|
|
|
Venue (Un)Availability: Monday 30 Jan |
|
On the evening of Monday 30 January, The Distillers is organizing a Rockabilly Night. The entire pub will be extremely noisy. Monday night GMs were informed last Monday; check with GMs and players if you plan to go and game.
|
|
 | Buy from RPGNow.com using the link above and help out the club.
It won't cost you anything extra! |
|
|
|
Introduction to Dark Heresy |
|
|
Written by shevek
|
|
Friday, 11 September 2009 |
If anyone's finding the background confusing, this is the best short summary of the setting that I've been able to find. (Apologies for the purple prose - it's taken from the Epic 40k minatures rulebook.) Think of it as the "official line" that an educated member of the nobility might learn. I've added a few out-of-character notes at the end to cover some questions that came up in character-creation:
For 10,000 years, the galaxy-spanning Imperium of Mankind has been the bastion of the human race. With over a million worlds and a population running into countless thousands of billions, it is the largest empire in the galaxy of the 41st Millennium. For a hundred long centuries, the Imperium has endured, surviving disasters, heresies and invasions from alien races intent on the extinction of humanity. It has resisted all of this through its greatest strengths – the immortal Beneficent God-Emperor of Mankind and His vast armies and fleets.
Though the Emperor is a shattered, withered creature, He still watches over and guides humankind from the restorative essences, elixirs and billowing alchemical gases of the Golden Throne of Terra. Through His vast psychic powers, the Emperor directs the Imperium’s warships through the nightmare realm of warp space. He foresees the possible futures of the human race, and steers humanity so that it may overcome the many trials and challenges ahead.
Without the Emperor, the Imperium would be unable to move its armies and fleets to combat its enemies and enforce its rule. The Imperium would degenerate into a hundred small empires clamouring for power while aliens and other monstrous creatures devoured and destroyed Mankind.
The tide of the Emperor’s enemies is only held back by the vigilance of the Imperial fleets and the weapons of humanity’s armies. Millions of soldiers fight over a thousand worlds against every conceivable type of foe: from the all-consuming hive fleets of the Tyranids and the rampaging invasions of the warmongering Orks, to rebellion and insurrection from within.
Alongside the vast might of the Imperial Guard, the superhuman Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes bring terror and death to the Emperor’s foes. The elite Space Marines are the deadliest fighting force humanity can send to battle – just a few squads of these genetically engineered warriors can crush an army of foes many times their number. In the cold depths of space gigantic battleships, accompanied by armadas of other vessels, bring battle to raiding Eldar pirates and Ork hulks.
Internecine wars are commonplace and often Mankind faces its greatest threat from within. Rebel governors, corrupt commanders, alien-possessed officials and even the Primarchs of the Space Marines have all turned against their peers and spilt human blood in the Imperium’s long, war-torn history.
The Imperium itself is inconceivably vast, spanning many thousands of light years that require months, even years, of travel to traverse it. A million worlds with a million different cultures make up humanity, and the discovery of new star systems and new planets are forever expanding the Emperor’s domains, fuelling Mankind’s eternal hunger for more resources, more space.
Even to systems close to Earth, the Emperor and the Imperium He embodies are but names for distant, almost supernatural forces, that are revered and praised from afar. Many citizens labour their entire lives, overcoming strife and toiling hard to survive the adversity of life in the 41st Millennium, without even being aware of the Imperium except as a children’s story. For others, the Imperium is very real, the iron fist of control tight around their lives, instilling the law and order Mankind must have to prevail.
Harsh discipline and little mercy are essential for survival in these turbulent times. It is an age of great upheaval for humanity. With every passing year more and more people display powerful psychic talents. If these rogue psykers are not controlled or purged, the erratic and awesome forces they can unwittingly unleash may destroy whole settlements, even worlds. Those with the necessary mental strength and fortitude can be trained by the forces of the Imperium to use their strange powers to benefit Mankind.
Those who lack this power of will must be cleansed. Citizens with psychic talents who are left free to roam will often become unwitting pawns of malevolent warp entities, who use the increased mental powers of untrained psykers to bridge the gap between their realm in warp space and the galaxy of Mankind. From here they spread their dominance, creating slaves of whole planetary populations and destroying the fabric of the Imperium from the inside.
Other mutations are becoming rife. A malignant epidemic of misshapen and evil creatures threatens to turn humanity into a race of degenerated beasts, unable to defend themselves from the forces that oppose them. The pogroms against mental and physical deviants cannot falter, lest Mankind be engulfed and consumed by the powerful evolutionary processes at work. These abhorrent elements must be crushed or somehow tamed if Mankind is to survive the transformation into a new era of spiritual and physical supremacy.
As powerful as it is, the Imperium does not rule the entire galaxy. Mankind’s worlds are spread thin across the 200,000,000,000 stars that make up the galaxy. Within the Imperium’s vague borders are rebellious enclaves of human worlds, domains ruled over by alien war leaders, colonies of creatures too aloof or basic to disturb Mankind or draw the attention of the war fleets. The Imperium is engulfed in a constant state of war, sometimes simply continuing its wars of expansion, other times fighting against foes who threaten the survival of the entire human race.
The vast size of the Imperium makes a mockery of any true form of governance above that of the Imperial Commanders. These individuals are appointed by the Adeptus Terra to rule over a world or worlds in the Emperor’s name. They are bound to co-operate with other servants of the Emperor and to control mutations and heresy in their domains, but on the whole they are free to implement Imperial Law in any way they see fit or necessary.
Above and beyond these planetary governors, vast organisations attempt to hold back the seething anarchy that constantly threatens to engulf the Imperium. The innumerable clerks, scribes, logisters and archivists of the Administratum attempt to instil some form of order to this haphazard empire, recording, requesting and analysing a torrent of information from the furthest corners of the galaxy.
Imperial Guard regiments, each numbering tens of thousands of soldiers and tanks, are raised and transported to distant war zones every day, their efforts supported by the millions of quartermasters and logisticians of the Departmento Munitorum. The Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes send forth their elite warriors to do battle with alien monstrosities and treacherous humans, pursuing their wars and expanding their dominions in the name of the Emperor. The ancient Adeptus Mechanicus sends forth its Explorator fleets to investigate and explore, uncovering ancient technologies for their masters on Mars to study and decipher.
The Tech-Priests continue the search that began long before the Emperor ascended to power and began the Great Crusade of Reconquest. The religious leaders of the Ministorum of Earth, or Ecclesiarchy as it is more widely known, preach the Imperial Creed of fervent faith to the Emperor and unswerving sacrifice to humanity and the Imperium. Their Missionaries and Battle Sisters bring the light of the Emperor to worlds unheard of by Mankind for countless millennia, while the zealous Confessors stir up devout citizens to cast out the heretic and unbeliever, leading witch hunts through overcrowded hive cities and across barren wastelands.
This seemingly haphazard morass of wars and politics, faith and retribution is bound together by loyalty to the Emperor and the common goal of racial survival. Complex agreements of trade and protection bring these organisations to common ground, ancient loyalties and debts are exchanged for favours and goods. While the competition for power is strong, no one world or organisation within the Imperium can truly stand on its own against the horrors that threaten humanity. Despite the intrigue and double-dealing, the clamouring for resources and the endless wars and battles to be fought, Mankind struggles on through history on some pre-destined course towards destruction or greatness.
Mankind’s protection by the Emperor is not without sacrifice, He does not survive on praise alone. At the very founding of the Imperium, as the Emperor and His Space Marine legions brought order to the anarchy left after the Age of Strife, a treachery of the most loathsome kind was perpetrated. The Emperor’s most trusted commander, Horus, turned his back on the teachings of the Emperor and embraced the power offered by the dark gods that strive to enslave Mankind.
Terror and death reigned, as the Imperium was torn apart by internecine war. Worlds were ravaged, whole armies slaughtered, and the forces of Horus advanced upon Terra until the Imperium was on the verge of defeat. At the very last, the Emperor destroyed the traitorous Warmaster in single combat, but was Himself left mortally injured.
To sustain the Emperor’s shattered body a great device called the Golden Throne was devised and built. Using arcane techniques and machines whose function have long passed from true understanding, the Golden Throne fulfils its grim purpose. The Golden Throne is unique in the way it fuels the Emperor’s needs, for the Emperor cannot eat as a man eats, or drink fluids or breathe air. His life has passed the point where such mortal things can sustain Him.
For the Emperor the only viable sustenance is human life force – souls – and He has a great and insatiable appetite. Nor will just any human suffice for this purpose, for the soul-donor must be a very special person in their own right, someone with psychic powers. Sacrificed into the bizarre and archaic machinery of the Golden Throne, their life essence is leeched from their body to feed the Master of Mankind. Every day, hundreds must be consecrated to the Emperor in this dire manner if He, and therefore the Imperium and humanity, are to survive.
From a more detached viewpoint, the Emperor is more like a real-world God than a fantasy-game God. No-one denies the stories of saints and miracles done in His name, but no-one has personally seen them - they tend to have happened long ago and/or far away. In the same vein, His guidance is the "moving in mysterious ways" kind - the Emperor doesn't rule the Imperium directly. On the other hand, He is definitely real even if He doesn't talk much.
The Adeptus Mechanicus worship technology and collect knowledge, but they're not scientists. As far as they (and everyone else) is concerned the Ancients from before the time of the Emperor knew everything that it is safe and lawful to know and more besides. The task of the Mechanicus is to recover and classify that knowledge: belief in "progress" led the Ancients into tech-heresy and caused their downfall. It's also well-known that all machines have spirits that must be treated with respect. The Holy Rites of Maintenance should always be accompanied by the appropriate prayers and incantations.
The Inquisition's task is to identify and eliminate threats to the Imperium. Inquisitors usually work alone or with a small group of agents, but they have the authority to call on the any and all resources of the Imperium. If they think it necessary, an Inquistor can have an entire world sterilized and all records of its existence purged. On the other hand, the Inqusition has little central organization - partly because it is spread too thin and partly to guard against abuse of power. Inquisitors usually work alone or with a small group of agents, some of whom may become Inquisitors by apprenticeship. And of course, most Inqusitors keep a network of agents to deal with minor threats and alert them to major ones - which is where you come in...
|
|
|
|
Latest Items |
Venue (Un)Availability: Monday 30 Jan27 January 2012
On the evening of Monday 30 January, The Distillers is organizing a Rockabilly Night. The entire pub will be extremely noisy. Monday night GMs were informed last Monday; check with GMs and players if...
|
|
|
Journals 
