They may not be Astartes or Inquisitors, but they're still not something most Imperial citizens (be they rebels or not) want to be on the wrong side of.
If you’re an average Imperial citizen and Arbites are rolling out from their Precinct Fortress (let alone if they’re rolling out in force) suffice to say it might be the worst day of your life, and perhaps the end of your way of life as you know it, as something has gone wrong – and that’s if you’re a bystander.
God-Emperor help you if you’re their target.
Originally Posted by Salroka
If you or someone else wants to help me figure out a decent backstory and explanation for him being there, I would appreciate it. As I said, I know a fair bit of lore but have never actually played a game beyond the 40k Inquisitor game on Xbox One.
Yeah, happy to help – and I’m sure the rest of the folks will also gladly offer their own thoughts, and they’re going to have some excellent perspectives.
My suggestion would be to keep your character as who they are as a person at the core of what you create, as the 40k flavoring can always come after. In my opinion, the greatest things about character / world building in 40k is that there’s room for almost anything to be valid (there are comparatively few this cannot happen, or it can only be this way bright lines of canon) as so much of the lore is inspired by / blatantly stolen from world history and other art media, that you almost can’t go wrong.
For example, and keeping with the Arbites, while they’re (quite explicitly) wearing their Judge Dredd inspiration on their sleeve, and while it’s an excellent baseline and inspiration, you’re not obliged to have your Arbite as a carbon copy of Dredd, down to having Karl Urban’s marvelous range in scowls - unless you want that for your character. Which, well, not a bad trait to have in the slightest.
Jarm’s Glabrio Hybrida (Arbite turned Interrogator, who your character will meet on Tranch) was was introduced like this…which immediately set the tone that he wasn’t of the Dredd mold – although, for all the jellybeans / jokes / skirt chasing, he’s as serious business as any Arbite.
Now on a foundational, nuts and bolts level, as a character in the service of an Imperial Adeptus organization? Your character was almost certainly educated and raised by the Imperium itself, through the Schola Progenium (usually shorthanded to the Schola) which, in broad terms, boarding school / orphanage which ensures – courtesy of the drill abbots (former military turned priest) and “retired” personnel from Adeptus’) the future servants of the Imperium (either in the redundantly multitudinous and often redundant bureaucracy, or military service branches) have a roughly standardized education and indoctrination, as in the majority of cases the point is made an Adeptus representative never serves on the world they were born, so there’s no conflicts of interest in their service to the Imperium.
Exceptions, of course, always exist (most notably in this narrative, Arcolin DeRei, and it ended…poorly) as with the Imperium, human errors and hypocrisy run rampant – and while nominally, the majority of the students (Progenii) are orphans of those killed in Imperial service, it’s not uncommon at all for the superfluous spares of nobility to be “volunteered”, or even genuine cases of children volunteering – and the schola’s themselves have been described from highly strict and structured boarding schools, to frankly nonsensical nightmare torture prisons - so while there’s this almost “this is the way” boundary, there’s plenty of room to creatively maneuver, and have a satisfying rich character background.
In regards to Arbites and how they function, broadly speaking, they’re the conspicuous reminder (from the lowliest mutant to the planetary governor) that the Imperium is present, and always watching. They do not, as a matter of SOP, have non-official interactions with the local population or rely on where they’re stationed for any of their supplies. No sympathy for the starving commoners they’re truncheoning for threatening the Munitorum representatives who’ve taken their grain to feed the crusade half a sector away. No hesitation when investigating a noble household for seditious conspiracy, because they’ve generously funded – “out of civic virtue” - the Arbitrator’s newest patrol Rhinos.
Loyalty to the Emperor and Terra alone.
Now when the excrement hits the oscillator and the Pax Imperialis is threatened, the Adeptus Arbites handle it in either of two ways: ruthlessly charge out and suppress the threat to Imperial rule, and if that fails – or that’s how rapidly the situation deteriorated – they hunker down, refuse to surrender, and die to the last either protecting the loyalist regime / defying and occupying the enemy while (hopefully) the Imperium receives word of the precarious situation, and sends relief or plans a Reconquista.
Unfortunately for the Arbites in Adrantis, the Patriots were exceptionally well disciplined and organized (not a surprise, as their independence ideology originated in the local Navy Battlefleet) and methodical in preparing the groundwork for the revolution over a couple decades, which caught the Arbites wholly by surprise – which was briefly shown in an excerpt from Penitence:
Spoiler: Patriots target the Adeptus Arbites
On the subsector capital of Tephaine, marshal Rabban of the adeptus arbites barked for an update from his senior judges. Rabble-rousers had suddenly spawned all over the streets, unfurling seditious banners and shooting off improvised fireworks, and the fully-deployed arbites had been forced to call in support from the local PDF.
“Marshal!” an adjutant suddenly bawled from near the window. “You have to come and see this!”
Spitting curses, Rabban stalked over to the balcony and dug his hands into the granite bannister. He was just in time to see a fireball mushrooming from one of the slum districts below Ravensbrook. That was where zeta and kappa squads had been called to respond to the urban riots.
Looking towards the main street that sloped down from the precinct house into the city proper, Rabban’s mouth fell open in horror. Black patrol rhinos and arbiters on foot were skidding and slewing back towards the fortress, all unit cohesion abandoned. They were under fire - from a squadron of PDF chimeras that were pursuing them up the highway. Rabban saw an arbites rhino blow apart, shards of metal tumbling out of the chasing fire wash.
“Man the walls!” the marshal roared. “Order every drill abbott and intelligence officer to arm up immediately!”
He could hear chanting, cheering. Crowds of Tephaini citizens were pouring into the streets and running heedlessly after the treacherous PDF, shouting “Adrantis!” and “Freedom!” and “For the Emperor!”
The last one in particular made Rabban’s blood boil.
Through the rising smoke, Rabban could see the inquisition fortress on Gorebridge Height, bathed in the rocket flare of orbital landers as they screeched down towards it. The landers bore the insignia of governor Tierce’s Nebula corps.
In regards to how the takedown of the Arbites garrisoned on Tranch, where your character would be coming in, its fair to say it might’ve gone down similar – although, what with Tranch having much more mutation than the average hive world, it stands to reason mutants might’ve played an outsized role – which could be another layer in how interesting it is for your character live amongst (and only because of) mutants who are loyal to the Imperium…which is the same Imperium which would’ve had your Arbite and his now deceased comrades cull them as routine purge without thought or question.
EDIT - whoops, ninja’d by Paint’s excellent and comprehensive post!
In terms of broad strokes, your character would likely:
Be an orphan, or possibly left at the doorstep of a church, or “donated” by a noble family with too many inheritors
Be from one of the worlds in the Adrantis subsector other than Tranch (the hive worlds Tephaine and Baraspine are good candidates, though really any of the Adrantean worlds could work)
Been heavily indoctrinated with “copaganda”, though their lived experience may have changed them
Have been assigned to hive Fornax, one of the mega-cities on the hive world of Tranch
Be familiar with the local police force, the Krypteia - they are funded by the hive oligarchs, wear red full-body armour, and generally carry stubguns with rubber bullets, teargas grenades and swords
Have witnessed the Patriot uprising in which most of their fellow arbitrators were killed, along with other bastions of imperial control. They would know that it was clearly long-planned, well-executed and subject to collusion up to the highest level of Adrantean military and government.
Have ended up in the Soot Warren mining camps outside the hive, where they would have been found and sheltered by a group of loyalist mutant workers under the leadership of sister Lila, an undercover sororita disguised as a mutant.
The “loyal roaches” as Lila’s men call themselves have a surprising number of connections and informers in Fornax midhive (beggars, slaves, prostitutes and the like), though without access to astropaths they have been unable to smuggle any of their gathered intelligence offworld.
It is currently winter on Tranch, and the weather alternates between dirty snow and freezing rain.
Last edited by Azazeal849; 05-28-2023 at 07:47 AM.
Much appreciated, both of you. That information will help a lot.
Spoiler: Neat Stuff Within
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Spoiler: Character Power Tiers!
Tier 1: Basic Humans. Minimally trained. Think a bar fight or back-alley brawl.
Tier 2: Trained Warriors. Skilled and equipped with weapons. Think Samurai or Grunt Soldiers
Tier 3: Elite Fighters. Powerful Characters that have access to high-tech attacks or simple magic.
Tier 4: This is where basic humans rarely tread. At this level, magic and high tech stuff is common
Tier 5: Characters at this level are capable of causing high damage to their surroundings.
Tier 6: Fights between players of this level may damage or destroy most unfortified buildings
Tier 7: Battles between characters may result in a destroyed city or two.
Tier 8: Long-term damage to the planet that is fought upon is not beyond possibility.
Tier 9: Goku, Superman, Galactus, Doomsday, Hulk, Etc.
I would rather have a russet coated Captain who knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than he who calls himself a gentleman and is but little else
-Oliver Cromwell
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
-John Stuart Mill
There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.
-Sun Tzu
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
-Euripides
It seems like such a terrible shame that innocent civilians have to get hurt in wars, otherwise combat would be such a wonderfully healthy way to rid the human race of unneeded trash.
-Fred Woodworth
It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
-Thomas Jefferson
If a man dedicates his life to good deeds and the welfare of others, he will die unthanked and unremembered. If he exercises his genius bringing misery and death to billions, his name will echo down through the millennia for a hundred lifetimes. Infamy is always more preferable to ignominy.
-Fabius Bile
Spoiler: Thoughts of the day
A broad mind lacks focus.
A questioning servant is more dangerous than an ignorant heretic
A small mind is easily filled with faith.
A warrior's faith in his commander is his best armour and his strongest weapon.
Adamantium walls and plasteel bulkheads may seem formidable, but an unshakable faith in the Immortal Emperor of Man can overcome any barriers.
An Empty Mind Is A Loyal Mind
An open mind is like a fortress with its gate unbarred and unguarded.
Better crippled in body than corrupt in mind.
Consider the Predator. Let your soul be armoured with Faith, driven on the tracks of Obedience which overcome all obstacles, and armed with the three great guns of Zeal, Duty and Purity.
Facts are chains that bind perception and fetter truth. For a man can remake the world if he has a dream and no facts to cloud his mind.
Faith without deeds is worthless.
Happiness is a delusion of the weak
Forgiveness is a sign of weakness.
He who lives for nothing is nothing. He who dies for the Emperor is a hero.
If a man dies that another should live, that man's spirit shall eat at the Emperor's table
Innocence proves nothing
It is better to die for the Emperor than to live for yourself.
Leniency is a sign of weakness!
Mercy is a sign of weakness.
No man that died in the Emperor's service died in vain.
Nobody is innocent, there are merely varying levels of guilt.
Only in death does duty end.
Only the insane have strength enough to prosper. Only those who prosper may truly judge what is sane.
Pain is an illusion of the senses, despair an illusion of the mind
Purge those who are unclean.
Sometimes the good must perish so that the rest survive. The lot of courage is to be sacrificed upon the altar of battle.
Survival is no birthright, but a prize wrested from an uncaring galaxy by forgotten heroes.
The common man is like a worm in the gut of a corpse, trapped inside a prison of cold flesh, helpless and uncaring, unaware even of the inevitability of its own doom.
The Emperor will not judge you by your medals and diplomas but by your scars.
Though silver in your palms weighs light
Compared to death by blast and sword,
Do not shy the hopeless fight,
For endeavour is its own reward.
Belongs in the 40K discussion thread, but I will admit that some of those were entertaining.
As some of the threads have advanced into C3, I have posted the relevant Imperial and Patriot interludes to give additional context. Thanks to PaintSerf for proof-reading and suggestions!
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