User blog:Stuart1964/New Here

We have been running a ‘homebrew’ Necromunda/40K campaign centered on a group of Inquisitional operatives. Under the supervision of a mysterious patron named Horatio Alexander Romanov Mortis. HARM is a Vostroyan with a strange suspected psychic power making him a daunting asset for Inquisition. Retired now, Broken as a man; he lives on an isolated planet with his scarred cloistered daughter. His organization keeps him as a source of information and wisdom. The players form a body of operatives and agents chosen by HARM for their particular set of skills, and potential.

The geographic focus of the adventures is the planet of Messina in the Thracian Primaris system in the Helican subsystem, Scarus System, Segmentum Obscurus. It is a frontier region out near the Halo Stars, bordering on the Imperium edge of the Eye of Terror. Other than the normal historical schisms and catastrophes that befall a civilization such as the Imperium, the region is moderately peaceful, though close to chaos and marauding greenskins, the Orks. But there is plenty to do for those who work for the Inquisition.

Being retired military (OIF & OEF) I decided to indulge in creative writing to soothe what craziness exists in my mind, and it has helped me dearly. I have a long love of RPG and the world of Warhammer 40K, its rich tapestry of a post science fiction, medieval/feudalistic environment. For our game I gathered information so that the environment was consistent. As to the creative writing efforts, I settled on exploring the life of my wife’s character.

Isamaie is a former orphan who spent the first half of her life in a church orphanage on Messina’s main continent Arcadia. That part of her existence both strengthened her and damaged her in many ways and she will forever be a product of the ‘Schola Progenium.’ Leaving that life she sought her own way with only three identifiable skills: Sneaking, Shooting and Stabbing people. She roamed the dark passages of Rust, a local industrial mega city.

Rust is a kind of flat hive, or perhaps what a hive city looks like in its early stages. At one and a half score years old (30); Isamaie has found herself, not only at the end of her rope, but in a dead end. A letter addressed to her welcomes her into the fold of the Inquisition, a calling she is completely unprepared for. She is tasked to command two other initiates, Notie, a technological savant, with many secrets and a Changeling, half beast half human creature named Shadow-Wise. Shadow-Wise hides his own dark secret, one he hates with all his heart.

I started my first story with the kernel: “This is a story that has a beginning and an end.” And it did, and that story was self-contained, leading to no further adventures by the protagonists. The second started the exploration of Isamaie and her joining the Inquisition. The intent was to explore how out of her league and out of her comfort zone she was. She was living in a new place, with very different people that challenged the very way she looked at her world, and her place inside the Imperium. Also what her life was about.

Formerly she only cared about herself, and making money to survive. The Inquisition’s values are very different and she struggles to adapt. She is also beginning to understand that there are more important things then just surviving, that other people matter and that the Inquisition has a real and serious purpose in defending the Imperium. It maybe that the Inquisition maybe too good a fit for Isamaie; and she may be quite willing to make hard ruthless decisions to uphold her decidedly simple puritan beliefs and deep sense of patriotism.

I’ve completed about a half dozen short stories, adventures with Isamaie and I hope it seems she grows and becomes mature and more confident with each one. In the narrative we see as Isamaie sees and that is not always what those with her, see. She is more ambitious, able and cunning then she gives herself credit for. She is burdened by self-doubt and a lack of self-confidence, feeling she is always one step away from disaster. But she has boundless courage and drive and a love for what she does in her job, protecting her sacred Imperium.