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Lovedagger

2016-11-22T14:50:26Z

2600:1006:B123:8848:0:17:ABFC:A401: /* Imperial Guard */

'''Lovedagger''' is an alternate universe version of the Warhammer franchise that was aimed at the stereotypical female geek instead of the male kind.

Lovedagger is Warhammer, classical romance, and women's literature meeting midway, with the focus on big battles featuring heavy metal riffs replaced by backstabbing intrigue where elegantly-dressed hunks stare contemptuously at each other as they vie for the affections of a demure lady of quality, while a soft orchestral score plays in the background.

In a theoretical, alternate universe a British company called "Games Kitchen", makers of expensive dolls and girls' boardsgames, originally created the Lovedagger Fantasy universe as a setting for novels and roleplaying games in an attempt to market and appeal to fantasy loving women (designing it based on the themes and aesthetic of fantasy literature and other works of art popular with them). Proving wildly successful, the setting quickly spawned a more popular offshoot in the gothic science fiction universe of Lovedagger 40K, as well as numerous additional roleplaying games, book series', a relatively unpopular miniature wargame ("Lovedagger Tactics") and a vast amount of expensive merchandise. As the years passed, the setting evolved with young women's tastes and now caters equally to fans of romantic fantasy, anime, vampire love stories and video games. While the Lovedagger settings are torn by war and strife, these are not directly at the focus of the experience. Rather, war serves as a background for the personal dramas and tragedies involving exceptional individuals.

The main difference between Warhammer and Lovedagger isn't in atmosphere or aesthetic, but in focus. Lovedagger isn't a wargame, and it isn't about the physical act of war. It is a subtler, more aesthetic, more elegant universe which focuses on personal and interpersonal drama, especially of a tragic and/or romantic type. Its main imperial heroes aren't beefy alien smashers or tactically brill won't commissars - they are ambitious yet flawed nobles entangled in forbidden trysts and tempted into ruin by the seductive, beautifully terrible Dark Powers.

== Lovedagger Fantasy ==

=== Empire ===

With less of an aesthetic emphasis on war and death and more on courtly intrigue and romance, the gritty-dirtiness of medieval Germany gives place to the grandeur and extravagance of Imperial Austria. The Empire is an anachronism anyway - there's no reason its architecture and fashions shouldn't be based on 18th or even 19th century central Europe, even if its military technology remains unchanged (or even without it. The effectiveness of weapons on the tabletop has always been pretty arbitrary, and steam tanks don't make sense anyway. They might make even more sense in a society that might've feasibly invented the hot air balloon (can you say airships? Because I think airships fit in).

That isn't to say that in Lovedagger Fantasy the Empire doesn't have its share of blood and gunpowder soaked battlefields, rat-infested sewers or filthy back alleys, it's just that the drama focuses on the fabulous palaces. If anyone does fighting "on-camera", it's less likely to be in ranks of muskets and more likely to be a handsome, swashbuckling prince swinging off the chandelier with a rapier in hand and a belt of (ornate) pistols.

The Empire was founded by a woman known as Sigrun Liebendolch. Sigrun was the beautiful barbarian maiden wedded as a young teen to one of the region's warlords. He was a brave, honorable men, and she truly loved him, but she also knew that his obsession with honor and glory made him too violent. Like the other warlords who ruled humanity back then, he couldn't make allies or unite tribes because everyone was always busy going to Valhalla. The Lovedagger was a wedding gift from the elves, a beautiful little blade that promised to fulfill one's heart's desires, but at the cost of that which is most dear to them. Understanding the meaning of this, Sigrun killed her beloved husband and, with her own wisdom and compassion, managed to unite the warring tribes into one powerful empire, which she ruled for a time before sorrow overcame her and she killed herself using the very same Lovedagger.

=== Bretonnia ===

Bretonnia, meanwhile, to balance out on the Empire becoming more outwardly elegant and "sophisticated" (you know, the nobles all wear beautiful masks while they stab each other in the back, and they use poisoned knives instead of swords), goes full hard Mists of Avalon/Arthurian Paganism. The Lady of the Lake and her Damsels become even more central to the drama (if not necessarily the culture), and the land takes on a less "shit-covered middle ages" and more "French Fairy Tale" feeling. The knights are actually handsome and chivalrous, but tend to fall prey to their own passions (Pendragon style) and get themselves killed off on fits of romantic madness. The peasants are still probably generally fucked up, but aren't all to the last one a bunch of illiterate, hopeless, inbred mutants. Hope and perseverance against impossible odds (especially socially) are key elements of the genre. In Lovedagger, it's hard but not impossible for a peasant who is brave and true and virtuous to achieve great things, and possibility earn a knighthood. It's also not impossible for a knight to remove "his" helmet and reveal they were a woman the whole time, of course. A Joan D'Arc equivalent figure is an absolute must. In terms of religion, maybe go as far with the pagan elements as to make the Lady of the Lake a tripartite goddess

=== Kislev ===

Is controlled from behind the scenes by a Baba-Yaga stand-in. It's also got a Tzarina, all-female spellcasters, and gorgeous fur coats.

=== Stuff ===

Sigrun of the Lovedagger, the first Empress, was the archetypal Maiden: young, passionate, merciful, but ultimately driven to ruin because of love and sorrow - dying and (thus, in a way) remaining eternally young.
The Lady of the Lake is the Mother of Brettonia: overbearing and terrible, but also nurturing and protective. The health and fertility of Brettonia literally flows from her.
Kislev should have a central character standing in for Baba Yaga as the Crone - cruel and incomprehensible, but also wise. This Baba Yaga figure is probably an ultimate death monster on the tabletop, but more often appears in the (far more popular) RPG and novels as a mentor/adviser/trickster, as in Slavic myth.

== Lovedagger 40000 ==

In the cold darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only sorrow. Her Exalted Majesty the Empress has lain in deathless sleep for 10,000 years, frozen in a coffin of gold and crystal provided by Horus' final act of love, surrounded by blood-red roses and vigilant knights. In her slumber, the Imperia has fallen into chaos: treachery, sorrow, and forbidden desire are the rule of the day, and the Space Marines, brave men and women, pure of heart and shaped by the Empress' mercy into living weapons, barely hold back the forces of darkness - from without, as well as from within their tortured hearts. The proud but indomitable orks carve a trail of destruction through space, and the servants of chaos - shaped by dark powers into terrible and beautiful forms - spread pain wherever they go. - The OP Post

=== Imperia ===

The aesthetic of the Imperium changes. Warhammer is visually inspired a great deal by heavy metal culture, which appeals to male geeks, but it less popular with the female ones. Catholic/Gothic elements absolutely remain, but industrial ones become a lot more subdued. Imperial architecture, technology and cybernetics look a lot more organic, possibly Giger-esque (inspired by the visuals of the manga BLAME!). Skull imagery is replaced with rose imagery (to fit with the Empress' story).

Imperial technology is heavily based on nanotech, but it is poorly understood and regarded with spiritual reverence. The nanomechanical fluid is symbolic of the blood and water which are central to female-centric spirituality. As such, the Mechanicus now focus their worship on the black liquid "Sang Mechanica", which drives a lot of their machines. STC's are now womb-like in function, literally "growing" objects within the Sang Mechanica. Rather than becoming hideously deformed with obvious robot parts, the Mechanicus inject themselves with the Sang to attain longevity oneoness with technology. This makes them look like implant-less Borg, with pale, darkly veined skin and glowing eyes. Since they view themselves as "hideous" (in best trashy teengirl romance tradition) they hide their deformity under beatific porcelain masks and elaborate hoods. Also fitting with the themes of Lovedagger, they are no longer as machine-like in behavior - rather than replacing parts of their brain with computer, they merely augment it to Mentat-like ability while retaining emotional capacity. They do STRUGGLE to be wholly logical and passionless, but their struggle is spiritual, not neurological. They occasionally falter, and suffer from great internal anguish as a result.

The Imperia's signature weapon, rather than being the brutal and industrial looking bolter, is called the javel. It fires tiny, homing, explosive-tipped micromissiles which have a less gory effect than bolters, emphasizing both the facts that the Imperia is (a tiny little bit) more about accuracy than power compared to the Imperium and that their technological shtick is nanomechanics. Space Marine javels are fully automatic and considerably bulkier (though still very slick compared to the boxlike bolters), while inquisitors carry ornate, oversized "javel revolvers" which are not automatic but can fire a variety of specialized, large caliber round (including one which bursts in a shotgun-like fashion and releases a half dozen smaller, homing javel darts). Since conflict in Lovedagger tends to be subtler and more nuanced than in the Warhammer setting, these weapons are ideal for inquisitors whose needs might include such things as taking their enemies alive, neutralizing escaping targets, or fighting in enclosed environments.

The Imperial Guard still uses flashlights, because guardsmen who wouldn't die just aren't real guardsmen, in any universe.

==== The Empress ====

The Empress is less of a warrior king and more of a universal mother figure, wise, loving and all-nurturing. Her story focuses on the tragic aspects of her work: despite her love for all humanity, she was forced to commit terrible deeds and it burdened her soul. She was in love with Horus and when he betrayed her (because she chose duty to humanity as a species rather than her love for him personally), it was the grief that broke her, not the rage. Yet, after striking her down, filled with remorse, Horus decided to give her parting gift before leaving for the Eye of Terror: a final, gentle kiss, and a gold-and-crystal coffin which preserved her body (and her beauty - rotting corpses on thrones aren't romantic), but left her hanging between life and death for ten thousand years. Her "throne room" in the Imperial Palace is actually more of an impossibly grandiose tomb, and she is surrounded at all times by millions of frozen, blood-red roses, each representing the sacrifice of a soul to the Astronomican. Her guards watch over her body in an image taken from symbolic depiction of the tales of Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty.

==== Space Marines ====

You have Space Marines of both genders so you have the Chapters Sororitas and the Chapters Fraternitas. Among the Space Marines themselves, the Sororitas are known as the Blessed and the Fraternitas are the Tarnished. The Fraternitas call themselves the Unforgiven as every male Space Marine hails from a Legion that fell to Chaos.

Primarchs are Champions of humanity who were infused with the Empress's Love and raised to positions of power in the Imperium

Space Wolves get special nano-augs that allow them to literally turn into giant biomechanical wolves, complete with their armor. While they still serve in frontline combat, their primary purpose is to serve as trackers and hunters for the Deathwatch (their biomechanical wolf forms have supreme sensor arrays - "they sniff Xenos", basically). They are selected for the job by female Valkyries who wander the tundras of Fenris.

Names of minor Loyalist chapters in Lovedagger 40K:
* Rosen Guard
* Resplendent Roses
* Blooded Violets
* Thornwives
* Screaming Nightingales
* Vestal Doves
* Swan Maidens
* Tenders (of the Garden)
* Mournful Criers (at the death of the Empress, symbolically)
* Cradle Guard
* Medusae

New names of the Loyal Fraternitas:
* White Scars: '''Pale Riders'''
* Iron Warriors: '''Her Steel Shields'''
* Luna Wolves: '''Penitent Sons'''
* World Eaters: '''Warhounds'''
* Death Guard: '''Knights Vigilant'''
* Thousand Sons: '''Crimson Eyes'''

==== Imperial Guard ====

Lovedagger isn't genderbent Warhammer, it's a differently focused setting. The imperial guard has the same male-female ratio it has in Warhammer, it's just that more women are shown since the important scenes are about character development and interaction, not battles.

That said, the IG might very well be the least represented army in the Lovedagger universe. Faceless, expandable, and with few purposes outside open warfare, they are the very definition of the "war as a background" mentality described above. Stories of heroic death and anguish of INDIVIDUAL guardsmen would exist, but the IG as an ARMY would mostly appear in the form of references by other characters.

— Say, Lady Valeria, didn't two billion guardsmen die to secure the garden we're currently partying in?
— But what a beautiful garden it is.

However, stories of individual guardsmen there would be in this setting and while we pay less attention to the war they participate in, we focus more on the story and conflict of what it means to be sent across the galaxy to do or die. Expect lingering shots of letters sent from front lines the galaxy over back to homes far flung.

*'''Individual guard regiments'''
**'''Steel Legion''': The individual story's that come from the Legion would of what it means fight and to continue to keep the will to live in order to protect those you care about. Be it though the invasion of the chaos to the twin ork invasions the Steel Legion's goal has been to protect the hives and the civilians, and very often there own family's, within.
**'''Catachan Jungle Fighters''': the Catachans are a people of big hearts, when your grow up on a planet that despite the best efforts (and there have been attempts) of entire army's every moment becomes precious and so they are the archetypal 'live in the moment guys', so ya basically they are what Americans like to think of themselves as. As fits there Vietnam origins however they would be some of the main victims of 'war is hell' and, lets be honest here with the way they all look like hyper masculine body builders, Yaoi story's.
**'''Kreig''': Perhaps the most unchanged group in Lovedagger. Kreig remains the heavy industrial dieselpunk german world war one guardsmen they are in canon. The difference is that the camera lingers on the contrast. While the backdrop may be gunmetal gray pill boxes and machine gun nests, we stop panning at the little touches of humanity, the blooming flower boxes and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_art carved brass shell casings]. Story's that used guardsmen of Kreig would be story's of what it's like for a literally mass produced soldier, cloned and designed for war and battle, when the war is over. Unlike in 40k where the Imperium would immediately shuffled off them off to another warzone or liquidated the survivors the Imperia focus on resocilizeing what is depicted as a necessary evil to fight her wars back to common society. To do so they go to great ends to get people born and bred as soldiers to become civilians, from cultural exchange programs, to using commissars to try and convince the Kriegsmen to stop digging trenches for fun and go get a drink, to [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Love_and_Krieg starting dating websites] to get guardsmen of Kreig to interact with people outside of there closed off regiments.
**'''Elysian Drop Troops''': "Elysian" is defined as "of, relating to, or characteristic of heaven or paradise.", and in Lovedagger this is more obvious. Elysian would be a non-grimdark place to make the human story and disconnect of leaving that for a basic training, the focus of there story.
**Tanith First (And Only): Kinda the same they are in canon.

=== Dark Powers ===

Dark Powers are the analogue to Chaos Gods. They are:

* '''Tzeentch''' <br /> is no longer "The Lord of Change". Sure, he retains all of his old aspects (change, magic, all those things), but his aspect is that of the Lord of Treachery, and his focus is on lies, illusion and deception.

* '''Slaanesh''' <br /> goes from the Lord of Excess into a more broadly defined "Lord of Desire". He's the guy behind the physical, loveless relationship that you know is terrible for you and your heart and brain tell you to stop, but your body can't help but want.

* '''Nurgle's''' <br /> (aside from his diseases becoming less disfiguring and more of a Victorian "cough blood, be pale") aspect as the Lord of Entropy turns him, in the Lovedagger setting, into the Lord of Despair. As the ruler of emotional stagnation, he governs dark romances whose passion has died out, and both parties know it, but neither has the courage to kill so they all linger in unhappiness.

* '''Khorne''' <br /> goes from the Lord of Bloodshed into the Lord of Fury. Fury is visceral, but it's also more broadly defined. It's possible to be furious on the battlefield, but also in personal life. Also in society. A politician, a lover or a scientist can be ruled by Fury. Champions of Khorne are probably less "steroid munching lump of steel and muscle", and more like those creepy anime bad guys with the long bishie hair who lick blood off their swords and jizz their pants at the thought of meeting a "worthy enemy", because battle to them is a release.

*'''Malal''' <br /> In Lovedagger Malal goes from lost intellectual property to a horror that makes Orks quiver and Tyranids recoil when they chance a wiff of It's power. For Malal is not a god of emotion. Deception, Desire, Fury, even Despair are all emotions, but Malal is the Antithesis of that. Malal in Lovedagger is the God of Emptiness, of the emotional death of a man while his heart still beats. Malal is the only god who create cults that twist with emotions as if they where toys not with the goal of spreading influence but to destroy and beat down the emotions of every body, for when the warp is calm, silent, dead and not perturbed by feelings of the living is when Malal is at It's strongest.

=== Other races ===

==== Tau ====

While many "evil" races become more morally ambiguous in Lovedagger, the Tau ironically become a lot more evil and grimdark. Their rigid, caste-bound society is presented as spiritually and emotionally stifling, and the Tau themselves as nearly robotic overlords who wish to impose their passionless existence on all life. (of course, fitting with the themes of the game there are still [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Farsight good, passionate, rebellious Tau] - but theirs are tragic, dramatic personal stories)

==== Orks ====

Orks are either noble savages, glorious warriors or (now that the new Mad Max film came out) basically War Boys. They are a lot less ridiculous and are shown in a more positive light, even if they're still the enemy. The matter of their reproduction always causes arguments since spores make more sense but it's hard to make romantic characters out of a race that has no sex drive. One option is to make them not romantic, but IMPASSIONED - they have a human being's emotional depth, but it is focused on the glory and joy of combat. They can only see "love" through the lens of battle. "Die historic on fury road" IS, to the orks, true love and so Ork tech works in this world not from a "gestalt psychic field" but from their passion that for other races is directed toward other thinking beings to their machines. You know that one guy who loves his car so much he will throw a massive hissy fit if it gets a scratch? That's the orks, only that their stuff is being held together by that love.

==== Necrons ====

Necrons in Lovedagger are like a beautiful and unstoppable horror, majority of them not really people. They aren't hunched Skeletons anymore. Now, they're massive faceless, Deathsteel, statues with the various Lords and Nobles having faces and decorations.

Lovedagger is about individuals. It doesn't matter if 99.99999% of the race is made up of terminators so long as the nobility are sentient space pharaohs. Especially if you focus on the brooding, self-hating "I have lived for a billion years and saw everything that I love either die or leave, yet this cold necrodermis heart does not beat" shenanigans.
There should be space for diverse motivations. Some are ancient kings, loathing their current state and longing for love, some are content with their life and try to make their territory a decent place, that just happens to be controlled by an army of terminators (which is a source of conflict for them), some are operatic villains out to satisfy their avarice, etc. Some times the story shifts to that of individual Necrons warriors who remember only ghosts and bare images of there past lives and being left to search the embers of there memory's for something to keep them going beyond hollow programming.

==== Tyranids ====

Keep Tyranids pretty much as-is, but maybe give a bit more individual personality to their leaders. Humans (especially astropaths) are uniquely suited to becoming living CPUs for the Hivemind, as thanks or for convenience those "queens" who have joined willingly or have been outright kidnapped are allowed to keep some of their personality and gain a little influence over their hivefleet.

All are still very much subordinate to the Hivemind as a whole though, So the typical backstabbing and politicking is not present among Tyranid "nobility". They go about it in different ways but they all serve the will of the Great Devourer in the end.

Genestealers probably become more dramatically prevalent. Maybe there could be a genestealer empire somewhere in the fringes that's slowing sinking its fangs into Empire territory, and serves as a foothold for extra-galactic hive fleets to come into the galaxy

==== Eldar ====

Eldar are a tragic race. Dying and doomed but always struggling.

"Tall", "strong", "fast", "graceful" - these are all words that describe Eldar but there is one other crucial trait they possess. This is the trait that led them to greatness and it is also the trait that led them to their doom: they never do things half-way.

Driven to perfection by their very nature, they once had a mighty civilization built on passion. Great works were created, farthest reaches explored, a mere description of their romance would make a human's heart stop. But passion is ruinous. Great Love led them to Anger, it led them to Despair, it led them to Treachery, and most of all it led them to Desire... and that's how the youngest of Dark Powers was born, in burning hearts of Eldar.

Now, they're but a shadow of their former empire, utterly diminished. True to their nature, their hearts are still burning but they don't love anymore. Eldar have forbidden love, for love leads to Anger, to Despair, to Treachery, to Desire, to Ruin.

== Writefaggotry ==

Lovedagger being what it was, it was only a matter of time until writefaggotry (in the truest sense of the word) showed up. For once, the style wasn't wholly inappropriate.

==== Icar and Valeria ====

"Please, Icar! Don't do this! If you've ever truly cherished our love, even if only for that, don't go!"

Valeria's cry echoed through the vast, empty bridge of the tiny ship, her normally booming voice fading into a metallic whimper between the beecrystal panes of the viewscreen and the black silver and nanocomposite pillar surrounding the two of them. Bitter stars rolled slowly by, distant and unfeeling in the void outside.

The tech-priest's body did not stir. His robed form, tall and gaunt and proud like a shining chain-blade, remained stiff. His shoulders remained firm. No hint of emotion could be gleaned from the serene, alabaster smile frozen upon his angel's mask.

She stepped forward once more, her boot clanging against the floor. If it hadn't been there, if it hadn't been him – Icar, and his beautiful, terrible, regretful smile – she would've cringed at the noise. Centuries of war have sharpened her senses at least that much. Yet, at that moment, she could make no sound above the drumlike beating of her own heart. It was more awful than the roar of all the bolters. It scared her more than the thunder of nuclear blasts.

"That is my choice," she said, anguishly, from behind gritted teeth. "My choice to make, and noone else'. I've already chose. I chose to love you."

"I'm afraid that I can't let you make such a choice", he spoke. His voice was the calm, ever-so-slighty artificial singsong of a Mechanicus acolyte. Another wall placed between them by the young man's obligation. Another mask. "You do not possess the correct data. Your conclusion is erroneous."

Valeria thought she could detect a twitch – the barest sign of hesitation, in the way his head nudged beneath the hood. He continued as if nothing had happened.

"I cannot allow you to make such a choice. My heart – my mind will not bear it."

He turned from her, as if there was anything in his face not already hidden. In the darkness of the bridge, the light of the holographic data-panels floating majestically in front of the viewscreen cast his statuesque features in a pale, blue shade. A silhouette of black and crimson robes against the cyan glow.

"You deserve someone better than me, Lady Inquisitor. You deserve a man. A beauty such as yours… a passion, such as yours… I would do it a dishonor."

He began to walk himself, quiet, measured steps. They made no clanging sound. He might as well have floated.

"This isn't a question of data", she whispered back at him. She knew he could hear. "This isn't a calculation. This isn't a formula! I know that I love you. You have a million eyes, how can you not see that? Love is the answer. It always has and always will be the answer."

For the first time in twenty years, for the first time since the battle of Imexa – the first time since Valeria first gave the order to end three billion lives in an instant, a tear glittered upon her pale cheek. It crawled down her neck and over her gold and silk cravat, leaving in its wake a salty trail of torment no less horrific than that which followed that fateful Cyclonic missile.

"You're a coward, Icar. You claim to be free of emotion, but it is fear that drives you now. You are as terrified of love as you're blind to it – but all your implants can't make you truly free from its grasp."

"You do not understand, my Lady", he said calmly, without looking back. "You have not seen the face beneath this mask. You haven't seen this refined flesh. Heavy is the toll that must be paid in the service of the Omnissiah. That is the price I have paid for my faith. In my faith, I am endless. The Sang Mechanica flowing through my veins has made me eternal."

"What good to you is an eternity spent alone? What good to you is faith without light?"
He leaned against the control console in front of him. It was a human gesture – one that he shouldn't have made. One that he didn't need to. His synthetic fiber muscles did not tire.

"I am hideous, my Lady. My body is deformed. I am not worthy of being looked upon by eyes as beautiful and holy as your own. Please, my Lady – Valeria… Please, leave me be."

"I refuse, Icar. My love is far greater than this."

He shook his head, the hood flowing hypnotically from side to side. "No. It is not."

"Please," she begged, "please, let me take that chance. Don't leave me alone –"

"YOU KNOW NOTHING OF LONELINESS!" he screamed, turning back at her with savage, mechanical speed. His pale mockery of a face remained flat and expressionless, but his voice rose for a second to a blaring, static screech, like vox comm through heavy jamming.

Inquisitor Valeria has heard such sounds before, of course. Mechanicus voicebox implants tended to flare uncontrollably in moments of distress. On the battlefield, the death cries of the Skitarri were a horrid, unnatural chorus, as grave as any foul demon's.

She froze in mid step, less than a meter away. Even Icar was visibly shaken.

"Leave me be," he repeated, in celestial quiet, and returned to face the holo-display. "You do not know me. You do not know the price I've paid. The grotesquerie that is now my enfleshed face. The magi tell me that aesthetic sensibility is a weakness of the biotic mind, but I'm weak, Valeria. Far too weak to bear such… emotions as yours."

"Then let me give you strength", she replied, wrapping her arms around his broad, robed shoulders.
Even if his heart still beat, she could feel nothing beneath the black and red cloak. The fabric was as cold and indifferent as the stale air around them. Icar made neither movement nor sound to acknowledge her existence.

She knew that he could see her. Even with his face turned the other way, the nanytes floating around him showed him the bridge in all directions, at all times.

"Let me give you my strength, Icar", she said again. "You don't have to be alone."

"I… I am unworthy", he whispered. With a gesture, the holo-screens in front of him began dancing, data running and windows opening and closing faster than even Valeria's augmented eye could track. He would lose himself in that empty bliss, if she let him. Give entirely to the automatic tranquility of data processing, to the job that was as much his very
nature as it was his duty.

"You're worth the Imperia to me," she replied. Slowly, with a deliberation the powerfully built woman normally reserved for the handling of guns, her hands travelled down his shoulders, his neck, his chest. Trembling like those of a conscripted guardsmen, her fingers explored the folds of his cloak, turning and burrowing into the silk until she could almost imagine the feeling of the cold skin beneath.

Icar did not answer. The holo-screens ceased their waltz.

Valeria could feel his muscles giving beneath the cloak. Strength has abandoned him. Just as she did, the nano-morphed man had been, in the end, no more than a weak, fragile human. No less.

He turned around in place to face her. Blank, porcelain eyes stared coldly into her own.

"Won't you take it off?" she asked, not even daring sound hopeful.

"No," he answered somberly. "You know that it is forbidden. You know that is as it should."

"I know nothing", she pleaded. "You yourself said as much."

Before he could move in protest, Valeria's hands rose from within his cloak and reached up into his hood. Gently, so much as her shaky fingers could be, she gripped at the edges of the mask. It was cold and hard under the skin of her thumbs. Thin, like the sweet blade of a knife. Brittle, like a skull.

She pulled.

"It would not budge."

"…Nor should it. The material is magnetically locked to my nanytes. It will not unbind from my skin unless I command it to."
Valeria's legs weakened. It was worse than any shot she's ever taken, any slash of the sword that ever drew her blood. For a moment – an all too long, moment – she could feel Nurgle's icy fingers closing around her heart. Was that, after all these years, the feeling of true despair? The nigh-forgotten sense of defeat?
Icar didn't speak a word. Nothing sounded within the bridge but the powerful heartbeat and weak sobs of one.

Then, in the dreadful silence, slowly, a surface of porcelain moved. The attraction between Icar's skin and the mask having faded away like the light of a long dead star, it slid off his face like a fragment of dry ice.

The inquisitor stood stunned, holding the white mask in both hands, lost in the torrent of her emotions. Before her eyes, only a few centimeters away, was Icar's true, human face.
It was as vile to look at as he'd described, as inhuman of that any of mutant. The skin, a pallid and sickly shade of grey, a mockery of the pristine perfection of the mask. Black veins trailed beneath, beneath the man's forehead and cheeks and nose and neck, like rivers of sacred Machine Blood over a desert of salt. Every so often, a faint pulse of bluish light blinked within his dark eyes, or behind his lips, the nanytes in his blood concentrating on some arcane, physiological task.

And yet, his face moved. Subtly, only so little, they moved. As inhuman as they'd appeared, in that, they were as close to Valeria as the memory of her mother's face, beneath the forgotten sun of her homeworld.

A tick of sadness under the eyes, where tears would flow. A wrinkle of shame beneath his shaved head. A tinge of resignation in the twist of his lip. A bitter, tortured smile – the knowledge that now that she'd seen him, there love would have no more future. No hope.

He was magnificently, terribly, human. Beautifully, dreadfully, human.

"Icar…" her voice shuddered.

"Valeria, I – I'm sorry."

"Do not be", she answered. Her hug tightened around him. Without even noticing, she's laid her chin on his shoulder, for comfort. For a warmth that was not there, but which she could feel nonetheless. "You are as beautiful as the dawn, Icar. Beautiful as the dawn."

Lovedagger

2016-11-22T14:47:04Z

2600:1006:B123:8848:0:17:ABFC:A401: /* Lovedagger 40000 */

'''Lovedagger''' is an alternate universe version of the Warhammer franchise that was aimed at the stereotypical female geek instead of the male kind.

Lovedagger is Warhammer, classical romance, and women's literature meeting midway, with the focus on big battles featuring heavy metal riffs replaced by backstabbing intrigue where elegantly-dressed hunks stare contemptuously at each other as they vie for the affections of a demure lady of quality, while a soft orchestral score plays in the background.

In a theoretical, alternate universe a British company called "Games Kitchen", makers of expensive dolls and girls' boardsgames, originally created the Lovedagger Fantasy universe as a setting for novels and roleplaying games in an attempt to market and appeal to fantasy loving women (designing it based on the themes and aesthetic of fantasy literature and other works of art popular with them). Proving wildly successful, the setting quickly spawned a more popular offshoot in the gothic science fiction universe of Lovedagger 40K, as well as numerous additional roleplaying games, book series', a relatively unpopular miniature wargame ("Lovedagger Tactics") and a vast amount of expensive merchandise. As the years passed, the setting evolved with young women's tastes and now caters equally to fans of romantic fantasy, anime, vampire love stories and video games. While the Lovedagger settings are torn by war and strife, these are not directly at the focus of the experience. Rather, war serves as a background for the personal dramas and tragedies involving exceptional individuals.

The main difference between Warhammer and Lovedagger isn't in atmosphere or aesthetic, but in focus. Lovedagger isn't a wargame, and it isn't about the physical act of war. It is a subtler, more aesthetic, more elegant universe which focuses on personal and interpersonal drama, especially of a tragic and/or romantic type. Its main imperial heroes aren't beefy alien smashers or tactically brill won't commissars - they are ambitious yet flawed nobles entangled in forbidden trysts and tempted into ruin by the seductive, beautifully terrible Dark Powers.

== Lovedagger Fantasy ==

=== Empire ===

With less of an aesthetic emphasis on war and death and more on courtly intrigue and romance, the gritty-dirtiness of medieval Germany gives place to the grandeur and extravagance of Imperial Austria. The Empire is an anachronism anyway - there's no reason its architecture and fashions shouldn't be based on 18th or even 19th century central Europe, even if its military technology remains unchanged (or even without it. The effectiveness of weapons on the tabletop has always been pretty arbitrary, and steam tanks don't make sense anyway. They might make even more sense in a society that might've feasibly invented the hot air balloon (can you say airships? Because I think airships fit in).

That isn't to say that in Lovedagger Fantasy the Empire doesn't have its share of blood and gunpowder soaked battlefields, rat-infested sewers or filthy back alleys, it's just that the drama focuses on the fabulous palaces. If anyone does fighting "on-camera", it's less likely to be in ranks of muskets and more likely to be a handsome, swashbuckling prince swinging off the chandelier with a rapier in hand and a belt of (ornate) pistols.

The Empire was founded by a woman known as Sigrun Liebendolch. Sigrun was the beautiful barbarian maiden wedded as a young teen to one of the region's warlords. He was a brave, honorable men, and she truly loved him, but she also knew that his obsession with honor and glory made him too violent. Like the other warlords who ruled humanity back then, he couldn't make allies or unite tribes because everyone was always busy going to Valhalla. The Lovedagger was a wedding gift from the elves, a beautiful little blade that promised to fulfill one's heart's desires, but at the cost of that which is most dear to them. Understanding the meaning of this, Sigrun killed her beloved husband and, with her own wisdom and compassion, managed to unite the warring tribes into one powerful empire, which she ruled for a time before sorrow overcame her and she killed herself using the very same Lovedagger.

=== Bretonnia ===

Bretonnia, meanwhile, to balance out on the Empire becoming more outwardly elegant and "sophisticated" (you know, the nobles all wear beautiful masks while they stab each other in the back, and they use poisoned knives instead of swords), goes full hard Mists of Avalon/Arthurian Paganism. The Lady of the Lake and her Damsels become even more central to the drama (if not necessarily the culture), and the land takes on a less "shit-covered middle ages" and more "French Fairy Tale" feeling. The knights are actually handsome and chivalrous, but tend to fall prey to their own passions (Pendragon style) and get themselves killed off on fits of romantic madness. The peasants are still probably generally fucked up, but aren't all to the last one a bunch of illiterate, hopeless, inbred mutants. Hope and perseverance against impossible odds (especially socially) are key elements of the genre. In Lovedagger, it's hard but not impossible for a peasant who is brave and true and virtuous to achieve great things, and possibility earn a knighthood. It's also not impossible for a knight to remove "his" helmet and reveal they were a woman the whole time, of course. A Joan D'Arc equivalent figure is an absolute must. In terms of religion, maybe go as far with the pagan elements as to make the Lady of the Lake a tripartite goddess

=== Kislev ===

Is controlled from behind the scenes by a Baba-Yaga stand-in. It's also got a Tzarina, all-female spellcasters, and gorgeous fur coats.

=== Stuff ===

Sigrun of the Lovedagger, the first Empress, was the archetypal Maiden: young, passionate, merciful, but ultimately driven to ruin because of love and sorrow - dying and (thus, in a way) remaining eternally young.
The Lady of the Lake is the Mother of Brettonia: overbearing and terrible, but also nurturing and protective. The health and fertility of Brettonia literally flows from her.
Kislev should have a central character standing in for Baba Yaga as the Crone - cruel and incomprehensible, but also wise. This Baba Yaga figure is probably an ultimate death monster on the tabletop, but more often appears in the (far more popular) RPG and novels as a mentor/adviser/trickster, as in Slavic myth.

== Lovedagger 40000 ==

In the cold darkness of the 41st millennium, there is only sorrow. Her Exalted Majesty the Empress has lain in deathless sleep for 10,000 years, frozen in a coffin of gold and crystal provided by Horus' final act of love, surrounded by blood-red roses and vigilant knights. In her slumber, the Imperia has fallen into chaos: treachery, sorrow, and forbidden desire are the rule of the day, and the Space Marines, brave men and women, pure of heart and shaped by the Empress' mercy into living weapons, barely hold back the forces of darkness - from without, as well as from within their tortured hearts. The proud but indomitable orks carve a trail of destruction through space, and the servants of chaos - shaped by dark powers into terrible and beautiful forms - spread pain wherever they go. - The OP Post

=== Imperia ===

The aesthetic of the Imperium changes. Warhammer is visually inspired a great deal by heavy metal culture, which appeals to male geeks, but it less popular with the female ones. Catholic/Gothic elements absolutely remain, but industrial ones become a lot more subdued. Imperial architecture, technology and cybernetics look a lot more organic, possibly Giger-esque (inspired by the visuals of the manga BLAME!). Skull imagery is replaced with rose imagery (to fit with the Empress' story).

Imperial technology is heavily based on nanotech, but it is poorly understood and regarded with spiritual reverence. The nanomechanical fluid is symbolic of the blood and water which are central to female-centric spirituality. As such, the Mechanicus now focus their worship on the black liquid "Sang Mechanica", which drives a lot of their machines. STC's are now womb-like in function, literally "growing" objects within the Sang Mechanica. Rather than becoming hideously deformed with obvious robot parts, the Mechanicus inject themselves with the Sang to attain longevity oneoness with technology. This makes them look like implant-less Borg, with pale, darkly veined skin and glowing eyes. Since they view themselves as "hideous" (in best trashy teengirl romance tradition) they hide their deformity under beatific porcelain masks and elaborate hoods. Also fitting with the themes of Lovedagger, they are no longer as machine-like in behavior - rather than replacing parts of their brain with computer, they merely augment it to Mentat-like ability while retaining emotional capacity. They do STRUGGLE to be wholly logical and passionless, but their struggle is spiritual, not neurological. They occasionally falter, and suffer from great internal anguish as a result.

The Imperia's signature weapon, rather than being the brutal and industrial looking bolter, is called the javel. It fires tiny, homing, explosive-tipped micromissiles which have a less gory effect than bolters, emphasizing both the facts that the Imperia is (a tiny little bit) more about accuracy than power compared to the Imperium and that their technological shtick is nanomechanics. Space Marine javels are fully automatic and considerably bulkier (though still very slick compared to the boxlike bolters), while inquisitors carry ornate, oversized "javel revolvers" which are not automatic but can fire a variety of specialized, large caliber round (including one which bursts in a shotgun-like fashion and releases a half dozen smaller, homing javel darts). Since conflict in Lovedagger tends to be subtler and more nuanced than in the Warhammer setting, these weapons are ideal for inquisitors whose needs might include such things as taking their enemies alive, neutralizing escaping targets, or fighting in enclosed environments.

The Imperial Guard still uses flashlights, because guardsmen who wouldn't die just aren't real guardsmen, in any universe.

==== The Empress ====

The Empress is less of a warrior king and more of a universal mother figure, wise, loving and all-nurturing. Her story focuses on the tragic aspects of her work: despite her love for all humanity, she was forced to commit terrible deeds and it burdened her soul. She was in love with Horus and when he betrayed her (because she chose duty to humanity as a species rather than her love for him personally), it was the grief that broke her, not the rage. Yet, after striking her down, filled with remorse, Horus decided to give her parting gift before leaving for the Eye of Terror: a final, gentle kiss, and a gold-and-crystal coffin which preserved her body (and her beauty - rotting corpses on thrones aren't romantic), but left her hanging between life and death for ten thousand years. Her "throne room" in the Imperial Palace is actually more of an impossibly grandiose tomb, and she is surrounded at all times by millions of frozen, blood-red roses, each representing the sacrifice of a soul to the Astronomican. Her guards watch over her body in an image taken from symbolic depiction of the tales of Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty.

==== Space Marines ====

You have Space Marines of both genders so you have the Chapters Sororitas and the Chapters Fraternitas. Among the Space Marines themselves, the Sororitas are known as the Blessed and the Fraternitas are the Tarnished. The Fraternitas call themselves the Unforgiven as every male Space Marine hails from a Legion that fell to Chaos.

Primarchs are Champions of humanity who were infused with the Empress's Love and raised to positions of power in the Imperium

Space Wolves get special nano-augs that allow them to literally turn into giant biomechanical wolves, complete with their armor. While they still serve in frontline combat, their primary purpose is to serve as trackers and hunters for the Deathwatch (their biomechanical wolf forms have supreme sensor arrays - "they sniff Xenos", basically). They are selected for the job by female Valkyries who wander the tundras of Fenris.

Names of minor Loyalist chapters in Lovedagger 40K:
* Rosen Guard
* Resplendent Roses
* Blooded Violets
* Thornwives
* Screaming Nightingales
* Vestal Doves
* Swan Maidens
* Tenders (of the Garden)
* Mournful Criers (at the death of the Empress, symbolically)
* Cradle Guard
* Medusae

New names of the Loyal Fraternitas:
* White Scars: '''Pale Riders'''
* Iron Warriors: '''Her Steel Shields'''
* Luna Wolves: '''Penitent Sons'''
* World Eaters: '''Warhounds'''
* Death Guard: '''Knights Vigilant'''
* Thousand Sons: '''Crimson Eyes'''

==== Imperial Guard ====

Lovedagger isn't genderbent Warhammer, it's a differently focused setting. The imperial guard has the same male-female ratio it has in Warhammer, it's just that more women are shown since the important scenes are about character development and interaction, not battles.

That said, the IG might very well be the least represented army in the Lovedagger universe. Faceless, expandable, and with few purposes outside open warfare, they are the very definition of the "war as a background" mentality described above. Stories of heroic death and anguish of INDIVIDUAL guardsmen would exist, but the IG as an ARMY would mostly appear in the form of references by other characters.

— Say, Lady Valeria, didn't two billion guardsmen die to secure the garden we're currently partying in?
— But what a beautiful garden it is.

However story's of Individual guardsmen there would be in this setting and while we pay less attention to the war they participate in, we focus more on the story and conflict of what it means to be sent across the galaxy to do or die. Expect lingering shots of letters sent from front lines the galaxy over back to homes far flung.

*'''Individual guard regiments'''
**'''Steel Legion''': The individual story's that come from the Legion would of what it means fight and to continue to keep the will to live in order to protect those you care about. Be it though the invasion of the chaos to the twin ork invasions the Steel Legion's goal has been to protect the hives and the civilians, and very often there own family's, within.
**'''Catachan Jungle Fighters''': the Catachans are a people of big hearts, when your grow up on a planet that despite the best efforts (and there have been attempts) of entire army's every moment becomes precious and so they are the archetypal 'live in the moment guys', so ya basically they are what Americans like to think of themselves as. As fits there Vietnam origins however they would be some of the main victims of 'war is hell' and, lets be honest here with the way they all look like hyper masculine body builders, Yaoi story's.
**'''Kreig''': Perhaps the most unchanged group in Lovedagger. Kreig remains the heavy industrial dieselpunk german world war one guardsmen they are in canon. The difference is that the camera lingers on the contrast. While the backdrop may be gunmetal gray pill boxes and machine gun nests, we stop panning at the little touches of humanity, the blooming flower boxes and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_art carved brass shell casings]. Story's that used guardsmen of Kreig would be story's of what it's like for a literally mass produced soldier, cloned and designed for war and battle, when the war is over. Unlike in 40k where the Imperium would immediately shuffled off them off to another warzone or liquidated the survivors the Imperia focus on resocilizeing what is depicted as a necessary evil to fight her wars back to common society. To do so they go to great ends to get people born and bred as soldiers to become civilians, from cultural exchange programs, to using commissars to try and convince the Kriegsmen to stop digging trenches for fun and go get a drink, to [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Love_and_Krieg starting dating websites] to get guardsmen of Kreig to interact with people outside of there closed off regiments.
**'''Elysian Drop Troops''': "Elysian" is defined as "of, relating to, or characteristic of heaven or paradise.", and in Lovedagger this is more obvious. Elysian would be a non-grimdark place to make the human story and disconnect of leaving that for a basic training, the focus of there story.
**Tanith First (And Only): Kinda the same they are in canon.
=== Dark Powers ===

Dark Powers are the analogue to Chaos Gods. They are:

* '''Tzeentch''' <br /> is no longer "The Lord of Change". Sure, he retains all of his old aspects (change, magic, all those things), but his aspect is that of the Lord of Treachery, and his focus is on lies, illusion and deception.

* '''Slaanesh''' <br /> goes from the Lord of Excess into a more broadly defined "Lord of Desire". He's the guy behind the physical, loveless relationship that you know is terrible for you and your heart and brain tell you to stop, but your body can't help but want.

* '''Nurgle's''' <br /> (aside from his diseases becoming less disfiguring and more of a Victorian "cough blood, be pale") aspect as the Lord of Entropy turns him, in the Lovedagger setting, into the Lord of Despair. As the ruler of emotional stagnation, he governs dark romances whose passion has died out, and both parties know it, but neither has the courage to kill so they all linger in unhappiness.

* '''Khorne''' <br /> goes from the Lord of Bloodshed into the Lord of Fury. Fury is visceral, but it's also more broadly defined. It's possible to be furious on the battlefield, but also in personal life. Also in society. A politician, a lover or a scientist can be ruled by Fury. Champions of Khorne are probably less "steroid munching lump of steel and muscle", and more like those creepy anime bad guys with the long bishie hair who lick blood off their swords and jizz their pants at the thought of meeting a "worthy enemy", because battle to them is a release.

*'''Malal''' <br /> In Lovedagger Malal goes from lost intellectual property to a horror that makes Orks quiver and Tyranids recoil when they chance a wiff of It's power. For Malal is not a god of emotion. Deception, Desire, Fury, even Despair are all emotions, but Malal is the Antithesis of that. Malal in Lovedagger is the God of Emptiness, of the emotional death of a man while his heart still beats. Malal is the only god who create cults that twist with emotions as if they where toys not with the goal of spreading influence but to destroy and beat down the emotions of every body, for when the warp is calm, silent, dead and not perturbed by feelings of the living is when Malal is at It's strongest.

=== Other races ===

==== Tau ====

While many "evil" races become more morally ambiguous in Lovedagger, the Tau ironically become a lot more evil and grimdark. Their rigid, caste-bound society is presented as spiritually and emotionally stifling, and the Tau themselves as nearly robotic overlords who wish to impose their passionless existence on all life. (of course, fitting with the themes of the game there are still [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Farsight good, passionate, rebellious Tau] - but theirs are tragic, dramatic personal stories)

==== Orks ====

Orks are either noble savages, glorious warriors or (now that the new Mad Max film came out) basically War Boys. They are a lot less ridiculous and are shown in a more positive light, even if they're still the enemy. The matter of their reproduction always causes arguments since spores make more sense but it's hard to make romantic characters out of a race that has no sex drive. One option is to make them not romantic, but IMPASSIONED - they have a human being's emotional depth, but it is focused on the glory and joy of combat. They can only see "love" through the lens of battle. "Die historic on fury road" IS, to the orks, true love and so Ork tech works in this world not from a "gestalt psychic field" but from their passion that for other races is directed toward other thinking beings to their machines. You know that one guy who loves his car so much he will throw a massive hissy fit if it gets a scratch? That's the orks, only that their stuff is being held together by that love.

==== Necrons ====

Necrons in Lovedagger are like a beautiful and unstoppable horror, majority of them not really people. They aren't hunched Skeletons anymore. Now, they're massive faceless, Deathsteel, statues with the various Lords and Nobles having faces and decorations.

Lovedagger is about individuals. It doesn't matter if 99.99999% of the race is made up of terminators so long as the nobility are sentient space pharaohs. Especially if you focus on the brooding, self-hating "I have lived for a billion years and saw everything that I love either die or leave, yet this cold necrodermis heart does not beat" shenanigans.
There should be space for diverse motivations. Some are ancient kings, loathing their current state and longing for love, some are content with their life and try to make their territory a decent place, that just happens to be controlled by an army of terminators (which is a source of conflict for them), some are operatic villains out to satisfy their avarice, etc. Some times the story shifts to that of individual Necrons warriors who remember only ghosts and bare images of there past lives and being left to search the embers of there memory's for something to keep them going beyond hollow programming.

==== Tyranids ====

Keep Tyranids pretty much as-is, but maybe give a bit more individual personality to their leaders. Humans (especially astropaths) are uniquely suited to becoming living CPUs for the Hivemind, as thanks or for convenience those "queens" who have joined willingly or have been outright kidnapped are allowed to keep some of their personality and gain a little influence over their hivefleet.

All are still very much subordinate to the Hivemind as a whole though, So the typical backstabbing and politicking is not present among Tyranid "nobility". They go about it in different ways but they all serve the will of the Great Devourer in the end.

Genestealers probably become more dramatically prevalent. Maybe there could be a genestealer empire somewhere in the fringes that's slowing sinking its fangs into Empire territory, and serves as a foothold for extra-galactic hive fleets to come into the galaxy

==== Eldar ====

Eldar are a tragic race. Dying and doomed but always struggling.

"Tall", "strong", "fast", "graceful" - these are all words that describe Eldar but there is one other crucial trait they possess. This is the trait that led them to greatness and it is also the trait that led them to their doom: they never do things half-way.

Driven to perfection by their very nature, they once had a mighty civilization built on passion. Great works were created, farthest reaches explored, a mere description of their romance would make a human's heart stop. But passion is ruinous. Great Love led them to Anger, it led them to Despair, it led them to Treachery, and most of all it led them to Desire... and that's how the youngest of Dark Powers was born, in burning hearts of Eldar.

Now, they're but a shadow of their former empire, utterly diminished. True to their nature, their hearts are still burning but they don't love anymore. Eldar have forbidden love, for love leads to Anger, to Despair, to Treachery, to Desire, to Ruin.

== Writefaggotry ==

Lovedagger being what it was, it was only a matter of time until writefaggotry (in the truest sense of the word) showed up. For once, the style wasn't wholly inappropriate.

==== Icar and Valeria ====

"Please, Icar! Don't do this! If you've ever truly cherished our love, even if only for that, don't go!"

Valeria's cry echoed through the vast, empty bridge of the tiny ship, her normally booming voice fading into a metallic whimper between the beecrystal panes of the viewscreen and the black silver and nanocomposite pillar surrounding the two of them. Bitter stars rolled slowly by, distant and unfeeling in the void outside.

The tech-priest's body did not stir. His robed form, tall and gaunt and proud like a shining chain-blade, remained stiff. His shoulders remained firm. No hint of emotion could be gleaned from the serene, alabaster smile frozen upon his angel's mask.

She stepped forward once more, her boot clanging against the floor. If it hadn't been there, if it hadn't been him – Icar, and his beautiful, terrible, regretful smile – she would've cringed at the noise. Centuries of war have sharpened her senses at least that much. Yet, at that moment, she could make no sound above the drumlike beating of her own heart. It was more awful than the roar of all the bolters. It scared her more than the thunder of nuclear blasts.

"That is my choice," she said, anguishly, from behind gritted teeth. "My choice to make, and noone else'. I've already chose. I chose to love you."

"I'm afraid that I can't let you make such a choice", he spoke. His voice was the calm, ever-so-slighty artificial singsong of a Mechanicus acolyte. Another wall placed between them by the young man's obligation. Another mask. "You do not possess the correct data. Your conclusion is erroneous."

Valeria thought she could detect a twitch – the barest sign of hesitation, in the way his head nudged beneath the hood. He continued as if nothing had happened.

"I cannot allow you to make such a choice. My heart – my mind will not bear it."

He turned from her, as if there was anything in his face not already hidden. In the darkness of the bridge, the light of the holographic data-panels floating majestically in front of the viewscreen cast his statuesque features in a pale, blue shade. A silhouette of black and crimson robes against the cyan glow.

"You deserve someone better than me, Lady Inquisitor. You deserve a man. A beauty such as yours… a passion, such as yours… I would do it a dishonor."

He began to walk himself, quiet, measured steps. They made no clanging sound. He might as well have floated.

"This isn't a question of data", she whispered back at him. She knew he could hear. "This isn't a calculation. This isn't a formula! I know that I love you. You have a million eyes, how can you not see that? Love is the answer. It always has and always will be the answer."

For the first time in twenty years, for the first time since the battle of Imexa – the first time since Valeria first gave the order to end three billion lives in an instant, a tear glittered upon her pale cheek. It crawled down her neck and over her gold and silk cravat, leaving in its wake a salty trail of torment no less horrific than that which followed that fateful Cyclonic missile.

"You're a coward, Icar. You claim to be free of emotion, but it is fear that drives you now. You are as terrified of love as you're blind to it – but all your implants can't make you truly free from its grasp."

"You do not understand, my Lady", he said calmly, without looking back. "You have not seen the face beneath this mask. You haven't seen this refined flesh. Heavy is the toll that must be paid in the service of the Omnissiah. That is the price I have paid for my faith. In my faith, I am endless. The Sang Mechanica flowing through my veins has made me eternal."

"What good to you is an eternity spent alone? What good to you is faith without light?"
He leaned against the control console in front of him. It was a human gesture – one that he shouldn't have made. One that he didn't need to. His synthetic fiber muscles did not tire.

"I am hideous, my Lady. My body is deformed. I am not worthy of being looked upon by eyes as beautiful and holy as your own. Please, my Lady – Valeria… Please, leave me be."

"I refuse, Icar. My love is far greater than this."

He shook his head, the hood flowing hypnotically from side to side. "No. It is not."

"Please," she begged, "please, let me take that chance. Don't leave me alone –"

"YOU KNOW NOTHING OF LONELINESS!" he screamed, turning back at her with savage, mechanical speed. His pale mockery of a face remained flat and expressionless, but his voice rose for a second to a blaring, static screech, like vox comm through heavy jamming.

Inquisitor Valeria has heard such sounds before, of course. Mechanicus voicebox implants tended to flare uncontrollably in moments of distress. On the battlefield, the death cries of the Skitarri were a horrid, unnatural chorus, as grave as any foul demon's.

She froze in mid step, less than a meter away. Even Icar was visibly shaken.

"Leave me be," he repeated, in celestial quiet, and returned to face the holo-display. "You do not know me. You do not know the price I've paid. The grotesquerie that is now my enfleshed face. The magi tell me that aesthetic sensibility is a weakness of the biotic mind, but I'm weak, Valeria. Far too weak to bear such… emotions as yours."

"Then let me give you strength", she replied, wrapping her arms around his broad, robed shoulders.
Even if his heart still beat, she could feel nothing beneath the black and red cloak. The fabric was as cold and indifferent as the stale air around them. Icar made neither movement nor sound to acknowledge her existence.

She knew that he could see her. Even with his face turned the other way, the nanytes floating around him showed him the bridge in all directions, at all times.

"Let me give you my strength, Icar", she said again. "You don't have to be alone."

"I… I am unworthy", he whispered. With a gesture, the holo-screens in front of him began dancing, data running and windows opening and closing faster than even Valeria's augmented eye could track. He would lose himself in that empty bliss, if she let him. Give entirely to the automatic tranquility of data processing, to the job that was as much his very
nature as it was his duty.

"You're worth the Imperia to me," she replied. Slowly, with a deliberation the powerfully built woman normally reserved for the handling of guns, her hands travelled down his shoulders, his neck, his chest. Trembling like those of a conscripted guardsmen, her fingers explored the folds of his cloak, turning and burrowing into the silk until she could almost imagine the feeling of the cold skin beneath.

Icar did not answer. The holo-screens ceased their waltz.

Valeria could feel his muscles giving beneath the cloak. Strength has abandoned him. Just as she did, the nano-morphed man had been, in the end, no more than a weak, fragile human. No less.

He turned around in place to face her. Blank, porcelain eyes stared coldly into her own.

"Won't you take it off?" she asked, not even daring sound hopeful.

"No," he answered somberly. "You know that it is forbidden. You know that is as it should."

"I know nothing", she pleaded. "You yourself said as much."

Before he could move in protest, Valeria's hands rose from within his cloak and reached up into his hood. Gently, so much as her shaky fingers could be, she gripped at the edges of the mask. It was cold and hard under the skin of her thumbs. Thin, like the sweet blade of a knife. Brittle, like a skull.

She pulled.

"It would not budge."

"…Nor should it. The material is magnetically locked to my nanytes. It will not unbind from my skin unless I command it to."
Valeria's legs weakened. It was worse than any shot she's ever taken, any slash of the sword that ever drew her blood. For a moment – an all too long, moment – she could feel Nurgle's icy fingers closing around her heart. Was that, after all these years, the feeling of true despair? The nigh-forgotten sense of defeat?
Icar didn't speak a word. Nothing sounded within the bridge but the powerful heartbeat and weak sobs of one.

Then, in the dreadful silence, slowly, a surface of porcelain moved. The attraction between Icar's skin and the mask having faded away like the light of a long dead star, it slid off his face like a fragment of dry ice.

The inquisitor stood stunned, holding the white mask in both hands, lost in the torrent of her emotions. Before her eyes, only a few centimeters away, was Icar's true, human face.
It was as vile to look at as he'd described, as inhuman of that any of mutant. The skin, a pallid and sickly shade of grey, a mockery of the pristine perfection of the mask. Black veins trailed beneath, beneath the man's forehead and cheeks and nose and neck, like rivers of sacred Machine Blood over a desert of salt. Every so often, a faint pulse of bluish light blinked within his dark eyes, or behind his lips, the nanytes in his blood concentrating on some arcane, physiological task.

And yet, his face moved. Subtly, only so little, they moved. As inhuman as they'd appeared, in that, they were as close to Valeria as the memory of her mother's face, beneath the forgotten sun of her homeworld.

A tick of sadness under the eyes, where tears would flow. A wrinkle of shame beneath his shaved head. A tinge of resignation in the twist of his lip. A bitter, tortured smile – the knowledge that now that she'd seen him, there love would have no more future. No hope.

He was magnificently, terribly, human. Beautifully, dreadfully, human.

"Icar…" her voice shuddered.

"Valeria, I – I'm sorry."

"Do not be", she answered. Her hug tightened around him. Without even noticing, she's laid her chin on his shoulder, for comfort. For a warmth that was not there, but which she could feel nonetheless. "You are as beautiful as the dawn, Icar. Beautiful as the dawn."

All Guardsmen Party

2016-11-21T05:15:16Z

2600:1006:B123:8848:0:17:ABFC:A401: /* Sergeant Gravis */

[[Category:Stories]]
[[Category:Awesome]]
[[Category:Stories/Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:All Guardsman Party]]

[[File:Inquisition Recruitment.jpg|right|250px|The sign of an imminent good storytime]]

The All Guardsmen Party is a pretty good series of Storytimes by the writefag Shoggy. It follows a group of [[Imperial Guard|Guardsmen]] from their origin in the bloody trenches, to their recruitment by the [[Inquisition]], and through a series of adventures filled with xenos, heretics, and incompetent superiors.

At over 200k words, the story archive is longer than a lot of novels. Be prepared.

The next chapter will continue '''December 3rd at 6pm Mountain Time.''' Maybe.

== Links ==

* '''HTML Link to whole thing: http://www.theallguardsmenparty.com/'''

* Suptg Link (Missing 2?): http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=all+guardsmen

* [[Occurrence Border | Setting Notes for anyone who wishes to experience the Occurrence Border]]

* Links to the Readings:
** The Prologue:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-iH5zt0w7Y
** Guardsmen and Pilgrims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7yJiTk74bM

== Chapters: ==

=== Prologue: Natural Selection Based Character Creation ===
<div style="min-height:130px;">[[File:AGP Chapter1.jpg|right|150px|]]
A player perspective on a horrible meatgrinder of an Only War game.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/33660810/
</div>
=== Guardsmen and Pilgrims ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP_Chapter2.png|right|150px|]]
A few Guardsmen, fresh from the destruction of their regiment, get handed out to a fresh young Interrogator like starter pokemon. The team is sent to inspect a pilgrim fleet for heretic activity.

Briefings are ignored, naps are had, a book is read, and everything goes to shit very quickly.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/34095013/
</div>
=== Dude Where's My Psyker ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter3.jpeg|right|150px|]]
The squad is handed over to a new Interrogator with a hard-on for meetings and a trio of pet psykers. They're sent to find out why a planet hasn't been providing tithes to the Black Ships.

Psykers make everything unpleasant, paranoia and booby traps pay off in a big way, and the squad is repeatedly yelled at for being guardsmen.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/34333783/
</div>
=== What's in the Box? ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter4.jpeg|right|150px|]]
An offensively British Interrogator takes the squad to check out regiment of guard that's been acting weird.

The squad is forced to do some actual inquisiting, a guardsman finds his true love, paranoid ramblings are ignored, the admech and commissariat are dicks, and enough explosives can solve anything.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/34660239
</div>
=== Nubby's Girlfriend ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter5.jpeg|right|150px|]]
A beautiful Interrogator leads the squad on a mission to purge some genestealers.

A will check is catastrophically failed, missions go better than expected, mistakes are made, plots are revealed, and a pocket is picked.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/34985468
</div>
=== Heretic Purging ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter6.png|right|150px|]]
The British Interrogator returns and takes the squad to find out why a wasteland world hasn't been worshiping the empra.

Tentacles and hot chicks are encountered but nothing interesting happens, an adept makes everyone throw up a little, orbital strikes are abused, zombies attack, a khornate is a hell of a guy, and a betrayal happens.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/35461504
</div>
=== Discount Spaceship ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter7.png|right|150px|]]
The squad is sent to acquire a [[Occurrence Border|slightly used spaceship]] and help some cogboys bring it home.

Jim and Hannah the Tech-Interns are met, questionable deals are made, helpful notes appear, slight mechanical problems occur, a knarloc is found, and Nubby is fired.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/35923989
</div>

=== Good Soldiers, Bad Educators ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter8.jpeg|right|150px|]]
The squad tries to teach some recruits how to be inquisitorial goons.

Lessons are planned, a test is failed, Sarge yells at people, a clever ruse is planned, a cult is found, and a heretek is nuttier than squirrel poo.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/36338781
</div>
=== The Interplanetary Man of Mystery ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter9.jpg|right|150px|]]
The squad gets a new interrogator and investigates corruption in the Imperial Guard.

Parties are attended, a psyker is named Fumbles, reality starts behaving oddly, deserters are questioned, the party is captured, escapes and gets recaptured, some truly horrible flirting happens, duct tape is used, and a secret moon base is attacked.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/37339037/
</div>

=== The Greater Good ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter10.png|right|150px|]]
The squad goes to Tau Space to chase down some xenos-loving traitors.

[[Occurrence Border|A familiar ship is boarded]], an ex-Inquisitor is met, an intimidate check is taken too far, a drug problem is exposed, idiots are idiots, Fumbles fumbles, horrible sabotage is perpetrated, some people get shot, and a scene from ironman is reenacted.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/38181397/
</div>

=== The Xenotech Heresy ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGP Chapter11.png|right|150px|]]
The squad tries to figure out what's depopulating planets.

An Argument over religion and the W-Word is had, a beach is visited and a familiar face appears, Tech-priests are fucking nuts, Sarge gets some chiropracty done, a dick is infuriated, Tech-priest are nutting fucks, tech-heresy is discovered, and bomb is planted.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/39165875/

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/39185203/
</div>

===Tyranid Acquisition Experts===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGPChapter12.png|right|150px|]]
The team goes to capture a live tyranid zoanthrope in a warzone consisting only of orks and tyranids.

Preparations are made, complaints are had, Space Marines are incompetent, the team gets a crash course in Grav-chute usage, Twitch completely snaps, and the captain is perpetually angry.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/40747009/

===Interlude: Dewarp===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGPChapter12AndAHalf.png|right|150px|]]
A brief look at how much of a pain it is to haul a live Zoanthrope across the galaxy.

Doc's girlfriend actually has a name, Nubby wears a dress, Machine Spirits are angered, the Zoanthrope gets a new hat, Fumbles had a bad day, something goes *CLANG*, Aimy discovers new depths of cynicism, and Sarge hopes for the impossible.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/42204030/

===Tyranid Delivery Experts===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGPChapter13.jpg|right|150px|]]
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGPChapter13AndAHalf.png|right|150px|]]
Completely normal arrival to a space station for resupply.

Serious preparations are made, Zoanthrope consequences occur, Sarge gets a bitchin cape and hat, and can't hold his mouth shut, Nubby wents to do shady business, psykers are nuts again, guardsmen are inventive, tech-priests are being useful for a change, Jim saves the day and gets smacked and everything well and truly goes to shit.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/43288004/

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/43990923/

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/44027113/

===The [REDACTED] Conspiracy ===
<div style="min-height:140px;">[[File:AGPChapter14.png|right|150px|]]
A completely normal security protocol for inspecting deliveries.

Competent Inquisitorial services ensure [[Heresy|nothing goes wrong]], nothing to see here Imperial citizen, move along.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/46575971/

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/46600041/

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/46864402/

All Guardsmen Party will be continued "soon"

== Guardsmen ==
[[File:AGP Rough Art.jpeg|right|400px|]]

=== Regiment ===

The AGP hails from the Generian 99th Medium Infantry, which had absolutely zero major victories to its name before being whittled down to 37 soldiers by orks and tyranids. Anytime a member of the AGP gets killed off (as is par for the course in Dark Heresy), the players still have plenty of spare characters to draw from.

=== Greg "Sarge" Sargent ===
The big solid non-comm that keeps the squad moving. The straight man and a born cynic. Think Sergeant Merrick from DoW, or Sgt Redford from Bad Company. Dig into "Interplanetary Man of Mystery" to find his real name! He eventually takes over as the team's Interrogator, if only to ensure that the role isn't taken by some incompetent nutjob who will get them all killed.

=== Doc ===
The medic that tries to keep the squad alive. Young, naive, and rather poorly trained, but can read without moving his lips and can be trusted not to do anything stupid if given command.

=== Twitch ===
The demolitions expert and squad paranoid. Thin, jumpy, not completely sane, and constantly carries more explosives than any squad should be allowed to have. Has a hard time sleeping in any location which hasn't been wired with a good portion of said explosives, which is a primary reason why navigating the AGP's current base of operations usually involves a long list of places to not go and things not to touch.

Twitch's paranoia seems to be some sort of clairvoyance after he has correctly predicted the Box being full of Orks, the daemon-knarloc-servitor-titan, DAEMONIDS,

=== Nubby Nubbs ===
A disgusting smelly little cretin, thief, and generally reprehensible individual. Officially he's a full-blooded human, but has on more than one occasion been confused with a Gretchin. Good in a fight and great at acquiring extra supplies, just don't leave anything valuable near him. While a great haggler, one should also not trust him with major purchases, as he's also responsible for obtaining the team's horrendously awful ship, the [[Occurrence Border]]. A direct rip-off of Nobby Nobbs from [[Discworld]], but seriously, if you didn't get that from a character named Nubby Nubbs, the joke is probably lost on you anyway.

=== Heavy ===
A big heavy weapons expert with a penchant for laziness. Has mastered the ability to sleep with his eyes open, and even while standing guard or marching. Was unlucky and died by shot to the head.

=== Cutter ===
An ex-scribe who found his true calling when he was issued a chainsword. A CQC monster, but can't hit the broad side of a space barn with anything ranged and has a very loose grasp of tactics. Also, dead, in the most badass of manners, involving stims and a melee battle with a Heretek.

=== Crisp ===
The former regimental chef and an expert flame trooper. Has seen some shit and laughs a little too much. 3rd casualty of war. However his death was awesome and included lots of higly flammable liquids, explosives and one certain chaos space marine.

=== Tink ===
The regimental techie. Small, whiny, and a little weird, but a great shot with a plasma gun and a wizard with most types of technology. Has a bit of a THING about tech-priests as well as a separate THING about female ones, despite his fascination with xenos tech ensuring that Sarge's squad-management policies usually keep him as far isolated from the cogboys as possible. Can also 'fix anything'.

=== Aimy ===
Full name: Amelia Delorisista Amanita Trigestrata Zeldana Malifee von Humpeding. A rather angry markswoman from a more noble regiment. Briefly served with the squad on a disastrous genestealer purging mission, but has more recently been filling in for Doc. Has an affinity for facial burns. Also a Discworld name reference.

== Interrogators and other characters==
The squad is often paired with other acolytes that even out the team and is frequently assigned to a new interrogator. Most of them aren't dignified with names and tend to die in messy ways while the guardsmen stay in cover.

=== The Rupert and Alfred ===
An offensively British former officer with a penchant for heroic charges and a slightly psychic butler. Leads the squad on three missions and doesn't fuck up too badly. For all his quirks, compared to the other Interrogators they've had to work with, he's a pretty swell guy.

=== Inquisitor Oak ===
Everyone's boss. Officially a member of the Ordos Xenos, he runs a space faring Inquisitorial school and constantly sends Interrogators from all branches out to earn their rosettes. Mostly a bureaucrat that doesn't do much personal inquisiting, instead he has an army of agents tracking leads and recruiting teams for the Interrogators to use. The AGP's performance (aka not dying) has started to catch his attention, this may not be good, he may be a heretic. . .or an ork in disguise.

Particularly notable for encouraging tech-heresy in his underlings by deliberately refusing to issue them fucking anything, inevitably resulting in the AGP "upgrading" (and in one instance kidnapping) by salvaging xenotech, up to and including fuel for their "ship". This has led to Tink becoming better educated in xenotech than any guardsman EVER should be.

=== Jim and Hannah the Tech-Interns ===
Like interns, except with metal tentacles. The broest of cogbros. The only person they don't get along with is Tink, albeit for entirely separate reasons. They start out as junior cogboys, but after all the other cogboys on the Occurance Border go completely nuts '''twice''', they're promoted to senior enginseers. While Jim would much rather stay on board tinkering with the ship, he frequently gets roped into the party's shenanigans.

=== Inquisitor Sciscitat (Asshat) formerly known as Interrogator (Data Nerd) ===
A nerd with a superiority complex and judged to be as useless in a fight as he is smug.

=== Interrogator (That Bitch) ===
Superhot woman and a Grade AAA+++ Bitch, thoroughly hated by the squad except for Nubby, who falls head over heels for her. The feeling is most certainly not mutual. Slaaneshi whores pale in comparison to her sheer hotness. And they were told not to speak of her again...

=== Interrogator (AFK) ===
First appears in "Good Soldiers, Bad Educators". Has them assigned to him for a mission, fucks off and leaves them to do things their way. Doesn't get much development beyond not being around to fuck the squad up. Makes another brief appearance, at the end of "Interplanetary Man of Mystery".

=== Interrogator Bane Johns (Super Spy) ===
An asshole who fucks Sororitas, parties hard, never loses and is one of their most hated superiors. Pretty much Sterling Archer with a =][= rosette. They won't be seeing him again anytime soon.

=== Nutjob ===
A psychic juggernaut and psychopathic manchild. "Sanctioned" is pushing it; giggles a lot and does things you cannot brainbleach away, a lot. It is dead! Praise the Emperor! PRAISE!

=== Valerie ===
Soritas Hospitaller Extraordinaire. After being encountered on several occasions, joined the Occurrence Border. Is dating Doc, and tolerating his idiot squadmates. Never, ever fuck with her patients or learn the hard way that she's as hard as her flamer-toting fellow nuns.

=== Fumbles ===
He's a psyker and called Fumbles, what do you expect? Well, wrong you are then! Actually a very decent guy for a psyker, that is. Just needs a little inspiration and distance from untouchables and probability fields. In spite of most of the team's non-guardsman members either being rotated out or else killed horribly, and in spite of the team's frequent disgust with psykers, Fumbles has become a regular fixture on the team. Addicted to space speed, thanks to a certain Cretin. Also thanks to a certain incident he may be at risk of being purged by anyone not from the squad. Also hes fething adorable.

=== Spot the Wonder Drone 2.0 ===
The most awesomest little Tau recon drone and the team's unofficial mascot, also why Tink is not trusted with the team's budget anymore. While an obvious example of Tech-heresy, the team has made efforts to disguise it as a proper servo-skull, with mixed results. <strike> (RIP Spot, you were so young) [[Meme|HE'S BACK! AND BETTER THAN EVAR!]] </strike> Was used as an impromptu weapon by a space marine (with attached wraithbone dildo). Spot 3.0 coming soon.

=== Fio the Tau ===
An Earth caste engineer the party rescued from a messy situation involving necrons, an Eldar warlock and lots and lots of heretek. Weeaboo and annoying as fuck, but good for fixing things. Currently hiding in the Guardsmen's barracks to avoid getting everyone blammed for heresy. He's somehow able to smuggle in some [[Anime|Tau animations]] for the ship's resident [[weeaboo|Tau culture aficionados]], which unfortunately includes a fictionalization of the AGP after their exploits on a Tau border world.

=== Sergeant Gravis ===
A space marine from the Emperor's Scythes and in charge of a [[Scout|Scout]] squad detachment. <strike> Currently bisected and had his gear stolen by Nubs. Also panicking Doc as he tries to figure out how the hell to keep a space marine alive.</strike> In the hands of a genuine deathwatch apothecary now! May end up in a dreadnought if his chapter can supply one.

=== The Occurrence Border ===
Their space-hulk/ship and <strike> part-time </strike> FULL-TIME deathtrap.

=== Duct Tape ===
While Duct Tape is not actually a character, it appears more often and tends to be more useful than any real characters.

=== Explosives ===
Solves every problem in the story (sooner or later), Twitch's wife.

===Sock Puppets===
These two puppets usually appear whenever someone smart needs to condescendingly explain background politics to the AGP. Appeared once on the Tau border worlds to explain the governor's nefarious plan to provoke a war, and again to explain the conspiracy against Inquisitor Oak's training school.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:AGP-Crisp.jpg|Crisp.
Image:AGP-Cutter.jpg|Cutter and his Waifu.
Image:AGP-Doc.jpg|Doc.
Image:AGP-DocMasked.jpg|Also Doc.
Image:AGP-Heavy.jpg|Heavy.
Image:AGP-Nubby.jpg|Nubby.
Image:AGP-Sarge.jpg|Sarge.
Image:AGP-Tink.jpg|Tink.
Image:AGP-Twitch.jpg|Twitch.
Image:JimAndTink.jpeg|Jim and Tink.
Image:We are not going to get in trouble are we.png|Animu Fumbles.
Image:Sarge is gonna be pissed.jpg|Aimy.
Image:Docs_Girlfriend.jpg|Sister Hospitaller Valerie.
Image:Its for science, totally.jpg|Tink being stupid, again.
Image:AGP-Spot.png|Spot the Wonder Drone.
Image:AGP-SpotAsHannah.png|Tink does not handle rejection well.
Image:AGP-Cast.jpg|The All Guardsmen Party.
Image:AGPmodels1-.jpg|Now in Model Format!
Image:AGP2.jpg|The party.
Image:703896 md-.jpg| Sarge and the AGP.
Image:ZoanthropeTransportAGPStyle.png| Codex Approved Tyranid Transport.
Image:The Occurrence Border Shaded.jpg| The Occurrence Border, pride of the Inquisitorial Fleet.
Image:Occurrence Border Docking.jpg| Nice parking job, asshat.
Image:The spooky poker room of the damned.jpg|The Spooky Poker Room of the Damned.
Image:AGPdelivers.jpg|DAEMON SURPRISE!
Image:BEWAREOFKNARLOC.jpg|Don't open random doors on the Occurrence Border.
Image:Twitchnightmare.jpg|This is Twitch's brain on Weirdboy; don't do Orks, kids.
Image:WEDIEINGLORY.jpg|Approved Codex Astartes method of dealing with Surprise Daemons.
</gallery>