News:

Cammerz brings us some fantastically painted and customised Alpha Legion. Check out their work with detail shots and design insight.

Main Menu

The Angels Descendant

Started by Chris, September 01, 2013, 08:17:54 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Chris

So, my Chapter "Knights of Ophar" just isn't panning out, I've dropped that, and started something new.

A red sun rose over the dry and barren horizon. The sky split red and orange with atmospheric gases and ozone tore a stark contrast between the dust and clay of the ground. Sun baked days and tundra like nights had radically transformed the planet that had once been home to billions of people. It had started with the air becoming sharp, with every breathe it felt like a knife was being forced down your throat, it was cold and metallic tasting. Eventually people had taken to wearing masks filled with sweet aromas assuming it was something poisonous the god's had filled the air with. Fearing their wrath, the people had offered sacrifices, to start with crops were burned, it wasn't long until animals were being slaughtered on massive pyres. After a few months and thousands of livestock and cattle, it became evident that either gods had not been appeased or they didn't exist. The population was split down the two, one half turned to greater heights of blood lust and began offering human sacrifices, and the other rejected the existence of the gods.

As the years went by, the population was radically decreased. Situations seemed to get worse, the sky was blotted out by heavy dark clouds shrouding the suns and stars. There was no light to be found anywhere, and then the dreams started. Initially it was just the elders, but before long young boys and middle aged men alike were reporting of having had dreams of visceral and bloody nature. Murder broke out and bodies were left rotting on the roads. Civilisation broke down and things that once were, became no longer. The human population has devolved to a feral and brutal state where the strong ruled and the weak were killed.

A rumour began to circulate, initially just across the plains nation. Then the mountain people took a hold of it until eventually everyone on the planet had heard about it. A meteor had fallen from the skies and embedded itself in the depths of the marshlands. People flocked there believing it was finally a sign from the gods. Finally their punishment was at an end, finally their sins had been atoned. The zealots flocked to the 'shrine' and continued to offer sacrifices, initially it seemed to work. The clouds that had enveloped the skies began to break and weak light began to fall through and illuminate small areas. Seeing this as a further sign, the zealots began to build further shrines in these locations. Blood continued to flow until eventually there were only a few thousand people left. Feudal tribes formed as people grouped together for security, weapons such as guns and explosives had long since ran out, fuel and black powder was a greatly sought after commodity. Simple swords and spears were the common weapon of choice and a form of resistance grew against the zealots.
Decades following the forming of the militias, an army was mustered between the tribes and they sought to cleanse the marshes of the zealots. Initially the militias had met with great success, however, reports of creatures fighting alongside the zealots were filling the men with fear. Monsters made of blood and fury would rampage and slaughter many men before eventually they could either be cut down, or they would simply disappear in smoke. It was during one of the largest of these engagements that the militias were being hard pressed. Whilst they outnumbered the zealots, they were afraid and lacked the stomach to continue the fight. The creatures had taken to many brothers and sons and now they were looking set to destroy the remnants of the militia's army. Zealots were throwing themselves against the spears of the enemy, as they died things would erupt from their chests grab those that had killed them, dragging them into a dark abyssal rift in the air. As the final motions of the battle were being played out, the commander of the Militia's army sighted an object falling from the skies. He remarked it looking like an angel sent from above. Those around him looked up and saw black figures falling through the holes in the clouds. It looked as if the sky itself was falling. Filled with mixed senses of fear and hope, the militia fought harder in the hope that reinforcements had finally come to their aid from somewhere. Steeling themselves against their worst nightmares, they pressed on into the enemy ranks, swords rising and falling as they made their way to one of the objects which had landed nearest. As they drew closer, they were made aware of the smell of cordite, the sound of loud barks and the crump of explosions. The smell of blood filled the air and all around there were bodies of dead zealots. The militia continued deeper towards the sound of bloodshed. Eventually they could see giants striding through the ranks of the nightmarish creatures where they walked, death followed. These were mighty warriors and the men remembered the exclamation of their commander that the falling figured had resembled the mythic Angels. With the aid of these giants, the militias were victorious and the swamp lands were eventually cleansed of the cancer like zealot people. The shrines were toppled and destroyed beyond repair, at the end of the campaign in the swamps, the Commander of the militia's armies met with one of the giants. Upon looking at them, words failed and all that he could verbalise was a simple question. "Are you Angels?" a wry spread on the face of giant. He was truly massive, standing a good extra half height above any warrior of the militia's armies, they towered over anyone near. The smile turned into a chuckle and the giant replied "We are the Angels Descendant and your world of Dacia is under our watch now".



The room was dark. Only a pale green light from the cogitator screen illuminated the desk, paper and Trans-files littered the table and an amasac decanter stood in a corner with a glass. An ash tray doubled up as a paper weight sat on a pile of paper with the smoke rising from a cigar sat in it. A silhouette sat in the chair behind the desk, he was all but completely hidden. The green light shone off his teeth and eyes, giving of an unnerving and intimidating image.

Jaques stumbled into the room clutching a data slate. "My Lord Inquisitor, I have compiled the information you requested on the 'Angels Descendant'. It isn't much, but it's all I could find in the given time". Jaques was nervous, a cool bead of sweat dripped down his back and his hands were clammy, for some reason, Inquistor Draxon always had this effect on him. "Begin" came the response from behind the desk. The cigar was now being held between a green tinted set of teeth. Smoke curled up and twisted around Draxon's face before it dispersed.
"My Lord, The 'Angels Descendent ' are a chapter of Adeptus Astartes who find home in the Segmentum Obscuras on the planet of Dacia. They were born during the eighteenth founding, although not much is known about this process due to an unnatural amount of administration errors."

"Their parent chapter is unknown, amongst the myriad errors with the administration, it appears that geneseed from both the Imperial Fists and the Raven Guard. Both gene seeds are used by the Chapter, but a rigorous screening and recruitment process takes place to ensure that that the geneseed used is of maximum efficiency."

"Hold..." Draxon's voice cut through the drawl of Jaques his voice dripped with authority. "Are you telling me that these Astartes have been serving the Imperium for this long, and this is the first time the Inquisition has heard about their problematic founding?".... Draxon looked pensive for a moment, his eyes glazed as he was lost in his own thoughts for a moment. He took a long swig of liquor from his glass before setting it down precisely. "Continue" he said after a moment. 

Jacques looked flustered by the interruption and he returned to his data slate, trying to find his place.
The fighting style is an interesting one. It appears that both the Imperial Fists and the Raven Guards parent traits are present in the chapter. Following extensive observation of combat recordings battle reports, it would appear that on landing in a theatre of war, the Angels Descendant split into two separate forces. One forms a semi mobile fire base whilst the other undertakes a covert process of infiltration and subterfuge. The second element is formed of assault and close support units while the first is more heavily armed units and vehicles. These two elements work in tandem as the covert assault element works to push the enemy towards the heavy guns of the fire base, once they are caught in the cross fire, nothing can withstand their volleys. This method has seen great effectiveness in many campaigns, liberating worlds from the archenemy and the green menace.
My Lord, here ends my report." Jacques lowered his data slate and looked at Draxon. He was desperate for some sense of approval, but none would come. "Dismissed" came the response from over the desk. By now, Inquisitor Draxon had his boots rested on the edge of the table and his cigar was almost burned to embers. Jacques turned a swiftly walked out the room leaving the Lord Inquisitor Draxon to his musings.   

Chris

A small update...
    The Intrepid Endeavour was a grand ship. She had seen a great many centuries of warfare and, she had racked up plenty of kills herself. However, sheer ferocity and fire power wasn't the Intrepid Endeavour's strongest feature. Her speed and agility was what made her the ruthless killer that she was. Able to outrun and outmanoeuvre most other ships of her build, she was like a sea predator slipping between the waters hunting for her prey. At the helm of this great ship was Captain Master Lokos. A Terran born man of two hundred years, he had captained the Intrepid Endeavour for one and a half of those. Under his stern leadership, the ship and her crew and found a place serving Lord Inquisitor Draxon. Word had reached Lokos of a new destination. Draxon had ordered a change of course following a series of reports from his acolytes. The order had gone through the chain and the Intrepid Endeavour had begun to turn. Her ancient hull creaking as the stresses and strains pulled her about. The ship was getting ready to make a warp jump, they were heading for the Segmentum Obscuras.

Inquisitor Draxon sat forwards, poring over his desk. Rubbing his temples he returned to his file. Somehow this just wasn't adding up. The administratum were renowned throughout the Inquisition for being awful. Glitches and mistakes were common place in almost all procedures. But the founding of a Chapter was overseen by the High Lords of Terra themselves. With the amount of pressure that would have been breathing down the administratum' neck it should have been almost impossible for a mistake of this scale to have been made. A knocking on the steel door interrupted Draxon's thoughts. "Enter" he called as he sat back in his chair and refilled his glass with more amasec. The door hissed open and a tall man stood there. He was dressed in Carapace armour and had a las pistol strapped to his leg. Tores had always been a big man, as a kid he had been bullied for being freakishly tall, he had found his place in Draxon's retinue. Here he had a purpose, here he was home. "Sir, I have the report on the Angels's Descendant's commanders, shall I begin?" Draxon took a swig of his drink and grimaced, the smoky taste burned a little as he swallowed, and it was delicious. He nodded as he lifted his boot heels to rest on his desk. Tores stood to attention with hands locked behind his back. "Sir, I have ordered these in order of greatest potential interest to you. I will begin with one known as 'The Bear'. Captain Crastus Stayne of the Third Battle Company received his nick name following an engagement on Tarsk. It was a formerly Imperial world which had fallen to the taint of Chaos. By the time the Angels Descendant had reached it, warp storms writhed around the world and a rift between the empyrean and real space had opened. Deamons of the warp were pouring in. The Angels prepared to drop immediately and they launched a purge against anything that moved on Tarsk. After a week of lightning engagements and skirmishes with high casualties on either side, Stayne ambushed a group of heretical cultists. They slaughtered the humans, but as they died a huge beast climbed out of the corpse of one of the cultists. Reports state that Crastus charged the beast with his Powerfist. The beast reacted and pinned him to the ground. Stayne's fire team reacted and began pouring fire into the beast to seemingly no effect. It was at this point that the beast plunged its hand deep into Stayne's chest. Bravo team were eventually able to bring their Heavy Bolter to bear against the beast. As they continued to pour fire into the beast, it turned and with what could only be described a laugh, it disappeared in a wisp of smoke. Crastus was retrieved by his fire team and given up to the Chapters Apothecarion and the Angels Descendant declared the planet of Tarsk beyond redemption and ordered planet killer shells to be fire at the world. Months later in the Apothocary, Crastus Stayne awoke. The Chapter's surgeons had done an incredible work and Stayne was deemed physically fit to return to duty. However due to the means of injury, Crastus had to undergo testing by the Librarius to ensure he hadn't been tainted by his touch with the warp beast. He passed every test with flying colours. Upon returning to duty, Crastus showed increased levels of brutality and had even been reported to roar at his foes. It is to this end that he has since become known as 'The Bear' and he has adopted the emblem of a Bear's foot print as his personal heraldry."
Inquisitor Draxon held up his hand to pause Tores. "You are right, that is very interesting. If this report is to be believed, this 'Captain Stayne' could still harbour some form of warp taint. That is the only explanation to his recent changes, not to mention the alleged response of the beast that so crippled the Captain. I need to question this man myself. Continue Tores"   

Thantos

Nice going and solid writing. I find it much easier to spare the time to read these 1k word chunks rather than a wall of text in one go :D

QuoteThe population was split down the two,
Quote"Are you Angels?" a wry spread on the face of giant

^ Two bits that may be typo-ed or missing a word?

Good luck expanding it more ;D


Chris

Hmmmm... For some reason it appears that Copy and Paste doesn't catch everything... Looking at my original and those two cases aren't typos....

Silly windows 8.