmets stacked neatly; we leave the power axes there to be found some millenia later, and eventually, pass into the hands of our captain, and all is right with the world.

The next errand is a stop at Groks' Pizza, we're on a pizza run, apparently -- although with warp travel and time being optional, not on any particular schedule.

We find ourselves in a smoky room, the smoke in 9 primary colors. We catch a lungful of plaid on the way in.

"Pizza's still warm," Psy-Kevin announces.

The smoke parts to reveal quite an array of players. The Deceiver. The Eldar Laughing God. Tzzentch. And the Emperor himself. It's a strange game, Paradox Poker, and the stakes are... odd.

The Emperor thanks us for the delivery, and decides to grant us each a boon.

Grizzly Kevin asks for and gets gold-laced cocaine.
Smarty Kevin asks for and gets forgiveness for Akaios of the War Hounds.
I ask for and get an STC.
Healy Kevin asks for and gets freedom from Slaanesh.


The Emperor opens a door, and there's a gold surfboard. He takes us back to Footfall... the long way around. As we pull up outside the bar, I have one last question, hopefully a freebie.

"Are we before or after we left?"
"Yes."
"Poorly worded question. That's my fault, I accept it."

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew Strikes It Big

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

We make planetfall as fast as possible, and land with more vim and vigor than we ought to.

The natives greet us warmly, again, but they have another in their midst, bearing news of the Creator; dressed in green, she descended from the heavens.

The Lord-Captain convinces them to let me see in their mind who it was. I recognize her immediately.

"Sun-Lee!"

We try to convince everyone to get on our boat. People are getting more and more distressed. They can't fathom what's going on.

A lance battery strikes on the horizon. The shockwave hits a few seconds later, and everyone freaks. Wash spins up the engines.

A second lance hits a structure; the oceans part, and we see a giant, eldritch creature.

It is, as expected, the Eldar. They're back, and they'd rather seal this place to the Warp again than let it fall to us. They have resummoned the storm. "Quit this place now, or die here!"

All over the planet, thousands of heavy steps resound.

We vox the rest of our Alliance.

"There's a giant Eldar on the planet. Do you want to help me kill it? This is my planet. I already peed on it."

The others would love to, but they're busy getting out of dodge.

Near us, we hear footsteps, and two Wraithguards stomp out of the forest.

One of them opens fire on the tribals -- one is clipped, and vanishes in a puff of ozone. He reappears a moment later... inside a tree. Ew.

The Magos boards the cutter.

The Lord-Captain steps forth, brandishes his axes, and his cape billowing in the growing storm, shouts "To me!" at the Wraithguards.

I grudgingly board the cutter for now.

Wash takes off, and shreds one of the Wraithguards to pieces with the autoguns.

I focus my powers, and reach out to MIND CRUSH the Eldar Witch in their little circle. I land it, and give them a nasty surprise, although all electronics short out for a moment, and we plunge out of the sky for a moment. As I do, the Wraithguards hitch a little.

The Magos wipes out the other.

More Wraithguard emerge from the forest; the Lord-Captain parries a punch for one, and his axes cut deep gouges into them. His axe cuts deep into the neck of one, and there's a sickening crack, and the Lord-Captain feels immensely satisfied.

I unbuckle myself, cast aside my robes, and reveal the Priest King outfit. I bail out of the cutter, and take wing towards the circle.

Overhead, I see the cutter whoosh past, pull up over the circle, and out the back falls the Magos, going for a divebomb.

The Lord-Captain continues to bully the Wraithguard with his axes, carving them up and giving hope to the tribals.

The Magos closes in, but before she can goomba stomp the Farseer, the Farseer looks up, and without even trying, stops her falling. Then throws the Magos into the ground. Hard. It looks like it hurts. Her servo-skulls catch the impact from three different angles.

More Wraithguards emerge from the water; Wash strafing runs the ones coming out of the water.

I finally get to the dais, and point at the Farseer. We approach each other menacingly, and I try to crush their head again. I do some damage, and we hear unsettling truths.

The Farseer lashes back, and I feel my head haemmorage. And all my grenades go off, catching both of us cleanly. We're both thrown clean off the tower; the Farseer into the forest, and myself to the beach.

Wash gives chase to the Farseer to confirm the kill -- but finds two eldar snipers trying to escape with her body, and one more blocking his path. They flee at superhuman speeds; still not fast enough to escape Wash, but they manage to avoid his blade long enough to escape through a webway portal.

With the storm closing in, we call it quits; we're short on vengeance, and I've had my face blasted clean off, but we're burdened with wealth, and we've all survived our Adventure, etching our names into the history of the galaxy.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew Goes Fishing

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

The Lord-Captain commands the crew to go fetch the gemstones out of the water. He proclaims that they will be "Handsomely Rewarded".

Not very convincing, but the Lord-Captain doubles-down -- after we cash this in, they'll have enough to buy a transport shuttle. (Between them? He doesn't specify.) This wins them over, and the last one into the water has to clean the Lord-Captain's bathroom.

While they work, I take wing, and aside from a chance to properly stretch my wings, I do wonder about what lies further out; the deeper the water, the bigger the gemstones seem to be. But back on shore, further down the shore from our position, I can see wooden tents and huts of a ramshackle nature. I immediately phone it in.

The Lord-Captain dispatches Wash and the Scots to go check it out; Wash arrives to find it deserted, but there's a firepit which has seen use in the last week or so, and definite signs of life in the past.

Whoever or whatever it is, they were cutting down trees; and most importantly, they were using some sort of metal edge on the axe -- unusual for this planet of nature and wraithbone. Humanoid footprints in the sand, and more than one kind.

The Lord-Captain sends us into the forest to go look for whoever lives here.

The Lord-Captain also takes the time to plant his flag with the Hohenheim family crest: Two mastiffs flanking a single throne gelt, and an all-seeing eye in the center.

As I'm circling the forest, I realize I might have lost someone. I get the Scots to sound off - One through Four sound off, then Six. We've lost Five. I tell Six, the closest, to go find him, and group with him. I pop a flare.

We find Scot #5, he's definitely dead. A hole in the head does that. He died at a temple of pale stone. There are more statues here, some sort of xenos eldar.

The rest of the command crew shows up, following the flare. The magos does a proper post-mortem. Died with his hand on his radio, facing the temple. Whatever it was, it left a jagged hole -- no sniper's bullet.

I inch closer to the temple, and take a peek inside. Ruined chambers, three of them. Most have alcoves and statues on pedestals. In one of the rooms, we see six statues, and two empty plinths.

Wash tries to cut the weapon off one of the statues, and has a real hard time of it -- even with the power field on his sword, it's just bouncing off.

The Lord-Captain is concerned about where the statues went -- there's clear marks where they would stand, but no tracks of them departing the statue.

Plasma doesn't fare much better against the statues.

I ping for life to do another headcount. I don't get much, in here. Wash radios for a headcount.

This time, Nine isnt' responding. He never made it to Rendezvous. I take half the remaining scots to go look for what I assume is his going to be his body.

Wash checks the next chamber out. Four statues, four empty. One of the empty spaces was occupied by a statue, now broken. No secret doors, though. The last chamber has just one statue, and seven empty pedestals.

Hidden on / in one of the plinths is some sort of strange hollow tube. He can't ascertain it's function, and he doesn't have a mouth to blow it with, so he puts it... into his jetpack's exhaust. It doesn't play off any notes.

The Lord-Captain and the Magos arrive just in time to see Wash roast his hand.

The three keep blowing it and inserting fingers into it, but aren't making much progress. The Lord-Captain throws it to the Scots to figure out.

"Nah, nah, you're doing it wrong"
"You gotta work the shaft"
"Use your lips! More tongue!"

The Lord-Captain decides to slap all the statues. It oddly just makes him sad and depressed.

Meanwhile, we find Scot 9, on the beach. This time, he was killed from behind. I radio it in, and we regroup at the temple.

The trip is uneventful, but we phone in to see where the Kevins are at. They're all accounted for, except Wheelchair Kevin, who turned out to not be nearly as buoyant as expected.

As I return, I learn of the "flute" and want to give it a go. I get an impression off the flute: "Intruders". All the other wraithbone I've touched today -- the sword, and now the statues, just make me sad.

The Lord-Captain wants to go hunt Eldar. I psychically scan for life at increased range, and... I find a super-strong psyker, and they're right in the middle of our group. We should make for the ship with all haste.

On our way to the ship, I check again for psykers. All birds and animals for half a kilometer run. The psyker's power has now been greatly diminished, but he still appears to be hiding amongst us!

We get back to the ship, and take off to scan for Eldar using the Auspex. Nothing inland, but we pick up a sail. The boat is crewed by two tanned humans. One of them dives into the ocean the moment we get near. The Lord-Captain has Wash bring the cutter in close, and he jumps out.

He sticks the landing, but the canoe immediately capsizes under his size and weight. It turns out swimming is not his forte, especially when he's bedecked in finery, and carrying two chain axes. He winds up ducking the one fisherman left as they try to right the canoe.

We throw down a line and pull them both up. The fisherman is terrified; he seems to respond to Low Gothic, but he doesn't quite speak it. The Captain skips the foreplay and has me dig into his mind.

His name is Gavin. Not insane. Excellent physical condition. Terrified as all-get-out.

No corruption. Understandably confused. He lives on the island his buddy is swimming to. He has been unfaithful with his fishing buddy's wife. Dude.

The Lord-Captain wants us to go after the other fisherman. As we get close, we see the tribe emerging to meet us. Wash lands the gun cutter in a friendly manner.

We're approached by inhabitants of the village; they call themselves The Santarchs, they believe this place to be their Paradise, and they believe this is their reward for a life of hardship; should they perish, they simply reincarnate. The leader claims to be 300 years old in his current incarnation.

This knowledge comes from their writings -- an incredibly-battered book named the Sola Fidae. It predates the Imperial Creed, and makes no mention of the Emperor -- analogous to the old ideology of Bhuddism.

We get a vox -- the other Rogue Traders are making their way through the warp. We warn the others.

"We can't very well fit the entire planet into our holds."
"Not with that attitude, you can't."

They seem to be content with splitting the bounty of the planet further. We get what we've got so far to our ship.

Fel hails us to banter. He insults me and says no amount of Rejuvenat can fix me. I'm wounded.

We race back down to the surface. Aside from looting as much as we can, we're going to save that village.




In orbit:

Raider: Chains of Dusk (Feckward)
Transport: Grace of Sopho (Charlabelle)
Transport: The Danse Macabre (LeFrancois)
Frigate: Fel Hand
Frigate: The Absolute Ambition
Lt. Cruiser: Hammer of Truth (Scourge)
Lt. Cruiser: The Nihontu (Sun Lee) + 3 Raider Escorts
Cruiser: The Ordained Destiny (Blitz)
Cruiser: The Colossus (Bastille)



The Plan: Grab as much gems as we can, save the village and take them aboard. While Fel is sending down multiple landers, send the Scots to hijack one. We empty out the gems and replace the cargo with murder servitors, and fly it up to infiltrate the Fel Hand.

Once in, we scuttle or cripple the ship, steal one of the shipments of gems returned, and take the lander to our ship.

If not destroyed, we declare beef with Fel (like anyone didn't know we had it) and destroy him, stranding him on the planet.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew Experiences Wash's Wild Ride

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

We're on our way to the Dread Pearl. It takes a couple of weeks, there's a lotta chop in the warp.

On the way, I get my second cybereye installed; I now have two eyes lensed with eldar gemstones, one red and one blue.

The Navigator buzzes us directly. There's a Warp Storm right where the planet should be. We can't get close enough for subluminal speeds, so we're parking up just one jump away.

I check our voicemail. One message for the Magos, and four for the Lord Captain.

Lady Sun-Lee sends a flowery response of supicion, but acceptance.

Blitz would like a drink, and is glad to meet us there.

So would LeFrancois, but we never really invited him for a drink, so...

Charlabelle sends a missive similar to Lady Sun-Lee's, but far more informal.

It's a party!


Through the front Vistaports of the ship, we can see the warp storm, and deep inside, the Dread Pearl, our deeply-sought prize. At the center, a path of calm appears! I sense the warp storm will sufficiently abate within the day for us to actually make an approach.

The Magos and the Lord-Captain both try the Augers; looking for knife-eared fucks, but we pick up long-range contact, ships arriving. I detect psykers, our guests have arrived. They accept the invite and make for us with all due haste. (Like, actual haste.)

Before they arrive, I do question the Lord-Captain's goal in inviting them. A four-way alliance over what results from the Pearl might be the only way out, if we misjudged Sun-Lee's strength.

Sun-Lee arrives, on the condition that she can bring ~15 Armsmen. LeFrancois shows up on his lonesome. Charlabelle shows up with birdlike mercenary bodygyards - Kroot, and five of them. Blitz has a plus-one.

They're escorted to the dining room where we're waiting for them. They get drinks, satisfy themselves it's not poisoned, and we make introductions. Wash and LeFrancois get less respect than the rest of us.

Sun-Lee gets to it. A gambler, a charter captain, and a broke bitch. This is the company the Lord-Captain keeps?

The Lord-Captain tries his charm and botches it. Sun-Lee remains unconvinced and threatens to walk.

The Lord-Captain warns that she walks, and she'll not just fight xenos from the front, but every other rogue trader from behind. A five-way split stands to benefit even Sun-Lee. Slightly more than a fifth for most of us.

LeFrancois objects, but is made to sit the fuck down.

Charlabelle is in, as is Blitz.

Sun-Lee wants to think about it.

In the meantime, we gamble against Blitz for a bit. He's cleaning us out, his luck is extradordinary. And I am certain he is not using psychic powers to cheat.

Meanwhile, Wash goes up to the bridge to check the Auspex out of paranoia. New contacts, here any moment now. Time's up for Lady Sun-Lee. Time to shit or get out of the alliance.

She's in. The warp storm has abated enough for an extremely risque passage.

We'll take the chance. All are escorted back to their ships; they're going to follow us in.

I look at the storm. I see dozens of twisted faces, some human, some xenos, and all writhing in pain.

A lot of things have been said of Wash in the last few years. Many of them conflicting. But sometimes, he seems to reveal his true self -- he is truly one of the greatest pilots in the imperium, and he takes us straight into the warp storm. The ship bucks, rocks, and feels like it's tearing itself apart. I see and hear voices. People are praying like fuck.

Wash is doing this all manually. Analog. No MIU. My knuckles are white as I hold onto the guardrail.

The Lord-Captain makes a rousing speech.

Wash: "If you look out the port viewports, you will see the God-Emperor protecting us. If you look out the starboard viewports, you will see the God-Emperor protecting us."

The Magos gets a hard PING on the auspex; a ship is headed straight for us. Wash hauls the wheel around, and we just barely scrape past it.



We make it through, and emerge into the eye of the storm. The bridge is dead silent as we recover from what we've just done. We get Vox from Blitz.

Blitz: "I've never seen anything like that before in my life. And I've seen some shit."
Hohenheim: "I, too, am also at half-mast."

Outside the storm, our unallied rivals arrive, and begin fighting each other. Time to make hay while the getting is good.

We gear up for landing on the Dread Pearl, an Eldar "Maiden" world. I load up with a shot of spook / geist.


Getting closer, the planet is everything  you could want in a planet. I psychically scan for eldar. I get the faintest of echoes, tainted by an underlying bitterness, but otherwise nothing.


We touch down with the Scots -- the other five landers spread out and scout. As we touch down, we feel a sense of peace as we step onto the pure sand of the new planet.  The sky is brilliant and azure, and the air truly fresh.

The Lord-Captain steps on something hard and sharp -- a brilliant orange gem. Worth a lot to nobles. Wash confirms it's of Eldar construction. I can tell it's weakly psychic, a lot like the gemstones in my cybereyes.

The Lord-Captain finds some sort eldar rune / psy-focus and tosses it to me. Some sort of charm. I pocket it.


We check out the forest beyond the beach. Strange white cubes. Definitely crafted, not natural.

Something moves, and I spot it; I snatch for it with my TK, but get nothing but air.

The Scots fan out to look for it, but find some sort of overgrown structure in a clearing. A statue. An eldar female, or a very beautiful eldar man.

I still feel at unease. Something is here.

I search for it.

I find it wedged into the vegetation at the foot of the statue. I pick it up, and hold it up. Everyone sees a sword, much like

I see a fantastic blade, with the edge that is blurry and indistinct. I feel a connection with the world around me, and a deep sorrow. This is a Witchblade. (Best craftsmanship power sword, penetration 0)

Wash throws a fruit at me. I try to slice it, but I whiff.

I expand my area of awareness with the sword. I can sense something nearby, like it's been following us while I was looking for the sword. The Lord-Captain doubles back, circling around, and finds it -- a small, blue, cat-like creature. He Disney Princesses the fuck out of it, pets it, and puts it on his shoulder without any problems.

The captain returns to us -- he has now made a friend.

"Captain, you need to see this, on the beach"

We hasten to the beach. We find gemstones, in the deeper part of the shallows. Hundreds, thousands.

"Captain, we're going to be rich!" a Kevin reports.

"Yes, I am."

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew Takes A Side

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

We head down to the planet to meet with the winning landship, the Indestructible.

We touch down in one of the front hangars, amidst a flurry of dust gliders also returning from patrols. Wing hardpoints seem to be empty, but they still have a few bombs and such.

We can feel a low rumble similar to that of a starship as we step onto the deck. We're met by a passel of dusty, grubby engineers, who salute us.

They're to escort us to the Elder Tactician, and they make a brisk pace; the landship is of similar scale to our ship. But much dustier, and devoid of Kevins.

We arrive at the Elder's quarters, and it's well-appointed for a planet like this. Three fairly old men are waiting for us. We're free to take a seat, and do so.

None of them are Greaves, which is surprising. They introduce themselves. Praeston Mero, Magnus

We are asked, and confirm, that we are merchants. The Lord-Captain confirms this, and expresses interest in the Macrocannons.

They'd like to talk more, but they can't actually make or give us any due to a scarcity of resources. The last time they made one was 75 years ago, easily.

But before we get to business, drinks! We bought a choice of amasec, or the... water from the desert planet.

They wave a metal wand over the water and it shows green, so they're happy to drink -- but are curious as to why we aren't partaking. We clarify that we bought it along just as an option, the Lord-Captain is... well, alcoholic. He's not been sober as long as I've known him, 6 years. They accept this and move on.

Long story short, they're agreeable to our offers of materials and transit off this blasted hellhole, although they cannot guarantee a copy of the gun or landship schematics. They need time to talk it over.

We stop by the Engine Order to see how tight-lipped they are. As it turns out, extremely so. It's like dealing with particularly taciturn Adeptus Mechanicus, gear iconography and all. They don't give us an inch and tell us to go away.

We consider what color robes astropaths usually wear. Apparently a common portrayal is green, but it doesn't really bring out my eyes, so I wear beige / tan.

DM: "Your what?"
Me: "My eyes."
DM: "Your what?"
*remembers I have no organic eyes*

We retreat to our gun cutter for a bit.

We flag down a mechanic. He's okay with taking us to the Gun Masters. He's a little patronizing to the Magos when he describes what macrocannons are -- we might not be familiar with them, as our ship is relatively small.

Wash: "She might need a diagram. Do you have any crayons?"
Mechanic: "We melted them down to extend the corpse starch a long time ago..."
Me: "Ah, the US Marine MRE diet."

"What are those floating things? They look like... skulls."
"They're servo skulls. They're skulls that... servo."

We arrive at the gun battery, and meet Bador Hovik. We make small talk before I casually drop the codeword mid-conversation. He invites us to step into his office.

We're made an offer. A decomissioned macrocannon now, in exchange for full control of the ship. A coup for a gun.

We go to have a think on it, and meet up with the Elder Tacticians one last time to get their take. Graves is now present, and he and the Lord-Captain talk shop.

The Lord-Captain offers four things: Transport off the planet. Resources. Technology. Aid from above. Of them, Graves bites on the resources and tech.

In return, they're willing to make us macrocannons -- can't do it fast, but they'll do it.

The Lord-Captain makes the call and accepts the deal with the Elders. Now that we're committed, we dob in Bador and hand over a (redacted) version of the data we pulled from the dead admech as proof of his collaboration.

"Gentlemen... We got another one."

We throw in a Speaky Kevin, and for our trouble, get the decomissioned macrocannon. It's taped to the underside of our gun cutter.

The contract is signed, and we snap a pict of the event. There's a party and celebration as we ship down a goodwill shipment of food and water.

On the way out, Wash accidentally dragged the cannon along the ground of the hangar.

We successfully established trade relations with Zaith -- time to go claim the Dread Pearl. We make some phonecalls.

We contact Lady Sun-Lee, and cordially invite her to join us at the Dread Pearl, awaiting her RSVP.

We holla at Blitz, and invite him to drinks and the Dread Pearl.

We also invite Charlabelle and Francois, although we doubt they're going to accept.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew plays Battleships

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

We recap our competition for the pearl.

Jean LeFrancois -- Charter Captain who thinks he's people. How adorable. Not just a little vain. Pilots a transport.
Hadarak Fel -- Seasoned explorer, a cunning trader, world exploiter, and absolute asshole. A fop.
Madam Charlabelle -- Fairly young Rogue Trader, inheritor of a dynasty on hard times, House Armalan. Keeps up appearances, though. Carries a weird, alien-looking tube on her forearm, a Harlequin's Kiss. Pilots a transport.
Jeremiah Blitz -- A scoundrel, gambler. Rumor says he won his Warrant of Trade in a game of chance from a Sector Lord. Rocking a cruiser.
Lord Admiral Bastille -- Infamous in the Imperial Navy. House Bastille is old as balls. Wasn't the oldest, but due to a freak accident, suddenly skyrocketed up his family dynasty to inheritance. Cruiser class ship.
Lady Sun Lee -- House Ma'kao, holdings all over the show. She provides food to Scintilla. Legendary duelist, and doesn't think too highly of us by now.  Cruiser.
Janko Scourge -- Psychopath. Slave trader. Egotistical. Ship of unknown marque.
Crawkin Feckward -- Another slaver. Very solid rumors that he's involved in the cold trade.



We head to Zaith! It takes a few weeks.

We get there, and it looks like shit. A dead-ass looking world. Auspex shows no life, and a wee bit of radiation. Looks like we just missed the party.

Our destination lies at the bottom of a ravine -- it would have been underwater, until the ocean boiled away.

We prepare for the trip -- we bring rope this time, and voidsuits. Whatever air is left, it's probably preferable to not breathe.

As we get closer, we notice two huge ships. The size of ours, easily, but landbound, travelling across the wastes. Marques from the Dark Age of Technology, they've got macrocannons and are void-shielded. Developed around the same time as titan legions, way back.

They are heading straight towards each other, and seem to be spoiling for a fight -- not right next to where we're going, but kind of close for comfort. I hail them psychically with no response.

The Lord-Captain hails by vox. The Indestructible responds first. Senior Tactician Graves speaking.

Wash has me prepare the ship to fire on one of these land cruisers.

The Lord-Captain establishes that the Indestructible is indeed spoiling for a fight, and wants no help from off-worlders. There's about half an hour until they fight. The problem is that where they will be shooting is roughly where we wanna be. And they're using macrocannons.

We don't have time for a leisurely explore -- only one of us (me) needs to see it. I grab a servo skull to record everything (Aquilagram celebrity, Winter York!) and jump out at low altitude to fly into the ravine.

We're immediately warned to stay away from the shuttle -- it's the subject of their fight. Wash backs off with the gun cutter, but they don't call us out on me jumping out, so I guess I don't matter to them, or they couldn't see me. I get down there.

"It's dark down here," I remark, being blind.

Gliding along at mid-height, I spot the Nexus easily. Looks just like the rest. I scan it with practiced ease.

We get another transmission from the Indestructible. They're getting close to range. He's not inclined to shoot us, but he can't say the same of the Bulwark.

The shuttle is suspected to contain a member of the Mechanicus, whom the Indestructible had exiled on pain of death -- and he had supposedly departed properly.

The Indestructible wants the shuttle itself, and any information of use in it. And if that Mechanicus is alive, he'd better not be.

I tear the damaged  bulkhead door open, and inside is trashed. Everything's wrecked, and has been on fire. Bits of tech everywhere, slag and flesh that used to be servitors.

The tech priest is dead, long-since gone. His hand is welded to the side of his head. I frisk him, and find a strange chip in his head. The Magos identifies it as a Data Arc, and Important. The rest of him is toast, and trash.

I burst out of the shuttle just as the two landcruisers are starting to pull up and broadside, giving each other the business and deploying ground troops to take the Shuttle. Wash brings the cutter down low so I can get in.

As we start to pull away, we tickle the Bulwark with our macrocannons, and knock out it's shields. The Indestructible is gobsmacked, and appreciates our assistance. We're invited onboard, but the Lord-Captain thinks it might be a cool idea for the Magos to hang back on this one, seeing as they disagreed so violently with her colleague.

If she's going to hang back, she wants full video coverage. I agree.

"Cinematography is my passion," I declare.

We scan the data arc before we do anything else. The Tech Priest (anonymous) was to travel via Light of Truth to Zaith.

Bador Hovik was their contact, X2V, and the Gun Masters. Was not to contact with Elder Tacticians. Trade of certain tech for their Macrocannons was their objective, but under no circumstances are Melta weapons to be introduced, or they'll certainly trash the Macrocannons.

The Mechanicus was part of a rebel element, not working in sync with the Mechanicus as a collective.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew Gets Bored of Vaporius

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

After 129 days, by ship's clock (1 month for us) we arrive at our destination -- a vast, shimmering, ring of wraithbone, far larger than our ship. The space within shimmers gently. I feel that the skeins of fate are twisted and woven through the center of the superstructure.

The Lord-Captain doesn't hesitate to order the ship through the middle. As we get closer, I feel my wraithbone sword resonating slightly, like a speaker with power but no sound.

As we pass through, reality seems to snap somehow, and we're suddenly somewhere else. As we passed through, for a moment, Wash saw something massive on auspex.

We're looking at a colossal ship's graveyard, far larger than anything we've ever seen, forming a ring around a singularity. A cloud of dead ships that could contain not just one, but hundreds of space hulks. The Lord-Captain orders battle stations, and we approach cautiously.

Vox channels are dead static, save for barely perceptible whispering. I can't hear anything in particular psychically, just residues of those skeins of fate leading to a nexus of some sort. Auspex, after a knock, can detect an eldar structure in the ring, on a much shallower orbit. It shows up surprisingly clearly. Distressingly so, given all the debris in the way. As we approach, the temperature seems to drop, frost spidering across the voidglass on the bridge.

Sebastian knows what this is -- the procession of the damned, Kronus expanse myth. Many have looked for it, and a good amount never returned.

Scanning the nearest vessels, the causes of destruction are varied, and almost impossible to make out -- crashing into each other has torn them to shreds. But before that, they might not have taken any structural damage...

The Lord-Captain orders Wash to shoot the black hole. We don't really see where it goes, but the captain is satisfied.

We take the time to tell Ke'van about the black hole, and why we're here. He understands the pursuit of profit by merchants.

Wash takes the helm to guide us through the debris field, and we take only the slightest of strikes to our voidshields, avoiding any real impacts. It takes us two days, but we do get clear of the cloud.

As we do, we start picking up movement amongst the debris on auspex. Terrifyingly close, as far as space warfare goes, too. They don't respond to vox hails on all frequencies, nor psychic commands to halt. I tell Wash to start shooting while they're not too close for macrocannons. He blows some away, but some still make it through the voidshields, moving slowly enough, and split up like a cluster missile of an attempted boarding party.

We get a blurry pict of someone or something in what looks like modified voidsuits. If they're STC-pattern, they're a pattern nobody knows.

I stay on the bridge to coordinate (also because I can't go spacewalking) while everyone else goes and prepares to space-walk. The lord-captain kits up in a voidsuit, magboots, and space-hat to clean up the boarders personally.

As they prepare, we lose our main auspex antenna. The Captain is accompanied by a score of his best Kevins. The Magos prepares to join him, and brings her third-best enginseer, Techpriest Almarax along.

"Brainless husks don't have a place in space."
"And yet, here you are, with your command crew."

Wash is making for the gun cutter; he gets the tech team's 4IC Callius.

The hull party finally makes eye contact with the boarders; indeed, they're humanoids, and their space suits are anonymous, black voids all that are visible in the voidsuit visors, and armor made of scavenged bulkhead plates. The Lord-Captain screeches, and with terrifying zero-G expertise, cartwheels forward with two chainaxes to start butchering the invaders.

Between this, and Wash's air support with the cutter, the invaders are decimated. One less-immediate death reveals the suit is... empty.

As we get closer to the nexus, we're hailed on vox by desperate souls. Descendants of deck crew for Wrath Umboldts, they claim to be, around 35 in number. They've survived by scavenging since then. The Lord-Captain gives them permission, and an ancient, battered cargo-lighter approaches.

What emerges are voidborn with their hands in the air; they're carrying a diverse variety of wargear. The lord-captain orders them quarantined while they get a medical checkup, and a hot meal and a cot.

We speak with them and educate them as best as we can. They would like to serve until Footfall, the land of their ancestors, which we agree to, although if they want to remain with the ship afterwards, we won't say no. They are now the Scots. They're keen to get shot of this place, before the Hollow Men return, or the Carrion, other survivors of Wrath, show up.

We get closer to the nexus, it looks like a giant, multi-level wraithbone gazebo, worn and chipped but still strong. We get close, and I have to suit up to go to it -- I borrow the Magos' old voidsuit, designed for a hunchback, and go check it out.

I take point, and reach the main platform first. I get a fantastic view of the black hole, and the debris rings. There are even planets here, but so close to the event horizon. I grab mental and physical picts of the star map. We take a poll on it, and decide not to explore.

To destroy the Dread Gazebo, we decide to put the thrusters from the Scots' cargo lighter on it, and boost it into the black hole.

As we set to depart, we get auspex. There's like, six raider ships -- shitty ones -- pursuing us. The Carrion. And there's a much larger ship below us. Rogue Trader Lady Sun Lee.

The Lord-Captain banters with her and offers her a deal -- the map data for getting hte raiders off our back. She declines, and so we wish her luck in catching the Dread Gazebo.

With shields set to max and Wash's skills, we boost through the rings in a scant 6 hours. We exit via the gate, and leave it alone.

We survived the Procession of the Damned.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew Solves a Water Shortage

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

We recap a few things we hadn't really considered about our crew:

Van Hohenheim is actually of Japanese descent. Still don't know what his first name is.

Wash is both bald and caucasian.

Winter is 40. Van hohenheim is 38. The Magus is 35. Wash is a decrepit 48.



After our failure to summon water, we decide to make ourselves scarce, with our missionary friends.

We head towards one of the turquioise seas to check it out. Unlike regular water, it stays vivid as we get close.

I pop a squat next to the shore to see if it's just the sand colorizing the water. Hard to tell with a blue-lensed cybereye. I suspect it's the source of the water, but psychic probes turn up zero activity whatsoever. I taste something acidic in the air.

The magos analyzes it, and finds it's unbelievably toxic and acidic. Bad for flesh. Okay for metal.

I congratulate the lord-captain on finding a new chemical weapon.

With the turquoise pools of no use, we call it a day, return the missionaries to their hab in the desert, and take Ansai's body up to the ship, which is currently doing a deep auspex of the moon. There,  the Magos was, for once, in her element, completing the autopsy with amazing precision.

The autopsy doesn't turn up anything super-interesting, but comparing Ansai's gene map turns up key similarities to mine, as well as the rest of the astropaths -- he was a psyker!

The scan of the moon finishes -- it's absolutely useless. A big, solid rock.

New plan: Pretend we're entirely new, and go to a new city to suck up to a new priest king, and learn how he does the water thing as subtly as possible.

The initial arrival goes down okay; people look at us oddly as expected. The city is similar to the first one in layout. The temple here is shorter and squatter, and so are the buildings around it.

The priest king is similar in structure, fat and rotund. Dabir is his name, and he seems a jolly sort.

We speak, and the lord-captain comes to terms on a deal; somehow, he sells Dabir Ansai's city. His son, Tahir, will be installed as a ruler of the city, and we get barrels of water.

The Lord-Captain proposes to show someone that Dabir trusts around the Imperium so that they might learn more about what lies beyond. He gives us one of his aides, Ke'van, to show him the galaxy until we return to finish our deal and give Dabir more cities.


In the meantime, we head on to our next target.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew Finds Religion

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

We're excused from the presence of the Priest King -- and not discreetly followed by the guards. Looks like we have some nannies.

Our intel on the missionaries tells us they have a place out in the desert. With that in mind, we head back to the gun cutter -- but we're parked out in the desert, and we've not really communicated this to the guards, and they watch us march off into the desert with mild confusion.

It takes a few passes, but we eventually find the shoddily-built, but very well camoflauged stone buildings, and touch down outside them in the gun cutter. We're greeted by a small group of men in dirty ministorum robes -- we introduce ourselves, and the leader of the group is Andreas.

We catch up on the situation; turns out that none of the Priest Kings are particularly agreeable to the light of the Emperor. Ansai was actually their pick to be most agreeable, and they sent the late Brother Consas to try and convince him.

We invite Andreas into the guncutter for a refreshment of water (that stuff the Captain cuts his whiskey with) and catch up.

There's eight priest-kings on the planet -- Andreas confesses that truthfully, they weren't even supposed to come here -- they actually meant to go to Winterscale's realm, but a warp storm's knocked them considerably off course. They don't want to leave, though -- their arrival here was clearly the work of the Emperor, and it's up to them to save them. We agree that it's probably the Emperor's will that we showed up, too.

The Lord-Captain has a plan -- show off the power of the emperor, and demand that Ansai capitulate.

For guidance, we are lent the services of one of his few remaining Ministorum, and one of the natives, Abid.

Andreas excuses himself to return to the flock, and we set our plan into motion.

We return to the city, doing a low pass of the city to get people's attention. We march the two missionaries out at "gunpoint" (smoke grenade loaded launcher) to try and draw forth Ansai. Wash remains in the gun cutter to man the laser designator, and holds position above the city plaza.

As we wait for the crowd to gather, we mull over the Priest-Kings. Priest-Queen Winter. I like the sound of that.

Abid speaks up: "You are of the priest caste? You can call forth the water?"

We decide we should look into that before killing Ansai.

The Lord-Captain orates, proclaiming the power of the Emperor. Ansai takes the bait, emerging from the temple, livid. We invite him to watch as we obliterate the temple on the mountain. Wash targets the mountain.

A lance of red fire streaks down, and there's a gap before a distant explosion. The crowd begins to scream. And in an impressive show of power, he silences them with a mere wave of his hand.

The Lord-Captain motions for me to do my thing; I reach out to Ansai's mind and start picking through it. I quickly confirm that he is, in fact, livid. I'm not subtle about it, and he quickly identifes me as being inside his head. He motions for everyone to attack.

And that means everyone, bodyguards and civilians alike. They rush us as a swarm. The lord-captain makes a bee-line for Ansai, and Wash, displaying impressive gun control, obliterates only the bodyguards standing between Ansai and the Captain.

I keep digging into his mind. Distinct fears that he's going to actually die, of all things.

I see his memory of him calling forth the water; he stands at the font, and holding his arms aloft, chants to the spirits of the planet for water, as the first men once did.

The Lord-Captain makes mincemeat of anything that gets in his way. Including one of Ansai's legs.

Despite the pain, and ongoing conversation with Ansai, he actually has enough going on to boot me out of his head!

Still, too little, too late -- the Lord-Captain headbutts Ansai unconcious.

The moment we KO Ansai, everyone suddenly stops moving, like puppets with cut strings.

The fight is over. We drag Ansai to a high position, and declare that he's been defeated by the might of the Emperor, and leave the Ecclesiarchy to preach to the crowd.

Meanwhile, we staunch Ansai's bleeding. I try again and pick up where I left off. Pivotal moment of his life: Outworlders came down and ruined his perfect life. But no matter how much I dig, I'm just getting more of the same -- if he's running a con, he doesn't know it.

I send for more priest robes, and go check out the well outside. I try and imitate what I saw in his memories, doing the gestures and chants. Nothing happens. Or at least, I don't feel it.

I grab some breathing gear, and decide to go down the well. There's not a lot to say, it's a well, and there's no clearly mechanical means by which the water is being pumped in. I can't climb out on my own though, so it takes a bit of help from the Magos to get me out.




It's 2am, and as we're snoozing in the Gun Cutter, Wash wakes up with a sudden sense of dread.

He wakes me up, and gets me to check for psychic energy. I've got nothing, but Wash sensing something has me worried. I shuffle outside in my sleeping shirt ("Psykers do it") and slippers.

The Magos wakes up with the commotion, but can't feel anything out of place.

We wake up the Lord-Captain with an open bottle of amasec, slowly moving it out of his reach so he has to wake up to get it. Wearing his catachanian quail slippers, he shuffles about.

We go outside, and there's nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing on auspex. Everyone seems to be where they should, psychically.

Wash stumbles outside, and looks up at the moon, which looks normal to us. But his face is filled with terror, and he collapses.

I fondle his neck to wake him up, and ask if he's okay.


Wash: "Lord-Captain, any particular objections to blowing up the moon?"

The Lord-Captain has no particular objections, and goes back to bed.


Morning comes. The Lord-Captain is up at the brink of dawn on reflex, as usual, and so am I, wearing my priest robes again. I approach the well, and try again one more time to summon the water.

Nothing. There is no water.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew promotes Adventure Tourism

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

In the absence of a qualified Arch-Millitant, it's established the ship's lead marine is Texas Kevin, a kevin with a long drawl, an Imperium belt buckle, and twin belasco duelling pistols.

We recap where we actually are. In our haste, we've travelled clean across the Kronus Expanse, to the galactic northwest, out by the Heathen Stars -- we've covered Footfall to Zayth, and gone a little further beyond.

The rest of the command crew had a vision when we entered the temple; the pearl was split, scattered across the segmentum. The shards are located on:

Processional of the Damned, not far from Magaros.
Zayth, in the galactic north
Vaporius, just north of the Heathen Stars
One in deep space
Dross, a planet yet unlocated on our map.
Sabrine, a planet yet unlocated.


We plot a course to Vaporius, which should be a feudal world, according to our records. The journey takes several weeks. In this time, I've had the jewel-encrusted eye installed. I now see the world tinted blue through it. With that, and my red eye, I am now perfectly prepared for cutting-edge 3d video.

When we arrive, we find the planet a wasteland, according to the lord-captain and the ship's auspex. Using my special eyes, I can see the planet seems to fair glow with the aftermath of some serious psychic power; most of it focused on a mountain range -- apparently one of the tallest on the planet. Conditions are expected to be cold and unfavorable. I prepare a scarf. The Magos prepares her fur-lined outer robe.

We board a guncutter, and descend. As we get closer, the planet is more of the same; deep plunging valleys, windswept hills... not a lot of green. We're sticking as close to the terrain as we can safely manage when we're rising, and spot a small plateau; there sits a temple, and the Magos declares it to be exactly what we're looking for.

Wash looks for a landing place; he finds a plateau about five klicks out, but it's going to be a hell of a landing. He sticks it. There's barely three meters' clearance. I unclench my hands from my armrests and congratulate Wash on the touchdown.

At this point, we realize we didn't really come prepared for mountainclimbing. It's going to be a challenge to get up the mountain.

As it turns out, the weak link in a hiking expedition is the Lord-Captain, seeing as the rest of us can glide or outright fly. And so, between us, we manage to get the Lord-Captain up to the temple with our peerless teamwork and camaderie, covering the five kilometers in just a few hours.

On our way, we see some of the local wildlife. Huge, 3-10m tall animate piles of rock, they look like. The Lord-Captain is surprisingly knowledgeable about these sort of things, and believes they're not natural, artificially made or introduced.

Everyone's thoughts turn to money. Wash believes they'd fetch an okay price for a live one. The Magos certainly knows the order biologis would be interested in it. The Lord-Captain tries to smoke one, but his plasma pistol misfires and he drops it. Luckily, not off the entire side of the cliff.

We continue to the temple. Up close, it's not actually that large, just a few metres across, framing an impressive view of the landscape beyond. Through it, we can see something glittering in the sunlight. A city, made of glass? On the ground, scuffed markings and lines, not dissimilar to the markings on the temple on the fake pearl. Again, it looks like a map.

But it seems like there's something more to it, although nobody can quite make heads or tails of it. I take about ten minutes trying to figure it out, but no dice.

The party lingers, trying to figure out this map. If only we had a navigator here... I take another ten minutes, and still nothing, but I'm getting close.

Then I get it. I feel like I've just found a piece of a puzzle. I can see some stars and planets, and their fate -- moving through time, rather than space.

Endowed with knowledge, we decide to move on to the glass city.



As we get close, it's definitely an exotic city -- copper and glass stretching high, in the middle of the desert. Apparently human in origin, according to the Lord-Captain; he made a long lecture about divergence from the building memes of the golden age.

We park in the outskirts and clamp our guncutter, before heading into the city. And amazingly, people. For the most part, tanned, hairless people in robes. But people nonetheless. Could the city have somehow cancelled our auspex readings? Whatever it is, they are suprisingly nonchalant and aren't paying nearly as much attention to us as we expected.

The Lord-Captain makes contact with them; they speak heavily-accented high gothic, and seem agreeable. We learn that the city is run by those called "Priest-Kings", and we're suggested to speak with them.

Wash reminds us that he can't understand high gothic. The Magos apologizes, but then keeps on talking high gothic.

In the meantime, until we see the Priest Kings, we're going to hang out at a restaraunt. On our way, though, we're intercepted by men in unadorned, but hooded, blue robes. They bow deeply, and with a flourish. They're from the Priest King, and he'd like to speak with us.


We head deeper into the city. Straight streets, like spokes on a wheel. As we get closer to the center, we see there's a large structure in the middle -- like an oversized well. The crowd is thick, but they part like water for our guides in robes.

We arrive at a plaza, and inside the largest building, a reception area. Our guides leave us be, for a moment, and leave us to appreciate the ambience for a bit. The building is cunningly wrought from glass and copper, surfaces furnished with silks, tapestries, and rugs. An extremely neo-middle eastern environment. Technology appears to be rather primitive, the extent of exposed weapons mere swords.

Psychically, there's something here, and it's everywhere. I'm swimming in it, a subtle energy. Different from the stuff on the mountain. There's something nearby that stands out, a candle to my fire, but that's not the source.

The tapestries tell the typical stories -- caravans, military victories, prominent leaders.

We're collected by an orderly, and guided to an audience chamber. At the door, we're met by a woman in a beaded robe who offers us drinks, which we gratefully accept. The instant the water hits our lips, we're overwhelmed by a sensation of purity and clarity -- it energizes and revitalizes us, and it feels like we're finally able to think clearly.

I psychically check it; it feels like it might be the source of the energy all around us.

The priest king, his robes beaded and red, is a slight man, and he greets us warmly. Priest King Ansai welcomes us to Lah'undun. He asks us what brings us here.

The Lord-Captain says we're here for a relic -- the dread pearl. He claims the Emperor has sent us, rather than divulging that we're in this for personal profit, at best.

"The emperor?" he asks.

"The God Emperor of Mankind." "Rest he on his eternal throne," I add.

We're approached from behind by several large men. They're not hostile, but not friendly, either. Ansai tells them to "bring him out".

We wait for a minute or two, and are turned around to see a restrained man being guided to them roughly. His garb marks him as a member of the Ecclesiarchy.

We're asked if we recognize him. Which we honestly don't.

The priest king informed us that he, and his cohorts, tried to turn the populace against the Priest Kings, speaking of the one true ruler. He is not a happy chappy about this, and demands that we leave, or die.

I attempt to ascertain if they worship anyone at all -- going for the argument that we are simply worshipping two sides of the same coin. They don't worship anyone. So they're that kind of priest-kings.

The Lord-Captain decides to give diplomacy another try in the face of the ultimatium, but we prepare to shoot our way out.

The Lord-Captain's flowery words are heard, at least. To summarize: We're from the same belief, but not here for the same purpose. We're asked to prove it. Kill the missionary.

The Lord-Captain immediately, with no hesitation or deliberation, smokes him in the face with a plasma pistol.

Ansai laughs. We will find the other missionaries. We will render them unto ash and atoms, as well as those they have converted. And when they are no more, we will have the assistance we seek.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew ruins a Ceremony

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

We disembark from the gun cutter, and return to our ship to prepare for battle stations.

Wash gets an update on what the Eldar are doing. Turns out they're heading in-system to the one habitable planet. They're ignoring us. The Lord-Captain orders us to intercept, but as I predict, there's no way we're catching those filthy xenos in a stern chase, and they quickly leave our auger range.

The Lord-Captain wants to slingshot around the planet and use that momentum to ram the eldar ship...? The bridge crew is unsure how to respond to this, and spend the time instead looking at the planet in question; a small, verdant planet; small icecaps, tundra, dotted with seas, and gentle belts of water vapor. A pleasant-enough looking place.

At the very least, the captain is confident that when they park up, we can just shoot them out of orbit. And he knows they'll stay in orbit because they can't take an eldar craft down to the surface, and he knows that because the Imperium can't. That's solid logic.

We get a bit closer as we discuss the issue, although it's slow going, and rescan for the ship. No ship, but we're picking up wraithbone, the remnants of buildings in approximately 100 sq.km of space. We put the ship into orbit.

Before we get too into this, I posit that we might not actually have found the dread pearl, but Wash thinks otherwise, seeing as these Eldar were harassing us when we left, and that makes quite a coincidence.

The Lord-Captain isn't so keen on going down to this filthy xeno planet. Counterargument - if we claim it, it's not a filthy xeno planet anymore. We'll have to come back to it later if this planet's any good.

We're getting nothing on augers; psychically, I'm getting nothing but background noise, so could be literally anything. The Lord-Captain muses about melting the icecaps to turn the green planet blue while we keep pinging.

We give up, and go down to the planet, leaving instructions behind to hail us ASAP if anything ship-like shows up on auspex. Weather was clear when we went in, but chop rapidly sets in, and clouds begin phasing in and out, weather all over the show. Wash wrangles the controls well enough, though, and sets us down without killing us, around 20km out from the biggest readings. Bit of repair work needed, but only about an hours' work. Only carved a furrow in the dirt a kilometer long. We exit.

We're in a verdant fern forest, teeming with insect life and strange calls. There's a buzzing sound. It gets louder, deeper... from the other side of the gun cutter. Then there's a massive thunk as some gigantic, aquila lander-sized insect like a giant hornet, and stabs it with his stinger. It seems like it's looking for food.

"That's not food," the Lord-Captain says condescendingly. It hears him, and he points at the Magos. "Do better!"

Wash lets two absolutely sizzling shots with his plasma pistol off at the wasp, but all he does is piss it off. It surges towards him and tries to get him good.

Then the Magos cuts loose with her plasma cannon and melts a crater in the shell of the wasp. Then I follow up with an absolutely stunning krak grenade shot straight into it for gross damage. I've made a Friend today.

The Lord-Captain revs up his axes, and goes for the stinger. He digs in, but it pulls away from him.  The Wasp would try to kill me, but the Lord-Captain is closer. It grazes him, and doesn't poison him (The Lord-Captain has amasec for blood) but it does grapple him.

The Magos blasts it with the plasma cannon, and I focus my mind, whipping up winds around me as I declare "Let my Lord-Captain go!" and try to crush the wasp with my mind.

The Lord-Captain is struggling, but having no luck against the barb. Wash tries to free him.

The Magos passes her cannon to her mechadendrite, and draws her bolter. The bolter bounces off. My next grenade digs in a little, but is definitely less spectacular.

The lord-captain is still doing what he can. Wash is feinting and trying to cut him free, still.

The Magos runs for the gun-cutter -- there's turrets she could be commandeering! I give the wasp another stinger of a grenade, and it stumbles.

The Lord-Captain frees himself from the stinger, against all odds, and tears himself free! Wash still can't seem to penetrate it's thick hide.

The Magos opens up with the twin-linked heavy bolters from the turret, heavy rounds bouncing off the shell and penetrating indiscriminately. The monster sways, and topples over, finally slain.

The Lord-Captain would like a nap, being skewered by a wasp has worn him out.The Magos wants the head of the wasp as a trophy. The Lord-Captain says no, it stinks. I propose that we leave it outside until it's time to go, and then duct-tape it to the roof-rack on the way out.



For now, we need to find that broken city of wraithbone. The Magos sends out servo skulls, and finds some rubble; I take to the air, and looking in that direction, I can see ruins. Wash figures out a path, and we start walking.

It's twenty kilometers, a bit of a walk. But eventually, we start finding intact bits of building, and find a clearing. A large temple rises from the earth, and partway up the gargantuan structure is a platform, ringed with wraithbone structures. A deep feeling of insignificance overwhelms us.

The vox goes off. Ships have been jumping into the system over the last hour. It looks like we beat everyone else here. We make the plan; the ambition will fly away from the planet for a day, then return, passing by the planet to pick us up and then escape. The gun cutter is to wait, camoflagued, until we're done with the temple, or until the two days is up, to rendez-vous with the ship.

As we step through the gate of the temple, there's a rumbling, and we feel something wash over us; a gale of psychic energy, vibrating our bones. The Lord-Captain and Wash black out. The Magos and I remain awake. Above us, the platform begins to shimmer and sparkle with power. Ghostly forms appear, six eldar warlocks. As one, they raise their hands, and the energies spiral up into the sky. The temple shakes, shifts. Something is dreadfully wrong.

We must stop them.

Wash boosts halfway up to the platform, which is 20m above. Magos Abigail clambers her way up the wall, as does the Lord-Captain. I fly up to the platform, seeing the six humanoids standing atop it. Wearing strange helmets, they're phasing in and out, and with them, the platform itself flickers, awash with witchfire.

We all climb and fly up. Abigail takes a shot, and her bolter round vanishes the moment it hits the fire. The plasma shot from our Lord-Captain fares much the same.

Hovering in the air, I focus all my power, and try to play pool with the enemy wizards. I blink, and everything changes. The Magos is suddenly on the ground, bleeding out, and there's dead eldar everywhere. What the fuck happened?

The surviving eldar spray shuriken pistols at Wash and miss. Wash charges to join the Lord-Captain in finishing off an eldar that already looks like he's taken the wrong end of a chain axe vertically. The Lord-Captain finishes him off, and charges to engage another warlock, bloodlust in his eyes.

I have learned nothing, and push my power to crush an eldar skull. Unfortunately, power rubberbands back into me, and knocks me out of the sky, to land on my head. I'm out cold, and the rest of the fight is nothing but a distant haze.

The fight ends in our favor, and we regroup. The Magos' body is registering a very faint pulse. Above her body, a servo skull bears printout of a transcript of her last words:

+++ I want one of those sweet ass witchblades +++

The temple is stable once more, no longer phasing in and out. The top of the tower  is covered with what looks like a star map -- rendered unreadable by damage in the past, but unmistakably related somehow to other planets in the Kronus Expanse.

We call the guncutter, and load the Magos on, to the distraught of the Enginseer. Once we're all done, we render the tower destroyed and unreadable. Eat shit, Fel.

We make sure to take a human-sized chunk of wraithbone as cargo, and make our way to the far side of the planet to camp out until the Ambition is ready to make it's return. We see a couple of lighters touch down over the next day or so. One spirals out of the air and eats shit.

At the appointed time, we return to orbit, and catch the Ambition as it does a fly-by, and get out.

As we leave, LeFrancois hails us -- "Leaving so soon?"

I lie and say between the Eldar that harassed us on the way in and everyone else being in our way, it ain't worth it. It's a loss. I'm an abysmal liar, but he seems to accept it, and suggests we'll have to renegotiate the next time we meet. And then he hangs up on me. Dick.

The Lord-Captain places a call to our old friend Jeremiah Blitz, and kindly forewarns him of the inclement weather, unreasonable wildlife, and trashed tower.  In exchange, we just want him to take any opportunity to mess with Fel whenever possible, and distrust LeFrancois. The Lord-Captain shows off his sketch of Blitz, which is competent, and bids him good luck as we peace out.

We have a remarkable race ahead of us, and potential for considerable profit.


The Magos claims one of the 5 salvaged witchblades for her own; as do I. I claim one of the 8 shiny gems they were holding for my new cybereye to bling it out.

There are 5 helmets, 4 robes and 1 shredded robe; one helmet goes on the Magos' servo skull.

The Lord-Captain takes a full set of robe, helmet, shuriken pistol and witchblade for his trophy room.

Shit Our DM Says: GDPR Edition

As you approach the planet where you expected the Dread Pearl to be, an astropathic message comes through with high-grade encryption.
It's decoded and passed up the chain of astropaths to Winter, who opens it...
++We've updated our Privacy Policy!++

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse: The Crew settles a Union Dispute

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

It's Always Heretical in the Kronus Expanse is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. Possibly insane, although a holiday has done much to soothe his agitated mind. Questionable epicurean delights have left him unreasonably muscled.
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A Magos Explorator-Chymist who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull. Ever since doing warp-eel shots, she seems more insightful somehow.
Archaius "Boosto" Wash - A gunnery sergeant with a now less-irritating artificial voicebox and a jetpack. We are all amazed by his apparently-infinite agility, and his recent ability to just shrug off pain.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue. Spymaster and king of Human Resources. One hell of a butler, even when he's on autopilot.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Notorious advocate of psychic power pissing matches, and freshly endowed with wings, somehow. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

---

We're travelling through the warp and making what seems to be good time.


We take the time to review our management policies, and recap our actual positions on the ship and how we manage it.

The Lord-Captain is the Rogue Trader. 'Nuff said. Discipline is enforced through the Chain of Kevins.

Wash, technically "Master of the Guns", reports that the lance and macrocannon crews are getting along well since the whole Space Juliet episode.

I am technically the ship's radio.

(Head) Magos Abigail runs weekly meetings with her Tech Priests for status updates. But Enginseer Nox is absent this week. She asks where he is, and one of her tech priests shifts uncomfortably.

He's been in the plasma conduits all week, apparently. Literally has not been seen since last week's meeting. Abigail heads to the stern of the ship to go take a closer look. And finds that the bulkheads to the area are all sealed... and none of her priests would have any particular call to do so.

None of the command staff know anything about it; I can't feel anything particularly weird going on in there, but someone's cut all the cameras. Aside from that, and the bulkhead being manually locked, there's nothing going on systems-wise.

The team gathers at the bulkhead, save for myself; as I can no longer wear my power armor or a voidsuit, I'd rather not be killed by a lack of air. I support the team from one airlock away.

The Magos knocks on the bulkhead with a mechadendrite, to no effect. She's considering hacking it, but before she does, she sends a servo skull through the air vents.

The place seems deserted. Further exploration reveals graffiti of a benign ("Crooker was here") and personally hurtful ("Fuck the lord-captain") nature.

There are bodies. A man wearing rank. A Crew-Chief Kevin, according to Wash. A dab hand with a chainsword, too, so the fact that he was cut to death and no longer has his chainsword is telling.

The Magos cracks the door open, and I rejoin the party; I'll put on a breathing mask if I have to.

We find the bodies. Only dead a few hours, very fresh. Wounds on the back and front of the Crew Chief Kevin. Small arms wounds to the back, and a wicked chain weapon slash across his chest. The other bodies surrounding him were uniformed, direct underlings. Loyal to the end.

A vox unit's been tossed on top of the Kevin's body. The Lord-Captain does his best Adama impression and speaks into it. "This is your commander!"

It crackles. A voice issues forth. "Ah. Yeh. We were wondering when we'd get this call. Did you like the gift we left you?"

We did not.

They don't care. We're going to listen anyway because we have one of our tech priests. This is a mutiny -- I disagree, they haven't really come for the command bridge, it's more an insurrection -- and they want to go back to Footfall immediately. There's "laws of the void", and this far out of the Imperium... there's lots of them, and they feel poorly about being mistreated. The Lord-Captain puts him on hold for a hot minute.

The Lord-Captain polls us for our thoughts. Nox, while individually not worth such an effort on his own, is part of the Mechanicus, who supported the Van Hohenheim Warrant of Trade, so we really can't abandon him.

We demand to speak with Nox to ensure he is, in fact, still alive. He is, and he technalinguas with the Magos to authenticate; I suggest she asks Nox where he is, and he manages to tell us before they tell him to speak Gothic. I inquire as to his vitality, and he is alive, so I lie and say we're turning this boat around.

In reality, we're going to gas them with CO and raid to secure Nox. Wash has the bridge crew pull a 360 to make it seem like we're acceding to their request. The Lord Captain has us do better. The magos begins piping the CO, and I scout a path with my powers.

We're ready, we throw the switch on a sealed bulkhead, and gas the fuckers.

We breach and go in. We pass the radio that the Lord Captain cast aside, and he picks it up again. "I'm coming for you, Suzy."

As we move in, we start spotting people, clawing at their throats, gasping. I taunt them. The Captain disposes of them.

There's one guy with enough strength to start aiming at us. Wash boosts forward and knocks the gun out of his hand. On the next deck, a man with a power sword tries to come at the Captain; I Compel him to drop it, and he stops an inch from the Captain. I then punch him in the face.

There's two more with gasmasks and swords; The Magos takes a shot with her new big plasma, and misses, but as they turn around from watching it shoot between them, the Lord-Captain is already there, looming large and aiming for ankle with his chainaxes.

He walks on.

A red blur races up the stairs towards him; he punches for throat, and feels metal. Enginseer Nox has managed to make his escape amongst the gas. He thanks us and tells us there's about eight, but only a few who have masks.

We approach the ringleader and his last stand. The Lord Captain displays supreme reflexes and dodges a shotgun blast from around the corner. He mercifully gives them one last chance to surrender. They decline, and seal their fates. They did it to themselves.

Wash boosts in and engages the ringleader at the very rear, twenty metres away. The Lord-Captain engages the monosworders at the front. I compel two of the four shotgunners to shoot their allies, although only one of them can actually hit his target. The ringleader swipes at Wash, and the Lord-Captain is assailed by two guys with swords, and none of them can actually hit their target.

The surviving shotgunners are reloading or taking a shot at the Lord-Captain and miss; he declares that the next person to shoot his ship will be murdered harder.

The Magos uses her ferric lure to snatch a shotgun and crush it with her mechadendrite. It looks badass.

Wash's sword bites deep into the ringleader's thigh, but doesn't kill him. He holds on for a hot moment.

The Lord-Captain butchers his opponents; there is so much blood, anyone wanting to run in the area needs to pass an agility check or eat ass.

I make the last two armed shotgunners engage in a contest of who can shoot the other first. They're awful and can't actually hit each other. Why did we hire these people?

The unarmed shotgunner loses his shit and tries to run. He slips on the blood and eats shit, freaking out in fear.

Abigail steals another shotgun and crushes it.

The Lord-Captain advances on the last shotgunner, and asks him where Suzy is. His boss. He fear fully points to the ringleader and says "Crooker's right there!"

I make him shoot his last sensate friend as a reward. He does it, and drops to his knees, staring at his hands.

There's no standing opposition left.


*****


We get servitors and Kevins in to arrest the lot. There's about thirty mutineers. We give a short speech about how if they have problems, they should use their WORDS. We clarify where we're going. If they're afraid of the darkness, remember: the light of the emperor shines wherever we are. If they forget, we are forced to do things like this.

We summarily execute them cleanly, and flush Crooker out the airlock mid-warp in a clown outfit, and discipline reigns supreme.

The Magos bumps reports up to twice weekly.




We near the end of our voyage to the dread pearl. Spirits are higher, and we're filled with a sense of excitement. We gather on the ship for the exit, and prepare battlestations.

We emerge, and the view isn't quite right. We're supposed to see a warpstorm. A pearl. We see calm space, and a small star system. We're in the right place, but.... no dread pearl?

Wash hits the augers. It's a star system with a small, insignificant yellow star. A planet with unlivable atmos. And ships travelling in a ragged convoy towards the warp out point. We hail them, and they don't quite respond conventionally. Stryxis, they call themselves, and they want to parlay. We agree, and they want us to join them on their ship; they'll send a shuttle. Everyone agrees to go.

The pilot of their shuttle is covered in all sorts of tribal trinkets, little bones. He bows to us and welcomes us in, but says nothing.

The ship's condition is poor when we arrive; lights are dim and flickering. What we can see, the ship is made from mismatched materials, and covered in all sorts of fetishes and trinkets. The floor is covered in litter, and it stinks.

A strixis emerges from the darkness, wearing a long cloak and hood. All we can see is is a snout, a lot like a dog snout, but hairless. We get the sensation of eyes, watching us, and it speaks in accented Gothic, wishing to actually aid us, and speak to our leader.

The Lord Captain responds, introduces himself. The Stryxis is wanting to trade; they'll take any sort of valuable. The Lord-Captain gives up a hip flask, and it's accepted. Wash wants a pulse pistol in exchange, but we're far from the "blue ones" , so no dice. But they do have a fine weapon from the "hated ones", and go fetch it.

Information-wise, the planet has been here a while. Nothing else is here, and it's covered in things which do not walk on two legs. Hated ones.

They come back, it's a shuriken pistol.

We haggle our charms for various things.

The Lord-Captain's charm is a monocle. He's contemplating swapping it for muscle grafts, but declines.

I swap the first coin I ever earned for a new, average-quality cybereye, with a zoom function.

Wash swaps his charm for a flechette cannon. He tries his rebreather for a recoil glove, but they don't have any.

As we're finishing our trades, a siren goes off, and the Stryxis react with fear. We get vox; contact at extreme range. I feel for familiar minds... and it's the eldar we were fighting on the way out here.