Firstly, some general thoughts about the setting of 40K. This Dakka-Dakka thread (spoilers!) not only does a good job of summarizing the changes and events in the new setting, but also identifies potential sources of conflict and presents some very well-thought-out theorizing of where things could go. While the changes are significant and open up some very interesting questions and storytelling opportunities, they don't fundamentally change the nature of the setting - the Imperium is still a benighted realm of ignorance and superstition, teetering on the brink of destruction, beset by foes both inside and out. There are new players - Guilliman and Cawl, in the main - but the old players are still there and playing much the same roles. The Emperor is still on the Golden Throne and Abaddon is still making war on the Imperium and the Dragon still slumbers on Mars. Even the new players' presence doesn't detract from that - yes, Guilliman is now effectively running the Imperium but it is a realm of a million worlds (even half-a-million on this side of the Rift) and he cannot possibly have a complete influence. What GW have done with this "advancement" is more expand the setting than actually change it, if that makes sense.
I think I can confidently say major changes - and I am thinking specifically of the death of the Emperor or the fall of Terra or the awakening of the Dragon of Mars (even just the revelation of specifically and explicitly what the Dragon of Mars is) - aren't going to happen in this edition or any edition. The "grimdark mystery" of 40K is something GW aren't going to want to mess with and "five minutes to midnight" is absolutely fundamental to the setting. Everything is going to carry on much as it did before, just with the addition of the new players.
Similarly, any advancement of my Order's background must avoid such dramatic changes (no resurrection of the Emperor!) and must also be able to work within future revelations (whatever they may be). I need to keep my Order's background both in the background and sufficiently vague.
So, bearing all that in mind, here are some things I have decided. Note that these bullet points contain both post-Rift background for my Order, but also notes about events I'd already decided on but not written / published;
- I see no reason to change the background for the foundation of the Order at all; when the Silent King returns to the galaxy and awakens the Tomb Worlds to fight the Tyranids (c. 744.M41), Verity emerges from the Crystal Vault. She has spent the last 10,000 years sequentially freeing and defeating / absorbing "coils" of the Seraph's programming. There is much of the Necron construct left behind code-locks in the Vault, but Verity has absorbed enough of it that she not only possesses much of its power but is aware of the Silent King's call.
- Speaking through visions, locutions and other supernatural phenomena, Verity gathers a small band of female followers from the inhabitants of the 'Dust Zone. The leaders of the Convents and other high-ranking prelates are distrustful of this new group - they claim to follow a saint whom the Ecclesiarchy's intelligentsia believe to be nothing more than a pious fiction, and are also a challenge to existing power structures. However, the Ecclesiarch is sympathetic (rumored to be because Verity visits him) and not only offers them political protection, but also grants them a charter as an Ecclesiarchal Prelature Militant (essentially a Sisters of Battle Minor Order answering directly to him) and gives them part of the Via Imperator for their cloister-fortress.
- As detailed here, the Order of Our Crystal Lady takes as its charism the protection, education and care of the workers in the 'Dust Zone (what was the mountain region surrounding the Via Imperator, the Emperor's edict long-since ignored or forgotten, became). It participates in Crusades with the Convent Sanctorum and performs specific missions for the Ecclesiarch. It also pursues the inscrutable goals of Verity and works closely with the Inquisition, who find the unique (and inexplicable) ability of Daughters of Verity to neither lie nor be lied to useful.
- Three of my major characters - Canoness Shania, Palatine Alicia and Inquisitor Danforth Laertes - were created by me many years ago (when the first iteration of the Thirteenth Black Crusade was being played out in 3rd edition, since retconned away). Then, my intention had been to have them at the peak of their power and influence during the Black Crusade. Alicia - a loyal follower of Laertes and his lover (yes . . .) - was going to be sacrificed by him in a (fruitless) attempt to kill Abaddon (a anvilicious "the Inquisition are heartlessly pragmatic" moment). That aspect of their relationship was (thankfully!) dropped for the new background, but others remained.
- With the advancement of the timeline, I had decided to have the three of them be the leaders of the Order during the Indomitus Crusade, and place the beginnings of Laertes' and Alicia's (who are contemporaries) careers just before the Thirteenth Black Crusade in 999.M41.
- Danforth is an orphan of the 'Dust Zone of Ophelia VII; his family is not known and (as is the policy) he is adopted into the ruling family and given the family name Laertes. He is taught in the Order's schools but manifests psychic powers when he hits puberty, and a literal witch hunt (with pitchforks and torches) chases him through the streets. He is saved from being burned alive by a Sister of the Order called Shania who (because she cannot be lied to) knows the accusations against him are lies; he is certainly psychic but not in league with dangerous powers. She hands him over to the Arbites who pass him to the Black Ships. En route to Terra, he is recruited by the Inquisition.
- During her first action as a Novice, fighting alongside Blood Angels, all of Alicia's squad and the accompanying Marine squad are wiped out by artillery fire with the exception of her and a veteran sergeant. They fight through the enemy forces (in the original background, this was Slaaneshi Marines and corrupted Sisters - but such things are gratuitous and so that will be changed) but he is grievously wounded protecting her. Rather than allow his geneseed to be lost, he orders her to cut it out of him - but the organic tissue cannot survive outside of statis or a living body. She cuts her own flesh open and puts the progenoids inside her. They do not, of course, turn her into a Space Marine or anything ridiculous - these are progenoids, not implants cultured from them; they simply attach themselves to her bloodstream and draw nourishment from it, keeping themselves alive. But geneseed is more than merely biological - it has a psychic component, especially Blood Angels geneseed. Alicia is wracked by visions and temptations - Black Rage visions of fighting Horus and temptations from Ka'bandha to fall to Chaos in exchange for martial skill. She resists these, fights her way through the lines, and returns the progenoids to the Chapter. However, she remains "touched" by Sanguinius - a significant (perhaps the most significant) saint in the Imperial Cult - and so she quickly rises to a position of both military and spiritual leadership in the Order, becoming a very young member of the Palatine Council.
- Laertes serves as an Interrogator for a number of years, rising to the rank of Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus around the same time Alicia is made a Palatine (to replace Shania who has been appointed Canoness). His first action is to return to Ophelia VII and all-but-confront Shania - he has uncovered evidence which suggests she is his mother.
- Unable to lie and unwilling to be silent, she confirms this. She was raped when a Postulant by an Inquisitor making use of the Order's unique talents. When accused, he fervently denied it, casting Shania as a slut and whore, but the Order's inability to lie or be lied to means they know the truth. The Ecclesiarch - knowing what Daughters of Verity are capable of - sided with the Order and found it politically expedient to go against the Inquisition at that time. The Inquisitor (unable to be brought to trial by anyone other than a fellow Inquisitor) fled Ophelia. Rather than abort the baby, she brought him to term and handed him over to the orphanage.
- (In terms of age, Shania was raped when she was a young Postulant - sixteen - and gave birth to Danforth when she was 17. Danforth and Alicia are around the same age; she was 18 when she fought alongside the Blood Angels and became a Palatine in her mid 20s which was when Danforth became an Inquisitor, making Shania in her early 40s. Such ages are quite young for 40K - although Eisenhorn is described as being in his 40s in Xenos, and he seems to have been an Inquisitor for a while - but this is justifiable if they are exceptional individuals in a small Order.)
- Danforth leaves Ophelia on Inquisition business, taking Alicia and a detachment of Sisters with him. It is during this period that he encounters the Athanasians. (I will probably edit the background so that the suits of armor worn by the renegade Marines are the ancient suits of Custodian armor trapped inside the Crystal Vault, repaired and modified by Verity . . . who has taken a definite interest in Danforth as a son of the 'Dust Zone and one of her Daughters. It may also be good to set this event during the Third War for Armageddon - many Chapters are represented there.)
- During the Thirteenth Black Crusade, Danforth, the Athansians and the Order are tasked by the Ecclesiarch with policing the 'Dust Zone in particular and the Ophelia system in general - with Chaos on the ascendant, cults and subversive organizations have appeared, and it is vital to the Convent Sanctorum's war effort that not only does materiel keep flowing to Sororitas forces on the front lines, but that sabotage and treachery do not occur. They are far away from the fall of Cadia, the Celestinian and Terran Crusades and the rise of the Primarch.
- They are - along with all the forces of the Ophelia system - forced onto the defensive after the appearance of the Great Rift, defending against Chaos armies. An arm of the Indomitus Crusade comes to Ophelia, bringing relief forces and allowing the Sororitas to drive Chaos back.
- The Indomitus Crusade is too large an undertaking to simply be a single force rampaging through the galaxy - it must be a series of smaller actions and armies, multiple campaigns being mounted, running their course and then new armies being raised (the Crusade is canonically stated to last for more than one hundred years - that is four generations of humans, and so there would be Guardsmen fighting in the Crusade whose grandfathers had not been born when it started!)
- News of the Primarch's return comes to Danforth and the Order - both react positively to what he is doing; Danforth is heavily influenced by the outlook of the Order (a reverence for truth as well as compassion and fairness towards regular citizens) and so Guilliman's rejection of cruelty and bureaucracy resonates with them. They join the Crusade, but more focused on investigation of Chaos cults and so forth rather than pitched battles.
- As the Crusade progresses, Verity is seen more and more often - she has now absorbed enough "coils" of the Seraph that she can now act as it acted during the War in Heaven; it is not just a single war machine, but rather a vast construct capable of producing entire armies of robotic warrior constructs, a lynchpin in the war plan of the one who created it. She adopts larger, more fearsome and more monstrous forms in combat, and creates ever-growing phalanxes of metallic soldiery to send against the enemies of Man.
- The Mechanicus of Ophelia have always suspected this was the case, and have been studying Verity warily and from afar since her first appearance. Now, a faction within the Mechanicus (a faction perhaps connected with Cawl, perhaps the Cult of the Dragon, perhaps both) show a significant interest in her.
- Tensions over Verity grow; she and her legions are clearly recognizable as at least related to Necrons, and it becomes increasingly difficult for the Ecclesiarch to defend the Order. Factions of the Inquisition see it as an opportunity to move against Danforth (who also has enemies within the Astartes because of his support for the Athanasians). Mechanicus factions also want to gain access to / possession of Verity (either to destroy, imprison or study and reverse engineer, depending on their philosophy).
- The Metatrix and Seraphim make more and more cryptic pronouncements, and dire warnings are seen in the Emperor's tarot. "The Fingers of the Dragon's Hand reach out. Mag'ladroth is stirring - soon he will wake." Danforth leads his team to investigate and, after piecing together scraps of information, rumor and fragments of records in sealed Inquisition libraries, realizes the truth.
- The Void Dragon of Mars, Mag'ladroth the C'tan, was imprisoned on Mars by the Emperor in eons past and has slumbered in the Noctis Labyrinth for millennia, its dreams influencing the Mechanicum and then Mechanicus of Mars. Legend tells that this star god's created warriors were nigh-invincible and that they could not be defeated, only driven back or imprisoned.
- Mag'ladroth created the Seven Serpents - insanely sophisticated artificial constructs capable of reforming their software into legions of war machines - to serve as both his generals and armies. A Serpent could form itself into a legion of infantry, a battlefleet of void ships, or a single titanic war engine capable of laying waste to entire planets. A fully-functioning Serpent was more than a match for almost any army that could be brought against it, not only because of its power and strength, but also because its single animating intelligence - which grew and learned at a terrifying rate - could react and control its manifold elements in perfect harmony and without hesitation.
- The Seraph of the Crystal Vault of Ophelia was, of course, one of the Serpents - imprisoned there by the Void Dragon's ancient foes. It had not been truly defeated; instead, its programming had been modified so its software was code-locked into the Vault itself. In her lonely battle against it, imbued with the Emperor's power, Verity had sequentially unlocked its coils, defeating each one and bringing its power under the control of her will and personality.
- Another one of the Serpents had been Asirnoth, the great silver wyrm of Medusa. There, the Old Ones had fragmented the Serpent by editing its network protocols, breaking it into hundreds or thousands of smaller, weaker constructs. These were the relic machine-creatures the Primarch Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands Legion defeated in the legendary mythohistories of the Medusan people and Iron Hands Astartes, culminating in his final battle with the central code-fragment of the Serpent, the wyrm Asirnoth, which he defeated by holding it a river of magma.
- The location and status of the five remaining Serpents are unknown; but the cryptic pronouncements (there are five "fingers" on a hand) make it clear they are not destroyed. Likely, they are imprisoned or weakened as Asirnoth and the Seraph were. The risk (and goal of Mag'ladroth's followers) is clear - that the Serpents will be freed and brought together, and that Mag'ladroth will be woken from his prison on Mars.
- And so begins the next phase of the Order's life - supported by Danforth and the Athansians, they (supported by the elements of the Ophelian armed forces - including elements of the Mechanius . . . who they might not entirely trust) set out on a crusade to find and destroy the five remaining Serpents of Mag'ladroth, the Fingers of the Dragon's Hand. Guilliman has announced his triumph at the conclusion of the Indomitus Crusade, but all is not well in the Imperium - Cawl's ambition is worrying, and his eagerness to embrace innovation causes great concern. It is possible he is influenced, or will be influenced, or is influencing, the Cult of the Dragon on Mars - and that they, consciously or not, are working to find and release the Serpents. Cawl or other hereteks like him would want to find the Serpents - to study them and learn their secrets. Perhaps some would be foolish enough to want to release Mag'ladroth, not understanding or caring about the dangers posed.
- Further complicating matters is the arrival of a Primaris Council - a group of 18 Marines (drawn from each of the original Legions) - as tactical advisors to the Order and Danforth. These are a post-Indomitus development - perhaps coming directly from Cawl, but details are fragmentary. The idea is that these Marines will both provide tactical advice and learn from the rest of the Imperial war machine - many such Councils have been sent out. But the concern is that they may be spies for Cawl or Guilliman, and the presence of Traitor geneseed is a grave concern (rumors swirl that Guilliman forbade it, but also that Gulliman allowed it, and the plan of Marines from different geneseed working together to avoid rivalries is entirely in keeping with Gulliman's known-policy of the Unnumbered Sons . . .) The Marines of Primaris Council are beginning to show development of personalities reflecting their Primarchs and Legions . . . something which is really weird, because they weren't raised in that environment, and is it really possible that personality is genetic?
- In addition to all this, of course, are tensions between the various factions who do not understand Verity or who are enemies of Danforth.
So those are ALL the notes to bring the background up to speed. As I said, lots of "spoilers" there - and perhaps some will be edited or changed. What I have tried to do is give a clear mission for the Order, a mission that can bring them into conflict or alliance with anyone or everyone ("there is only war!"), and which isn't likely to conflict with future canon. The various tensions and schisms between the different groups in the Imperium won't contradict any of this - the only thing that could do it is the waking of Mag'ladroth . . . which I don't think is going to happen.
And even if it does it doesn't invalidate the Order's mission of trying to find the Serpents - it just means another method was found to wake the Dragon. Even my seeming hard-and-fast declaration that Mag'ladroth = C'tan = Void Dragon = Dragon of Mars isn't insurmountable if contradicted; "Danforth was wrong".
(It wouldn't be the first time.)
Anyway - lots of notes. Let me know what you think!
=][= Danforth Laertes
