Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-27830834-20180707190947/@comment-27830834-20180708183949

The Adjutant withdraws a control-wand from his belt, images snapping to life on the wall behind him. With a flick of his wrist, a flares into existence behind him.

"This," He gestures with the wand. "Is the Cancridrean Periphery, last gasp of a failed Crusade extended by some six-hundred years now. Isolated, insular, and now poised on the brink of all-out civil war thanks to this little shit."

He flicks his wrist again and the image shifts to a somewhat grainy pict of a handsome young man barely into his twenties, stepping out of an auto-carriage on some unknown street corner. The carriage bears a distinct coat-of-arms on its side: that of a rearing caprid creature on a bronze background.

The Adjutant continues. "This is Tiresias van Dragen, descendant of the late Warmaster Aloysius van Dragen, and heir to the seat of the Sector Governor. The only problem? Everyone hates him. Not his fault mind you; the van Dragens as a whole haven't been popular with the Periphery's commonwealth since they managed to frag up an entire Imperial Crusade back in M40. That's why their entire regime is propped up by a group calling themselves the Chartist Houses."

The image shifts once more. this time a bit harder to follow. You see satellite images of roving fleets, strange heraldic symbols depicting coins, scepters, roses, and other less identifiable marks, and several picts of individuals clad in garish robes shaking hands and exchanging currency.

"In reality, they're just five different faces of the same merchant cartel and are about as corrupt and plutocratic as they come, but they keep the Sector economy in peak shape and pay their tithes on time, so we leave well enough alone." The scowl in the Adjutant's voice seems to deepen. "Unfortunately, sometime in the past few years young Tiresias went and caught a nasty case of idealism and is now trying to do the unthinkable; he's trying to legitimize his family's position."

Another pict, this time of a young woman, dressed in all the finery of spire heiress.

"This is Lorenna Beyale, oldest daughter of the other piranhagator in the pond, the Beyale dynasty, and Tiresias' new fiance. Now, the Beyales are a lot like the Van Dragens, except they actually have the power and influence to back up their pedigree. That's one of the reasons why the Van Dragens hate them. So, naturally, when these two eloped, everyone from the Chartists to their own parents wanted their heads on a platter."

The Adjutant pauses for a moment, staring directly at you all. "If you're thinking this is all beginning to sound like the plot of a two-throne romance rag, you're not far off the mark. But trust me, it gets worse. Days after the happy couple's impromptu honeymoon, the two of them disappeared, just vanished right off the face of the galaxy, and now our informants in the field are telling us that this gentleman here is harboring them."

A new image: a mugshot, likely taken in an Adeptus Arbites precinct. The convict in question in a slab-jawed, shaven-headed brute of a man, his grinning face marked with gnarled scars and both arms almost black with strange, woad-like tattoos that form a twisting labyrinth of ink.

"Meet Caddoc, known on the streets as Caddoc the Cleaver; crime lord, cold trader, suspected xeno-heretic, and member of the Caebolg Syndicate. He's the reason why we're getting involved."