Alyss Reavansmore
Alias: The Black Witch of Gallowglas
Spoiler: Artists Impression
"The Adrantean cause is noble. Doomed, but noble."
Equipment:
Mesh armour under noble gown
Hotshot laspistol
Combat knife.
Nemesis Force stave
Grimoire of True Names
Tarot cards (Decks of both Imperial and Heretics wake)
Threat Rating and Assessment:
Hereticus Majoris. Alyss is an unsanctioned psyker who was rated at Beta+ on capture. Her seemingly non-linear growth in capability, especially the diversity of her powers, indicates that she may be of the rare Mutatis+ class, able to gain competence in diverse disciplines where a sanctioned imperial psychic is restricted to mastery of one. This 'jack of all trades' capability should not be underestimated, and she should be handled with extreme caution. Permission is given for Kill on Sight.
Background:
Born on the Feudal world of Gallowglas, Alyss was always an unlucky child. Her younger years were blighted by vivid night terrors and a feeling that she 'wasn't right'. She was fearful around clergymen and often sickly. But her parents were well off merchants, and were able to hide her condition. As she aged, she realized she was a witch and did her best to hide her burgeoning powers. But she was found by a Witch hunter of the Ordo Hereticus and was dragged to the Black Ships, her parents burnt at the stake and her family home razed. She was bound on the Black Ship Erebus and was to be taken to Terra, a sacrifice for the Golden Throne.
However, fate intervened. A breach in the Gellar field allowed daemons to board the vessel, causing the wards to fail. As the ship descended into insanity, Alyss broke free from captivity and led a riot, using her powerful telekinetic skills to crush a Grey Knight under a bulkhead she had torn lose, stealing his nemesis force stave and his grimoire of true names.
When the ship breached back into reality, it was vomited into the war torn Vorstagg system. Taking to the escape pods, her and a number of other pyskers escaped into the wider system, causing that war to spiral completely out of Imperial control over the course of several hellish years. For several years she worked as a mercenary for warbands, slowly gravitating towards the Girza sector, and the safety of working for powerful chaos warlords who can protect her from those that hunted her. That all went to hell in a handbasket when the chaos forces unwittingly unleashed a powerful daemon from the Imperial World of Kreuzung. The appearance of this monster threw the chaos advance into disarray, killing many potent champions and leaving their warbands in disarray. The Imperium capitalised on this with a counter attack, pounding Kreuzung into damp rumble and killing a large portion of Darza's warhost on the ground. By this point, Alyss had already fled with a reaver pirate force, and soon hijacked the Honourable Traveller alongside the Damned 88th. She would use the Honourable Traveller to slip out of the warzone, and briefly docked at the hive world of Vaxanhive to spend their plunder on contraband weapons, STC template equipment, and colonisation pre-fabs.
Over her life, she has shown powers of a telekinetic, biomancer, telepathic and divinatory nature. Her powers of divination are the least refined, but have given her three dreams from her childhood. One of which has come true already, as her earliest nightmare was of her home burning to the ground. Her second dream was meeting a man clad in black who would change her destiny, and the final dream was of her death, gunned down by a woman wearing the 'I' of the Inquisition with blond hair and a manic grin. . .
While she has served the dark forces of Chaos, she makes clear to any employer that she is not interested in worshipping the Chaos gods, or the Emperor. One particularly enthusiastic Word bearer who tried to convince her otherwise was found ground flat across a kilometer of rockcrete outside Verdakhive, and his screams were said to have lasted days. . .
In many ways, her only objectives are independence, power, knowledge and personal luxury. Her aims are simple: gain control of a voidship, staff it with people loyal to her, fill its holds with supplies, and head as far into wilderness space as she can manage.
Other:
Psychic powers:
Telekinesis: she can generate powerful defensive fields, throw objects (if she focuses, she can toss aside an APC) fly, float and manipulate objects at a distance with a fine touch.
Biomancer: She can fire blasts of lightning, heal her wounds and cause pain in others.
Divination: She has occasional bad feelings about danger, allowing her to avoid traps, and her nightmares and dreams are occasionally prophetic in nature. She can attempt tarot readings, but will only receive very vague insight (at GM discretion)
Telepathy: Can psychically communicate with willing participants. Does not have enough finesse or power to force her way into someone's head or read minds.
Rituals:
Careful study of the Grimoire of True Names has allowed her to piece together several lesser rites, mainly of banishment and warding. She could theoretically summon a lesser daemon with a proper sacrifice, but refuses to on general principles. Several warlords have used her ritual knowledge to protect themselves from psychic scrying however, a ritual she has perfected due to her own paranoia of the Inquisitions agents.
Name: Sarna Astros
Position/rank: Assassin and Scout.
"Death on one side, Damnation on the other. There has to be a third path."
Spoiler: Artists Impression
Weapons: Regis Pattern power sword. This long, curved, two handed weapon can part armour and flesh with equal ease. Two combat knives, two boot knives balanced for throwing, Drukhari needle pistol.
Other: Armoured Bodyglove with integral stealth systems, grip gloves and combat hood. Flugs and photo contacts. Three Flash grenades, three smoke grenades. Gear to make climbing easier, and some thieves tools.
Background: Regis V is a feral world located on the edge of the Ixianad sector, on its Calixis side. The world fell from majesty as an Imperial Civilised world into a decayed state of barbarism sometime just after the Horus Heresy for reasons lost to history, and has stubbornly remained as such for millennia, its hives left to moulder and its technological heritage almost completely forgotten. Local legends speak only in hushed tones of the hubris of its old leaders, the coming of death, and a great silence that descended as a shroud across the world. Imperial archaeologists have uncovered mass graves that must contain billions of souls, but no further clues. The survivors became nomadic horse warriors, only settling in hilltop keeps made from wood and stone. The greatest weapons here are the sword, the crossbow and the spear, with only simple mechanical devices such as windmills for grinding corn and pumping water left to the more settled peoples.
This culture of tough, hardbitten people who valued strength at arms proved invaluable to many Imperial organisations, who have quietly encouraged the state of affairs on Regis V to continue in perpetuity. Two principal organisations recruit from this world: The Adeptus Astartes and the Moritat cults.
No one is quite sure when the Moritats first arrived on Regis, but they now have a firm stake in the lives of its people. Standing apart from the internecine clan warfare, daughters who cannot be cared for are given up to the sisters and raised as assassins for the clans constant warfare. Several technological items have been smuggled onto the world despite Astartes blockades in orbit, and the scattered Moritat hill forts are equipped with advanced training machines and battle servitors, as well as workshops to produce limited quantities of advanced gear. Rumours also abound of hidden facilities, dug into the hills, where dark operations are performed to 'enhance' future Moritats.
Sarna was given up to the sisters at a very young age: she has no memories of her mother or father, though the sisters tell her she is the daughter of a powerful chieftain who was killed by his brother to seize control of his clan. Her mother died of a slow acting poison not long after seeking sanctuary with the Moritats. All she has ever known in the world of the Assassins, training to be the Emperors blade, wishing to become a Reaper, an angel of death made flesh. She has been offworld three times, each time in the company of a full fledged Reaper, so she has been inured to the culture shock of warp travel and visiting more civilised worlds, but she still has not seen much of the wider galaxy. She completed her training less than six months ago, and was released into the wider galaxy to find a suitable master under whom she could continue to hone her skills. She was recently recruited by Inquisitor Feyd Lucullis as he felt that Sarna would be the perfect foil for the Khornate cult he would soon be investigating. Her performance on this mission will determine if she will become a permanent member of the team.
That. . .didn't happen. The mission to Vaxanhive went badly sideways, with heavy casualties and the threat of corruption. While the summoning the team was assembled to stop was prevented, the sacrifice was a temporary loss of memory that meant that Sarna attracted the attention of a daemon known as the 'Red King'. While she resisted its temptations, she still sacrificed to it and its master, and is now bound to it by a thread not easily cut. Realising she was critically compromised and a threat to those around her, she fled the Inquisition and hid in the bowels of Vaxanhive. However, she attracted the attention of an enemy, Anais Svelthopfler. The two had been rivals before, and now they were mortal enemies, Anais determined to earn the favour of the Red King, Sarna desperate to resist it. The two clashed several times, each either winning or losing but neither able to land a decisive blow, until Sarna was badly injured and forced to hide in a shipping container. Ironically, or perhaps darkly fortuitously, this container was sent to the Eudaimonia and Sarna was found by Alyss. The two quickly formed a working relationship, Sarna becoming Alyss shadow, And Alyss working on severing the ties the daemon had to Sarna's soul.
Apart from her sublime skill with the blade and her abilities as infiltrator, Sarna is also a very capable mimic and user of disguises. With a few hours of observation she can imitate local customs and accents near flawlessly, a surprising aptitude for a Moritat but one her teachers where quick to cultivate as useful to an Assassin. Working with Alyss has only caused her to hone these abilities, as few suspect renegades or chaos cults to use something as subtle as an assassin once battle is joined.
Originally Posted by dakkagor
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