Campaign 1 - Part 1
Near the dawn of time…
Once, we hid from the darkness, from the shadow, and we prayed for the break of Dawn and the coming of the Light upon the pinnacles of the great pyramids we worshipped.
Until we broke the Sky, until we chained the Night.
And the Dark slept in Its prison, and waited.
Eight years ago…
Our story begins in 586.M41, with a gathering.
On the planet Everholt, a world turned over to the pleasure of the Great Noble Houses of the Prosperitas Sector, and its population reduced to being gamekeepers to uncaring Imperial nobles, a triumvirate of the three great Inquisitors of the Prosperitas Sector gathered. They summoned the spoiled, arrogant and disliked Sector Governor Armelius Durovera to them, as they believed that a changeling daemon of the Archenemy was amongst the Governor's staff. They sought to warn him, but, alas, they were wrong…
The shapeshifter was, in fact, among the Inquisitorial retinues - she had always been, patiently waiting for her chance at freedom. She had worn many names, many faces; long ago, she had been mortal but, now that part of her was lost to the eons and to apotheosis. Everholt turned to chaos, as the changeling daemon turned the assets of each Inquisitor against each other, and, in the confusion, murdered them all, as well as Armelius Durovera, whose shape she took.
Event 1: That Which Has No Name
In the wake of the chaos that ensued came several Agents of the Throne - servants of multiple lesser Inquisitors - to investigate the deaths of the great Inquisitors. They realised too late that the Sector Governor had been replaced, as the daemon bid them farewell and stepped upon a shuttle, believing them stranded on the planet.
The Agents attempted to escape the world, some accepting a ride with a strange breed of Orks claiming to be loyal to the Imperium, and others escaping through an ancient gate into the Aeldari webway, guided by a mysterious woman, who claimed to be an Agent of the Emperor.
Both parties carried a warning to their Masters.
Both warnings came too late.
… five years too late.
The twisting vagaries of the Warp conspired against them, and both groups arrived home five years after they left Everholt.
Meanwhile…
When the Agents ran to the Aeldari gate, they took with them several objects recovered from the personal effects of the Inquisitorial triumvirate. Amongst those was a statuette of some ancient being, rendered with a monstrous likeness. And the statuette was kept in the bag of an Agent.
But as they fled, they were set upon by woodland beasts. The Agent carrying the statue fell upon it, shattering seals not broken since the Old Ones walked the universe. Through the cracks on those seals slithered out a blackness, a black so dark that it threatened to snuff out any light it touched, the sliver of an entity so poisonous it had forced alliances between the most ancient of foes to bind it…
Across the shadows of the Sector, it slithered and, eventually, found its way to the whole.
A heartbeat in the dark, long-stilled in eternal slumber, pulsed once more.
Three years ago…
By 592.M41, the shape-shifting daemon had worn the face of Armelius Durovera for five years, and for five years they had re-written the universally disliked Governor. He had changed, and, so, he was loved - no, surrounded by a cult of personality - and had seized control of the Prosperitas Crusade – he was no longer the Sector Governor, he was the Warmaster of the Crusade.
The warnings brought to the Inquisition about Armelius Durovera were not unheeded or ignored, but since they had arrived so late after he had set himself in power so firmly, acting on them was impossible without evidence of the accusations. Having lost its three most influential members, the Prosperitas Conclave was weak and divided and lacking the strength to just remove an individual as powerful as the Warmaster who had the ear of both the military leaders and the Ecclesiarchy.
So, the Inquisition sought, instead, another avenue to unseat the false-Governor, dispatching a team of Agents beyond the Imperium’s edge to find she who could defy him…
Event 2: Marches’ End
On the distant world of Finisterra, un-graced by the light of the God-Emperor, an expeditionary fleet struggled to pacify the unruly population. It was led by the Rogue Trader, Lady-Captain Hermione Durovera, Armelius’ elder sister, who had forgone her claim to the Governorship, in order to pursue the life of a Rogue Trader beyond the Imperial border - and now wanted the distant world for their own. Countless treasures lay hidden in the planet, and the Lady-Captain was unwilling to risk damaging them by turning the full force of her fleet on it.
Hermione was a clever, dangerous woman, and if she could be brought on board, she could contest her brother’s political hold on the sector - and drastically reduce the Warmaster’s strength and allies.
But the demon soon realized this too, and sent assassins to take her head. The Agents sent by the Inquisition to protect her and sway her to their side had not only to keep her safe from the Eight, but also had to go head to head with agents of the sector-wide rebel alliance, the Rising Flame, who, led by Sharre Ajax, plotted to deny the Imperium the innocent world, and make an example of their hated foes.
The Agents managed to defeat the assassins - even capturing Sharre Ajax - and kill the Rising Flame commanders on-planet, while convincing Hermione of the veracity of the claims that her brother had been replaced; but they still struggled to convince her to let go of her bounty - until a new player joined the board.
Local legends referred to them as the Black Sentinels; they gave no name, and communicated only via radio transmissions, but their vessels were unmistakably that of ancient Astartes. In their messages, they claimed Finisterra was under their protection, and they told the Imperial forces in no uncertain terms that they were to retreat from the system or face the consequences.
Demoralised and battered, Imperial forces and the Lady-Captain’s fleet withdrew, and no Imperial ship that dared to travel to that system since has ever returned…
Meanwhile…
The shadows grew longer…
With the heartbeat came the whispers…
… to the desperate, to the scared, to the lonely…
They preyed upon fears, taking the smallest seed and growing it into a raging inferno. A whole Pilgrim Vessel was turned into a charnel house as the faithful's nightmares were turned upon them in the dark void.
Black ash…
On the world of Butonia, where Witch Finders had fanned the fires of a rebellion of the ‘righteous’, it found fertile ground to spread and influence a new face of the Imperial faith, twisting fanatics so terrified for their lives, that, when they prayed to the God-Emperor in their terror… the Dark listened… and they gave It strength.
Black handprints…
These were the first of the Ashen Cult. Its followers called It many things, but they always called It by the truth: It was the first thing humanity learned to fear while sitting around the flickering firelight in those primitive and long-gone days. It was the dark that no light could escape from. It was the First Fear, the Black, the Endless and Starless Night. It was the End, the Final Breath.
It was Death.
It was the Darkness, and It had awakened.
If not for the actions of Agents of the Throne at both Butonia and the ship, the poison would have spread much faster. By cauterising the wounds, they denied It purchase on the Sector; it was not enough to turn back the dark tide, but it would buy them time…
Event 3 - In the Shadow of the Spire
On the wretched, dying hive-world of Korimesta, an old and ancient rotting spire hid a forbidden secret, using an entire city as camouflage - for, beneath its surface, lay a massive xenos construct - a gigantic Pillar made of the fabled material Blackstone (known as Noctilith in High Gothic).
An Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, Duplesis, shared with the rest of the Conclave a prophecy that spoke of an xenos artifact hidden beneath the city and how it was tied to the fate of the sector. Several Inquisitors sent their assets to learn more about the pillar, but Korimesta held other interests - and many agents of many masters were in play, as the Spire prepared to celebrate the Ecclesiarchical festival of Khan-Hattilik.
The mysterious woman, who had led the Agents stranded on Everholt to safety though a Aeldari gate, surfaced again - wearing the garments of a Sororitas - and told the Agents a secret: that the Pillar was not a single artefact. Rather, that it was a node in a network made of several (now three) of such devices - all part of something far greater - and she was its guardian. She eventually admitted that, were this network to completely fail, the tides of the Warp would surge and engulf the sector.
Then, death came, and it wore the face of Grandfather Nurgle - the remnant-cult of the Withered Angel erupted in uprising seeking to bring pain and death in the name of their daemonic patron, summoning forth a Herald and its ever-hungry servants. But the Agents of the Throne stood in its way, and through the spiritual blessing of the Emperor’s Saints, the daemonic presence was cleansed.
A warning came from the most unexpected of sources - a possessed Astropath disgorged an image of the Warmaster, who claimed he was just as interested as they were in keeping the Pillars active. The shapeshifter told them that the Archenemy had recently become aware of the location of that Pillar, and one of their battleships was en route to Korimesta to obliterate the planet - and the Pillar with it. After all, were the Eye of Terror to expand, the Archenemy’s work would be made much easier. They needed to destroy the ship before it could destroy the planet. They could heed its warnings or not, but it would be on their heads if they didn’t.
Sensing it was about to be thwarted, the Blood-God sent its servants to attack, which forced the Agents of the Throne to split their forces: some would protect the spire, and some took their battle to the Archenemy’s battleship, the Spear of the Forefather, sabotaging its warp engines and scuttling it before it could reach Korimesta. But their victory would not be without a heavy cost, for while ten went in, only nine came out - and Battlesister Alicia Rose, one of the Emperor’s Daughters, was the one who fell so that others could live.
That was not the only sacrifice that day. Many died, many were broken beyond repair, and an entire noble bloodline was extinguished. But, perhaps, the greatest sacrifice was how the Agents agreed to return home empty-handed - and face their Inquisitors. It was agreed that no Inquisitor should have the Pillar, for it was too vital - and too dangerous. With the help of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the mysterious keeper of the Pillar stabilized the spire, so it would not collapse when she teleported the Pillar using ancient technologies to a new and unknown location.
The Agents had triumphed, Korimesta still stood.
But its death was not long coming…
Meanwhile…
A flicker in the defences of the Pillar, while it rebooted, and a compact between a shadowy conspiracy and the forces of the Archenemy known as the Children of Tain, exploited the weakness in the veil to launch a massive assault on the Crusade Headquarters at the heavily defended Polarnus Station. Infiltrated agents caused the defences to fail or turn on the noble Imperial defenders of the station.
And, in the shadows of this chaos, It grew too, swelling in power and strength. Like a cancer, It spread, more cults growing in the dark, spreading from the bowels of the hive cities to the black bellies of starship holds; In the shadows, It grew, as desperation and fear festered in the sector.
What perhaps was more curious, is that the Warmaster, or the daemon supposedly masquerading as him, took no steps to sow chaos, no steps to bring discord. Instead, she sought to bring hope to the people, sought to combat It -- only fueling the suspicions of the Inquisition that she had a part in all this…
Fires began to spread: small ones at first, but long-dormant fractures between the Great Houses began to re-emerge, ancient hatreds were acted upon once more, and civil war seemed just around the corner.
All it would take was but a spark to ignite it.
The year was 593.M41 and the Prosperitas Sector was beginning to splinter…
Event 4 - On Polarnus Station
There was no doubt that Polarnus Station had to be retaken from the Archenemy. Without it, the Crusade would falter and likely die. But there were other reasons for the Inquisition to send its Agents to the station: hidden within it, an Inquisitorial Black Site, one of the Inquisition’s storehouses of forbidden and confiscated artefacts. Perhaps, more importantly, it now contained a Phylactery, an arcane storage unit believed to contain some component of the false-Warmaster’s soul, the only conduit the Inquisition had to potentially banish the daemon.
But Polarnus was a trap.
For when the fall of Polarnus had been plotted, it had been done so knowing that the Inquisition would want to evacuate the Black Site. Hidden behind the gullible forces of the Archenemy, the conspirator waited for their moment to come.
After infiltrating the station to get to the vault and acquire the Phylactery, the Agents had to fight against not only the Archenemy, but also the Darkness. It had grown strong enough to manifest in the physical space in Its true form, a spreading black shadow that consumed all It touched with growing madness. It was more than a mental change of state, but a physical, festering parasitic fear that erupted from the dead and wore their corpses as its foul puppets to feed on death and fear. It was turned back, after some Agents braved Its grasp to step within It, and see with their eyes for the first time the vast Black Desert in which It was awakening from Its slumber.
Finally, the Black Site was breached, and the precious cargo acquired - and who would have noticed, among all those terrifying and precious things, were one to go missing?
In the meantime, the Inquisition was betrayed both from within their own number and from without, as Inquisitor Alexandros Voss and Arbiter Drusilla Vox, both now servants of the false-Warmaster, took charge of the operation and attempted to abscond with the Phylactery, aided by other infiltrated servants of the Warmaster.
But the other Inquisitors were not as blind as Voss would believe. Their betrayal failed and the Phylactery was destroyed, some say by a miracle of the Emperor, or even by a manifested Living Saint. Still, both of the traitors escaped before they could be brought to justice.
However, the Agents were now in a unique position of being able to take back the station: coordinating their efforts with those of Vice-Admiral Chandier, who had been stranded in the station, they managed to take back the defenses and exorcise the Demon that had been installed inside the station’s mainframe, turning the table on the invaders.
Polarnus stands, the Agents survived, the traitors were exposed and the Warmaster was wounded.
But the siege of Polarnus had served the purpose of its engineer, and the Agents had played their roles beautifully. A vessel sped away from the station, carrying their true target, ITEM-001 PDBX, the first artefact ever stored within the Inquisitorial Blacksite centuries ago - containing an unimaginable treasure…
… a viable genetic sample of the God-Emperor himself.
Meanwhile…
When his phylactery was destroyed, the Warmaster was in a meeting with the Crusade High Command - and the blow forced him to manifest into his true form and kill those with him. It was claimed the Warmaster had been the target of an attempt on his life, that he had barely survived and had claimed the lives of all of his companions. That is why, it was said, the Warmaster became so ill that he retired from public view.
Like jackals after tasting blood, the sudden ‘illness’ of the Warmaster, the Great Houses of the Prosperitas sector made their plays to seize power and grow to new strengths.
In turn, the Rising Flame also rose up in open defiance of the Imperium, with more and more worlds sympathetic to its cause, protecting the local populace even as dangers spilled in from the warp. Their once-captured leader, Sharre Ajax, also apparently escaped his prison on Polarnus during the chaos of the siege.
Though the forces of Chaos had been beaten back, the Imperium could not be saved from itself, as more strife and discord spread…
… and the Darkness continued to swell…
Event 5 - The Forgotten
The Agents were sent to the world of Midsummer, to investigate strange transmissions that were detected by Inquisitorial Auspexes. On the vital agri-world, where nature cults blended with the Imperial cult, something lay: an ancient rift leading to a Realm of Blood and War - the Kingdom of Khorne.
As the Agents found the source of the transmissions, they came upon a lone and wounded sentinel: one of the “Dark Sentinels” of Finisterra, an Astartes of the Second Legion, also known as the Silver Circle.
Long-bound within an ancient axe - known as the Malamawr, and that was guarded by one of the mysterious Astartes that had driven the Imperium from Finisterra - was a Daemon known only as The Red Saint. The Astartes warrior was the keeper of the axe, to ensure that the Red Saint would never be freed.
However, the corrupting influence of blood and slaughter had begun to seep into the world, thanks to agents of the Blood God known as the Red Hand. A blood sickness was spreading slowly, twisting local rites towards the Lord of Skulls, and their sudden attacks had left the Guardian badly wounded - he sent the transmissions for help, for reinforcements of his legion. But who would come knocking if not the Inquisition?
Sensing the rise of the Dark, and the threat that came with a fifth power older than all of the Chaos Gods, Khorne sent forth its servants - not to make war upon the Imperium, but to cleanse the Prosperitas Sector from the influence of the Darkness. Its plan was to have an army of bloody brass daemons march forth from the rift, and remove all life from the Prosperitas Sector. That way, the forgotten waking god would have no fear and no nightmares to prey upon, and no power to reclaim.
The Red Saint was freed from its ancient prison, and found a new vessel. For the Red Hand had brought with them a trophy stolen from the Nurgle battleship Spear of the Forefather: the Sister of Battle who had fallen fighting for the fate of Korimesta - the corpse of Alicia Rose herself. Through bloody necromancy, the Blood God returned the once-pure Soror to life, and rendered her open to serve as the new vessel of its servant.
But the plan of the Blood God ultimately failed. Though the Agents were not able to stop the new Red Saint escaping the surface of Midsummer, they were able to prevent its servants from opening the warp-rift wide, turning the world into a gateway of chaos and immersing it within a new warp-storm.
In doing so, they made valuable allies, in the form of both the mysterious Astartes who came to fight by their side to protect the planet, and the strange xenos known as the Ishari - an offshoot of the Aeldari race that had lived for millennia in the hidden dimensions of the Prosperitas Sector, and who had intimate knowledge of the Darkness - for they were rebels against an oppressive regime controlled by the Whispering God…
Meanwhile…
As the year closed, so did the hope of peace between the Nobility - with the return of Hermione Durovera to the sector at the head of an armada of powerful warships, accompanied by the ill-omened Astartes of the Void Hounds Chapter. These brutal warriors enabled her to conquer the Sector's capital-world of Duroverum from the supporters of her ‘brother’, who was still missing.
As Agents battled the tide of the Darkness by bringing hope to the Sector, others sought to bring some peace, turning to the might of the Ecclesiastical Palace on Terra - and summoning the wrath of the Ecclesiarch against the sector’s Cardinal Grulge who had, for several years now, been gathering a sizable force of Fidelis Militia in clear defiance of the Decree Passive (which forbids the Ecclesiarchy from raising combat forces other than the Battle Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas).
On Persephon, long-held by an Ork Waagh!!, a Kill-Team launched an assault on the Ork Warboss there. Much to their horror, they discovered that the whole invasion had been long-masterminded by the forces of Chaos, and the Warboss Gazbag was little more than the wizened puppet of a warp-entity. Though the Orks vanished from the surface in a sorcerous conflagration shortly after, the Inquisition has yet to celebrate, because the tainted Ork horde may yet appear again.
Refusing to recognise Hermione Durovera as Sector Governor, the Great Houses of the Imperial Nobility began to splinter, with open civil war only held off by the threat implied by the potent Astartes at Hermione Durovera’s command.
In clear defiance of the Imperium, the planet Korimesta rose up and threw off the Imperial yoke. The monstrous Gloriana-class battleship Iron Lady was dispatched to make an example of the world.
Worse still, on the turning of the year and Candlemass’ coming, a threat was exposed within the Commissariat - Archenemy sleeper agents were awoken, and a campaign of sabotage erupted across the Imperium.
The year was 594.M41… as treachery and civil war erupted.
Event 6 - Immersabilis
As the sector crumbled, the Inquisition dispatched Agents to the cruise liner St Sanguinius in pursuit of a new target - a second phylactery of the false-Warmaster – with which they hoped to locate the wounded daemon and end its threat once and for all. The phylactery was brought to be sold in an illegal auction, with the seller clearly unaware of what it truly contained.
Unfortunately for the Agents, they weren’t the only party interested in the vessel, and the terrorists of the Rising Flame made the first move. Overwhelmed by the ongoing siege of Korimesta, the terrorist group sought to turn the St Sanguinius into a deadly missile to destroy the Iron Lady and save Korimesta. Although the Agents put down the hijackers, they had caused enough chaos that the ship, already imperilled, was caught within the edge of the swelling influence of the Darkness - allowing It to consume the ship’s Navigator and turn her into Its thing.
It was in this desperate hour that choices had to be made - and none of them good:
The false-Warmaster revealed herself to the assembled Agents - shedding her disguise as a famous singer aboard the vessel. She pleaded with them to let her help - that she would teach them how to bind the Darkness and escape its realm.
The Chaos Gods manifested their will in the shape of a single unified daemonic herald appearing as four separate entities, the Beast of the Apocalypse. They offered the Agents protection from the Darkness in exchange for the Changeling-Warmaster - who they had tortured for millennia, and allowed to escape for sport, before recapturing her again, in an endless cycle.
The Darkness came too - it had grown in power, spawning mighty ‘Castellans’ as emanations of its will - similar to greater daemons. Speaking though the foremost of these, the Castellan of the North, it informed the Agents that it had no hatred of them, that it was the End, and therefore, like all things, the Agents were Its own, would come to It eventually, and It loved them. And that all It wanted was the Changeling-Warmaster and once they gave her to It, It would free them from Its realm.
Of all the terrible options, a group seemed to choose to go with the devil they knew. But, in the moments before the Warmaster attempted to free the ship from the Warp, others had different ideas, and a dark pact was signed, and an aspect of the Dark God Slaanesh, the Twin Coiling Serpents, stole a mote of power from the Darkness.
Though the vessel pulled free, neither the Darkness nor the false-Warmaster came with it… and both faded back into the Warp - the Changeling seemingly turned to ash, the God wounded.
But the story isn’t over yet…
Within the walls of the Blackstone Prison, between Pillars and World Engine, erected to hold it, the Darkness, the Whispering God, does not lie still licking its wounds. It has learned and tasted the division and fear of the Imperium. It might be weak, but It slumbers no more…
Beyond those walls, an Ancient Enemy closes their talons around the Prosperitas Sector; commands have been spoken, and the Serpent has risen in the theocracy; the youngest of the Gods found new power, and now leads their brothers, wearing blood and blackened armour.
A new Dark Crusade begins, one baptised in Imperial blood, and led by foes who had been forgotten. And by blade, by claw and by dark magics, this Sector will fall - so it has been ordered…