Gallus Silon

This is a Warhammer 40k story posted up in 2011 by Peg Leg Dave. This is all a direct copy and paste from some old backed up web pages so the formatting definitely sucks.

Good afternoon gentlemen,

Now, I have returned and I do not mean to be the center of attention here or to take away from any ongoing threads; though I do remember quite a few people saying that they would look forward once again to my colorful ramblings on games I have been fortunate enough to play in. First things first though, I need to introduce how I found myself playing in my first dark heresy campaign. At the local gaming store there is always much suspicion when a new game comes out, even if it comes through an established gaming company. While the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game was a very good product by all reckoning, people were still somewhat curious as to how the similar company could do justice for Warhammer 40k. There is a subtle difference, one might point out, between a crossbow and a Meltagun. However, I being of the mindset that Clarke was right, sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, that psykers and wizards are more or less the same thing. At least, in theory.

Now, I admit I had grown very tired of the gamers all standing around looking at the neatly stacked new arrivals, so I said that if a DM would run it, I would fund it. A DM came forward, one of the more gifted DMs of the store, and said that he would run the game. I purchased the book for myself and immediately handed it to him, telling him to promptly absorb the contents so that I might have a chance to play in this game sooner rather than later. It wasn't much time at all as he soon put up a flyer to advertise the game, looking for 3 additional players to accompany myself and he as we dove into a story of heresy, dark and otherwise.

Now, at the first session I am greeted by a group of people that isn't all bad. You see, the DM had done his job by screening what chaff he could from the wheat. There was no sense in letting anyone into this game as we were trying our best to see what the new system had to offer. Our players, or as the very cultured of us like to say, our 'dramatis personae' were as follows:

Guy (That was his first name, strangely enough) - younger than I, Former United States marine, very laid back, enjoys American Spirit Cigarettes and doesn't like to talk about the war. Plays Flames of war (United States Army) and Warhammer 40k tabletop (Imperial Guard), not a man of modest intellect, and more than not holds his tongue rather than be impolite.

Lady Sudoku (Not her real name, she was a fanatic for puzzles) - Housemother, former police officer (Just didn't agree with the job), always brought in snacks to whatever she was invited to, played Warhammer Fantasy (Dwarves) and Warhammer 40k tabletop (Orks), holds painting workshops for the less-than-capable, always played Sudoku puzzles while waiting her turn in long tabletop games. Very kind, sweet, and the perfect example of a fine lady of the gamestore.

The Bonzai Kid (Our name applied to him, he was always wound up and rode one of those far-too-fast Japanese Motorcycles) - Youngest of us, incredibly intelligent, more of a console gamer than tabletop, however, plays Warhammer 40k tabletop (Tau) and quotes lots of Japanese comic books. Thinks everything is 'epic' though I feel he's never really seen anything truly 'epic' in his lifetime. He was the most polite of the remaining 40k knowledgable people willing to play in our game.

Well, from here on out I'm going to refer to the people by their character names, which I will show you in a moment. Now, I must say that there were other people who were interested in playing in our game, however due to scheduling constraints, timing issues, interest and sensibility, these were the best people we could gather at that point in time. Please understand that had things been more perfect, we would have had a different group. However, if things had been perfect, I don't think we would have had half the fun we did.

During our first session, the DM has us all pitch a character to play, so here is how that goes.

Guy said he is interested in playing: Mordeci Cain (A name chosen by the generator from Fantasy Flight's website), Imperial Arbitrator. Mordeci is intelligent, a natural knack for solving crimes, always hears his party out before administering Imperial Justice and is on the fast track (at least in his own mind) to being promoted to more important work. Mordeci's stats favored intellect and gunplay, though everything else was at an average or slightly below. Mordeci was from a hive world.

Mordeci was approved for play.

Lady Sudoku decided to play: Devi Cimbria, Scum. Devi is intelligent, sly, sneaky, suspicious and above all uncouth. Devi is a con-artist, a thief, and far worse things. She is from a hive world, and has done anything she could to survive in the lower hive.. Devi's stats favor Intellect and agility.

Devi was approved for play.

The Bonzai Kid decided to try to play: Seth Moonblade, an eldar.

We all looked up and realized that the kid had about 40 pages of information, in a three-ring binder, and was fully prepared to read them to us concerning the eldar's background. The Dm shook his head slowly. The kid, undaunted in the slightest, lifted a tab in the binder and announced his next character to us, "Shas'O Kain, a firewarrior from . . " The DM shook his head slowly, and the kid lifted another tab in the binder. This went on for a while until the DM tired of it and said "Just leave, son". Which, the kid did. He was not welcome from that point into our game mainly because he wanted to play anything other than dark heresy and anything other than human. When we heard the exhaust of his suicide machine (That quite-fast Japanese racing bike) fading into the distance the group looked at me and asked what I was going to play. I pointed out that the DM had my book and that I had not a chance to make a character ahead of time. The DM opened the book and said "Standby to roll some D10s" and slightly less than an hour later we have my fellow:

From a hive world, as this seems to be our luck of late, the lowest order of adept to the adeptus Mechanicus was best served by none other than Gallus Silon (It was a rolled name thanks to a name generator, however, the pun is not lost on me.) I recall him having started with extraordinary intelligence and rather decent toughness, though he was completely useless in all other regards. I began with the natural implants common to those in the service of the machine god, though without any of the extra appendages at the moment. I spent my beginning thrones to ensure I had the appropriate things a lowly man of the Red cloth might, a las-cutter and some random electronic trinkets before saying that I was ready. The DM opened his screen, set it up, got himself a large glass of tea and then began.

The story was more or less what I would discover to be the standard fare in Dark heresy games: You are all not very important people in a very, very crowded hive with all sorts of suffering in your past, as to directly contrast to your daily sufferings. We found ourselves introduced to each other NOT at a tavern, but at a safe house we were all summoned to by a cryptic note. Now, having my fellow respond to a cryptic note a little difficult as I, being a faithful servant of the Adeptus Mechanicus would not dare read or respond to personal correspondence while engaged in activities dictated by a senior magos. When I did show up, late, The inquisitor was waiting for us. See, as part of our backstory, we were all found to have been 'exemplary' people and 'foreseen in the Imperial Tarot' to be of use to the God-Emperor and his servants. I didn't particularly find the Inquisitor to be a compelling leader, but I was put into place by having orders put before me, signed by the Arch-Magos in charge of my Fabricator-Manufactorium commanding me to be of 'efficient assistance at all times'. Who was I to argue, then?

The Inquisitor made us part of his warband and there was a speech he made about 'grave and imminent doom that possibly could be bringing the entire sector down around our ears, but maybe not, depending on what you find out and goodbye'. We were given a series of orders that I shall provide for you all to read and discuss as you will:

1 - Discover what we can of a "Thule Syndicate" operating in the lower hive.

2 - Do not be found to be Imperial Agents.

3 - Procure anything you need in the field.

Those were our orders, and certainly I must say that they were straightforward enough. Spy, and don't be spied upon. I understood that we had more or less the perfect cover for the assignment, we had a scum-person that could blend in with the crowds if not infiltrate the group, we had a low level officer of what was likely to be the Magistratum and we had me, the equivalent of a menial repair-person to go about where he pleased under the supposed orders of the Machine god. It was at this time we began to plan.

You see, we weren't given a budget for this operation, which I found to be rather troubling considering that everything costs something in the Imperium and the barter-system only works in your favor if you have things worth bartering, which I certainly did not. Well, I suppose I did but they could have my collection of tools when the pried them from my quasi-alive, metallic appendages. We were told to 'deposit our findings' to a dead-drop which was at some address I wrote down, my character naturally committing that to memory for later use should we not die horrifically in our adventures.

Our plan came out to the following:

1 - Find out what this Thule Syndicate actually 'did' on the surface before diving in and finding out what they were supposedly doing when everyone wasn't watching.

2 - Procure supplies for infiltration or assault to the premises in order to gain intelligence

3 - Find a safe place to hide while waiting for new tasks as likely we would not want to travel back and forth between mid-hive and lower hive, it would attract suspicion.

As we packed up the operation to move to the lower hive, we came to the conclusion that we had rather stick close together in case something terrible should happen. There was plenty of roleplaying at this point, Mordeci telling us of his academy days and night-sticking vagrants day-in-and-day-out, and how this was a great adventure compared to his rather boring daily routine. Devi was a free spirit and admitted to having run from Mordeci once or twice, but now that we were on the same time she was assuming she was more or less free from any sort of danger of imprisonment or prosecution. Mordeci and Devi hit it off, in character, by telling interesting tales of crackdowns and shootouts from both sides of the fence. Mr. Silon kept to himself, the DM asking what I was doing, and the answer was invariably "Calculating estimated time of arrival to the lower hive" or "Considering efficiency upgrades to my existing cybernetic implants" or something similar.

Now a side tangent if I may..

You see, many folk try to do justice to the adeptus mechanicus by trying to do the voice. They normally try to do the voice from Warhammer 40k: Dawn of war by quoting "This Able beast should get us there" or "It is nothing for someone of my skills" or something similar. Me? I go a different approach. I lower my tone of voice and try to sound very calm and it comes out as being a near-perfect impression of that larger, green fellow from Aqua Teen Hunger force, the Mooninite. The internet, when queried, says his name is Ignignokt but I can't say I knew that at the time. Just "one of the mooninites" was the label people applied.

The Roleplaying continued as we took what was described as this large train that ran along the outside of the hive, going around its massive circumference and descending levels as it went, as though in a very gradual descending helix bent around the structure. As we neared the lower-hive we found our party interaction somewhat hampered by a bandit who announced that we should empty our pockets lest he 'brain us good'. I have no idea why all bandits in the 41st millennium are cockney, but I took affront to the situation of being interrupted on such holy a mission. I would have risen to shoot him but he had a rusted autogun leveled at us as he stood in the doorway between two train cars. The Arbite and the scum played it cool as the man was not addressing us directly, but rather everyone in the car. I asked the DM "Is the man directly in the doorway?" The Dm said that he was, as though he anticipated someone to shoot at him and he could close the door to deter someone chasing him.

At this point I wrote something on a piece of paper and slipped it to the DM who said "Jesus Christ, okay, roll for Tech use test"

You see, I had accessed a data port covertly using my natural ability to do so through the palms of my hands, due to them being full of circuitry and what have you. I made a tech use test to tell the door's hydraulics to just, well, close at full force. Now. The machine spirit was on my side and the doors closed with more force than they had in centuries, not cutting the man into pieces but crushing most of his bones along with his softer, interior biological parts. The man gurgled and died at that point, after which everyone in the train car (party included) looked at my character, who said in a state of perfect calm, "Surely, It was a malfunction."

We ransacked the body along with half of the people in the car, who were from the lower-hive and returning home. Life was cheap down there so they saw no trouble in a stick-up artist being cruelly murdered by malfunctioning machinery, everyone helped themselves to his riches that the party had not claimed (Mainly his thrones, of which there were seventy or so, and a hold-out snub-las tucked into the small of his belt).

Upon arriving in the lower hive we were entering a realm described by the DM as more or less industrial hell meets mid 18th century London. I was aware from my Dickens that once upon a time London was called Coketown due to the coke-furnace smoke ever present in the air, so I had some idea of what we were walking into. It was then I had my first encounter with a homeless person in a Dark Heresy Game.

Now, I don't look down upon those without homes, and in fact I have wondered what it would be like to take to the rails for a year or two just out of adventuring spirit but this man was getting on my nerves even out of character. He was described as having wild hair and asking every five seconds for money, saying that this was his sidewalk and that we were bastards, but then seconds later he would say that he was sorry and coming off of narcotics and needed 'just a boost'. Before I could do anything, Mordeci, the Arbitrator, decided to act officially. Mordeci took out his baton and began to beat the man mercilessly about the face for having the gaul to beg before an officer of the Magistratum, and for not having a job, and for being a freeloader on society, and a dozen other things the man was certainly guilty of. After the beating, the man was laying in a pool of his own blood, not dead but certainly not likely to wake up any time soon. It was at this point that the scum searched him and found a hundred thrones in very small denominations. Apparently this beggar was doing very well for himself. In addition, upon a further search it was discovered the man had a tooth made of platinum, and keys to an apartment.

We were somewhat dumbfounded as to what we had happened upon and halted the game to ask if the DM was using a random loot generator or what was going on. He explained that some middle class or lower class people often do feign being homeless in order to beg, and make decent money doing so. We had just happened upon such an individual, and that we needed to get back to the game.

So, upon this revelation to my character (Told to us by DM fiat through the Arbitrator as a mouthpiece) I decided to practice a fair piece of street dentistry by extracting such said platinum tooth. Unfortunately he woke up mid extraction and had to be sedated again through the application of a lateral cranial impact.

We decided to follow the keys back to the apartment by checking the imprint on the keys with local residential areas within walking distance (assisted by our scum asking around some of the local drinking establishments). When we found the house, however, we were in a fair bit of trouble. It was a basement apartment and from what we gathered it was a local equivalent of a crack-parlor. Now, I understand that someone might want to go through as little trouble as possible to find a safehouse, but we were rather stubborn people and that house was more or less decidedly ours, as soon as we cleaned the tenants out. We set up observation for a time, and the scum got close enough to the windows and doors to find out the place was more or less a fortress.

The windows, the doors, everything was reinforced and air-tight, there was no way we could sneak in there.

"Air tight?" I asked the DM. "Yeah" he says. I ask how they get their air and he says that it is recycled through an atmospheric conditioning unit on the side of the building. I asked why this was, and he said "Because the air quality is terrible here and they're rich enough to want perfectly clean air."

So, I had the quandary of pests in the basement apartment we wanted, which was a perfect place amongst other things as it was a fortress, reinforced everything and blended in quite well to the surrounding area. I decided I had a solution to our problem. It was at this time I asked the DM if there was any equivalent to a hardware or general goods store in the locality.

Now, my plan centered around being able to find copious amounts of Chlorine so that I might make Phosgene, Lewisite, or any of those nasty Chlorine gasses and then introduce it into that air scrubber in order to more or less clean out the riff-raff in short order.

I passed a mild intelligence test to figure out how to make the stuff (As I gather, simple chemical weapon information is probably small potatoes compared to working around Fusion powered anything) and then successfully navigated a series of transactions which gained me several gallons of the appropriate materials.

Now, our officer created a diversion by scaring the tenants of the house away by doing a foot-patrol and asking to see people's Identifications and various other harassment techniques that are often used against hooligans, while our Scum kept a lookout and I began to play with the atmospheric processor of this building.

I do pardon for making so simple a mistake, you see, my spell-check auto-corrects as I go along and it tends to choose the wrong word sometimes. Then again, I am equally at fault for choosing the wrong word sometimes.

So, there we were. Now, there was a slight mistake in mixing the atmospheric gasses and my own concoction as I flubbed, critically, one tech-use test out of three. I thought it was a majority-rules sort of situation but apparently each governed a separate part of what I was trying to do. Here's what happened behind the scenes.

Test 1 - To correctly measure the right amounts of chemical for the desired effect. (Passed)

Test 2 - To introduce the chemical to the building without setting off an atmospheric contamination alarm (Pass)

Test 3 - To introduce this chemical to ONLY the basement - Fail

Where I had initially wanted only to kill a few drug dealers and other miscreants I had accidentally introduced the residents of the apartment complex to some very effective and very permanent sleeping medicine.

Having Euthanized a few hundred people didn't exactly get me corruption points as it was a mistake, but I tested anyways and succeeded in 'not feeling terribly bad about having killed people but somewhat upset at having failed to interface correctly with a machine'.

Now the party at this point has no idea what's going on, so we decide to sit around and wait a while. . .

We decided to sit around at a local diner (The worst greasy spoon in the Galaxy,as the DM put it) and have a cup of coffee while things 'settled' back at our soon-to-be-safe-house when there were some shouts in the streets and a few sirens of the equivalent of a rescue-brigade. The Arbite asked if anything could have gone wrong in my execution of the plan, to which I replied

"I believe I have accidentally euthanized the entire building"

There were stares between the players and then stares at me, which I took to be stares to my character.

"mistakes were made" My fellow admitted, as sullenly as he could. The other two players were horrified but two hours later we went to our now-empty building with 'Do not cross - contaminated' tape over the windows and doors. I fixed the atmospheric processing unit and we entered our new-empty basement safe-house.

Thus ended Session One. Thank you for listening and that's all I have for now.