Post by inquisitorkurlin on Oct 14, 2007 16:04:04 GMT -5
Well really, why not? 
The coolest thing about these narrative games is that it allows us to build up a legitimate history for our armies and especially their commanders. I wrote this for the Inquisitorial section of Bolter and Chainsword, and I plan to take some updated pictures of Kurlin and his daughter for the site. With that in mind, I tied together as much as I could remember about Kurlin and his actions from Medusa V up to now, linking through Tiorl 7 and now this campaign along the way. Threading the needle as it were.
Consequently, being a history of Kurlin from start to present, it is a bit long in the tooth, but I like to think it's a worthwhile read. In that spirit, let's see some of your commanders, too. Let us know who we're dealing with around Centaurius.
That said, let me give you good ol' Kurlin. And for the record, I absolutely loved being sort of the Darth Vader of Medusa V, and that's reflected with something I did with his character mid campaign. Details below.
---------------------------------------------------
Inquisitor Lord Vash Kurlin was born on the planet Sophia Majoris in the Segmentum Solar region of the Imperium. The Kurlin family had produced a Majoris, or highest ruling planetside noble, for more than fifteen generations at the time of his birth, and they had been active in other levels of planetary politics since before the Horus Heresy.
Vash was a withdrawn and suspicious boy. He took to his studies of the Emperor’s faith without question or hesitation, and was rarely seen without a bag of dog eared religious texts glorifying Him. Even as a youth, Kurlin showed his need to police the thoughts of others. The Inquisition enthralled and terrified him, but mostly the latter; he believed it was for his own good and the good of others that he physically beat down anyone who registered even cursory doubt about the God Emperor or the Imperium of Man.
This resulted in Vash eventually stabbing a fellow eleven year old to death during a religious sermon in the Cathedral of Nobles on his homeworld. Kurlin claimed the child was possessed – he had personally experienced nightmares about the child and the youngster terrorized him with dark visions and portents of damnation. This brought about the full scrutiny of the Inquisition, who rigorously examined Kurlin himself for taint. Impressed by the boy’s piety and conviction, Kurlin was rewarded for his zealotry by becoming the personal student of Inquisitor Lord Elsad Vaughn.
Kurlin was indoctrinated into the Monodominant philosophy of his mentor and became as devoted to that as he was the Inquisition and the Imperium of Man. Elsad personally instructed Kurlin in the use of his burgeoning psychic abilities, which Elsad believed granted him a divine vision of his murdered friend’s corruption. Indeed, Elsad Vaughn saw in Kurlin the potential makings of a deadly and ruthless Inquisitor, and the lure of shaping such a boy into a lethal weapon for the Imperium became one of Elsad’s driving goals.
At the age of twenty, Kurlin was officially named an Interrogator in Elsad’s retinue. He was broad shouldered and strong, with cold blue eyes, an ever serious face, and very short blonde hair. He still carried with him the religious books of his youth and filled much of his spare time in self flagellation, prayer or intense study of Inquisitorial Law/the Word of the Emperor.
Kurlin refused promotion to higher ranks over the years in an attempt to stay close to his master’s side. Together the two became near legendary in their pursuit of heresy in the Imperium, but time was taking its toll on Elsad. In Kurlin’s sixtieth year in service to Elsad, the Inquisitor Lord found himself thick in a trap left by chaos forces on the planet Voormohal-216. Elsad made a brave final stand in the name of the Emperor, ordering Kurlin to take his findings and flee. Kurlin’s retinue barely escaped the carnage.
Vash Kurlin rewarded his master’s memory by conducting an intense purge of Voormohal-216 using the information he gained. When several heretical cults were found to be operating, he petitioned for the extermination of the entire planet. This was granted to him based on the strength of the evidence collected. Virus bombs wiped out all life on Voormohal-216 in but a day. Recognizing the quality of this Interrogator, Kurlin was formally promoted to Inquisitor and began to form a new retinue from veterans of Elsad’s operatives and new blood.
For forty years, Kurlin continued his brutal pursuit of heresy. At the age of one hundred and thirty, he was badly wounded chasing a mutant gang through the streets of Hive World Gomerhatz. He was returned to Sophia Majoris to recuperate. There he caught the eye of Sister Hospitaller Renalda Beckencourt, a personal attendant to his suffering. From her came Kurlin’s only recorded descendant, Anathema Kurlin.
Kurlin refused to be parted from his duties, however. He rejected the child as a weakness that could come back to haunt him and spurned the Renalda’s affections, repulsed when she left her order to devote herself to him. He threw her from a high balcony of the Kurlin’s family palace, decrying her warpcraft and corruption as she fell to her death. He was absolved of all criminal action by the ecclesiarchy by casting doubt on the Renalda’s intentions, showing her to be strengthening the powers of Chaos by attempting to subvert an effective Inquisitor’s work.
Anathema was given to the Sisterhood of the Argent Shroud as an orphan, though the preceptory was informed of her parentage. Kurlin set forth to continue his work.
Then came Medusa V.
Kurlin departed for Medusa V upon hearing about the world’s impending destruction from von Goerthe’s Rapidity. He knew well how panic and terror could lead swaths of the population into the arms of chaos, and he immediately set up a screening point to meticulously check refugees from the planet before they got offworld. Although this reduced the number of survivors, Kurlin was reassured that those who survived, actually deserved to.
However, Kurlin’s open declaration to imperial forces of both his presence and his intention to openly attack any imperial force making pacts with xeno powers caused consternation and friction within the planetary leadership. Some forces declared in favor of Kurlin and his methods while others immediately defied him and sought to make deals with the alien races to secure their objectives.
Kurlin made good on his threat and attacked space marine and imperial guard forces alike. Upon descending to Medusa V, an ordo minoris returning from the destruction of their planet by the tyranids crossed paths with him. He appropriated leadership of the Order of the Weeping Martyr through Inquisitorial decree, and together, he and Canoness Alsatia du Prillon prosecuted a war on heresy against their own people on the surface of Medusa V.
Debate raged wildly about Kurlin and his methods. A cadre of Inquisitors attempted to strip Kurlin of his command and rank, but failed to produce effective results. When Inquisitor Baptiste publicly reaffirmed the imperial stance against alliances with xenos, Kurlin was not only restored fully to his rank, but officially promoted to Inquisitor Lord for his ferocious devotion to the imperial cause.
Actions against imperial forces planetside doubled, but Kurlin and du Prillon did not shirk their other duties. The former acted as a mouthpiece and political point of contact for allied forces supporting the Ordo Hereticus while du Prillon lead military actions against the Tau and Eldar.
While operating in the unlit depths of Hive City Sybilla Primus, Kurlin came the closest yet to complete destruction. The Tau had led a brilliant feint to put a force of Ultramarines on a collision course with the Sisters of Battle. The Tau then jammed their transmissions, blocked the imperial transponder codes, and let fate take its course.
The forces clashed with casualties on both sides before anyone realized what was really happening. Kurlin and du Prillon found themselves in a pitched battle with Chaplain Vangelis of the Ultramarines in a burned out tenement building. Kurlin and du Prillon fought well but the Chaplain was a master of open warfare. The Canoness was wounded but Kurlin himself was mortally injured – the Chaplain’s crozious Arcanum had gone through the left side of his body and destroyed it utterly.
A force of allied Blood Angels and Sisters of Battle fought a holding action at the medicae in which Kurlin was undergoing extensive operation. Blood Angel and Battle Sister casualties were also present in the concentrated medicae, making it a choice target for the forces of Chaos. A large chaos force attacked, throwing wave after wave at the building, but the combined competence of the imperial warriors won out easily.
Meanwhile, Canoness du Prillon opened a dialogue with Vangelis and formed an alliance with his strike time to seek revenge against the Tau that hounded them. A momentary allianced was formed to hunt the tricksters in the bowels of Sybilla Primus. Together, the Ultramarines and Battle Sisters wiped out the aggressors who had played them for fools.
Inquisitor Kurlin rose from his medicae suite sometime after dramatically changed. His entire body was encased in life support armor adorned with purity seals, rank icons and inquisitorial seals. His left leg had been removed in favor of a bionic replacement. His left arm suffered the same fate. The left side of his face was ravaged by the coruscating energy of the chaplain’s weapon and also had extensive bionic reconstruction. Scoured of eyebrows or hair, the new Inquisitor Lord Kurlin was frightening enough a visage by this alone.
But the crowning achievement was the Puritan. A combi-melta weapon had been grafted to his right side, replacing the right arm that was too damaged to save. Bulky yet elegant, it served not only as a meltagun and bolter, but the golden blades flanking the barrels were force weapons. The perfect weapon for a zealous inquisitor who survived the pull of the grace.
Kurlin had drawbacks, however. His life support systems made him more vulnerable than some Inquisitor Lord were renowned to be. He had to be tended day and night by two sister hospitallers who were charged with maintaining his systems in a constant vigil. He could only ingest liquefied compounds now his movements were more lumbering then graceful in times of old, making him a softer target for cunning enemies. Intimidating as his new look was, it granted Kurlin no power – instead, he was a wrecked man clinging to life, dependant on the ministrations of those around him to survive.
It was then that Inquisitor Kurlin’s ferocity doubled. He personally executed imperial guard traitors with creative uses of razorwire (which he was rumored to have become entangled in when devastated by the chaplain’s attack). He dragged Eldar prisoners behind the sisters’ rhinos in razorwire and his leading protégé, Solan Vacht, took razorwire whips to be his personal trademark in tribute to his master.
When the Tau brought forth the Hammer against Ice Station Alpha, Kurlin’s response was as horrific as it was simple. Captured Tau and Eldar prisoners were hastily moved to the crash site. Loyal guardsmen who had suffered too much to continue life productively were assigned to hold the base as the asteroid crashed down. The end result was a staggering loss of life for the xeno forces and a blow to their morale that was difficult to forget.
Further, Kurlin poisoned many of the prisoners with radioplasmic emitter dust and tracked them through appropriated, modified weather satellites when rescue missions freed some of the condemned prisoners. This lead to hunt and kill missions that only added to the body count.
Kurlin narrowly escaped Medusa V with his sisters allies ahead a tyranid swarm that nearly overran them as they fled. While regrouping on Metas Thuron V, a genestealer cult erupted among the populace. Kurlin traced the cult to a contaminated member of the sisterhood and took appropriate measures.
While studying the source of the outbreak, heretical black books known as the Dacian Heresy came to Kurlin’s attention. They had been circulated among the imperial guard regiments on the planet at the same time the genestealer cult was rising to prominence. Kurlin traced the books origin point through Tiorl 7 and took his forces there for further investigation. As he purged the guardsmen there of taint and puzzled over the tyranid’s erratic behavior, he came up with a strong lead pointing toward the planet Erudalis IV.
Kurlin led his forces to Erudalis IV and during this time, he was contacted by his fully grown daughter. Anathema was a palatine in the Order of the Argent Shroud, and was manifesting the same psychic abilities her father had. It wasn’t unusual for Adepta Sororitas to become Inquisitors, and when she approached the Ecclesiarchy for this purpose, they researched her background and uncovered her heritage. Upon a study of her father’s life, she decided to petition him for formal instruction in the Inquisitorial arts.
Delighted with the qualities his long lost daughter had shown, Kurlin accepted. During her actions in screening the population of Erudalis IV, she proved herself to have the same ruthless perspective and monodominant leaning of her father, and rose to the rank of Inquisitor promptly.
The Erudalis IV purge yielded its own surprises and power plays. Heresy was thick on the world, and while Kurlin and his retinue navigated its Byzantine coils, evidence of the Dacian Heresy showed up on the planet Centarius, an obscure world on the edge of imperial space.
Leaving much of the Order of the Weeping Martyr on Erudalis IV, Kurlin took a strike force to Centarius while putting out a general summons to loyal imperial forces who could bolster his military action there. Strangely, it was a force of Dark Angels acting in the nearby Duvoscot system that responded. Wary of their participation, Kurlin nonetheless accepted their help, and landed on Centaurius with a combined force.
The purge continues as the Dacian Heresy unfolds…
The coolest thing about these narrative games is that it allows us to build up a legitimate history for our armies and especially their commanders. I wrote this for the Inquisitorial section of Bolter and Chainsword, and I plan to take some updated pictures of Kurlin and his daughter for the site. With that in mind, I tied together as much as I could remember about Kurlin and his actions from Medusa V up to now, linking through Tiorl 7 and now this campaign along the way. Threading the needle as it were.
Consequently, being a history of Kurlin from start to present, it is a bit long in the tooth, but I like to think it's a worthwhile read. In that spirit, let's see some of your commanders, too. Let us know who we're dealing with around Centaurius.
That said, let me give you good ol' Kurlin. And for the record, I absolutely loved being sort of the Darth Vader of Medusa V, and that's reflected with something I did with his character mid campaign. Details below.
---------------------------------------------------
Inquisitor Lord Vash Kurlin was born on the planet Sophia Majoris in the Segmentum Solar region of the Imperium. The Kurlin family had produced a Majoris, or highest ruling planetside noble, for more than fifteen generations at the time of his birth, and they had been active in other levels of planetary politics since before the Horus Heresy.
Vash was a withdrawn and suspicious boy. He took to his studies of the Emperor’s faith without question or hesitation, and was rarely seen without a bag of dog eared religious texts glorifying Him. Even as a youth, Kurlin showed his need to police the thoughts of others. The Inquisition enthralled and terrified him, but mostly the latter; he believed it was for his own good and the good of others that he physically beat down anyone who registered even cursory doubt about the God Emperor or the Imperium of Man.
This resulted in Vash eventually stabbing a fellow eleven year old to death during a religious sermon in the Cathedral of Nobles on his homeworld. Kurlin claimed the child was possessed – he had personally experienced nightmares about the child and the youngster terrorized him with dark visions and portents of damnation. This brought about the full scrutiny of the Inquisition, who rigorously examined Kurlin himself for taint. Impressed by the boy’s piety and conviction, Kurlin was rewarded for his zealotry by becoming the personal student of Inquisitor Lord Elsad Vaughn.
Kurlin was indoctrinated into the Monodominant philosophy of his mentor and became as devoted to that as he was the Inquisition and the Imperium of Man. Elsad personally instructed Kurlin in the use of his burgeoning psychic abilities, which Elsad believed granted him a divine vision of his murdered friend’s corruption. Indeed, Elsad Vaughn saw in Kurlin the potential makings of a deadly and ruthless Inquisitor, and the lure of shaping such a boy into a lethal weapon for the Imperium became one of Elsad’s driving goals.
At the age of twenty, Kurlin was officially named an Interrogator in Elsad’s retinue. He was broad shouldered and strong, with cold blue eyes, an ever serious face, and very short blonde hair. He still carried with him the religious books of his youth and filled much of his spare time in self flagellation, prayer or intense study of Inquisitorial Law/the Word of the Emperor.
Kurlin refused promotion to higher ranks over the years in an attempt to stay close to his master’s side. Together the two became near legendary in their pursuit of heresy in the Imperium, but time was taking its toll on Elsad. In Kurlin’s sixtieth year in service to Elsad, the Inquisitor Lord found himself thick in a trap left by chaos forces on the planet Voormohal-216. Elsad made a brave final stand in the name of the Emperor, ordering Kurlin to take his findings and flee. Kurlin’s retinue barely escaped the carnage.
Vash Kurlin rewarded his master’s memory by conducting an intense purge of Voormohal-216 using the information he gained. When several heretical cults were found to be operating, he petitioned for the extermination of the entire planet. This was granted to him based on the strength of the evidence collected. Virus bombs wiped out all life on Voormohal-216 in but a day. Recognizing the quality of this Interrogator, Kurlin was formally promoted to Inquisitor and began to form a new retinue from veterans of Elsad’s operatives and new blood.
For forty years, Kurlin continued his brutal pursuit of heresy. At the age of one hundred and thirty, he was badly wounded chasing a mutant gang through the streets of Hive World Gomerhatz. He was returned to Sophia Majoris to recuperate. There he caught the eye of Sister Hospitaller Renalda Beckencourt, a personal attendant to his suffering. From her came Kurlin’s only recorded descendant, Anathema Kurlin.
Kurlin refused to be parted from his duties, however. He rejected the child as a weakness that could come back to haunt him and spurned the Renalda’s affections, repulsed when she left her order to devote herself to him. He threw her from a high balcony of the Kurlin’s family palace, decrying her warpcraft and corruption as she fell to her death. He was absolved of all criminal action by the ecclesiarchy by casting doubt on the Renalda’s intentions, showing her to be strengthening the powers of Chaos by attempting to subvert an effective Inquisitor’s work.
Anathema was given to the Sisterhood of the Argent Shroud as an orphan, though the preceptory was informed of her parentage. Kurlin set forth to continue his work.
Then came Medusa V.
Kurlin departed for Medusa V upon hearing about the world’s impending destruction from von Goerthe’s Rapidity. He knew well how panic and terror could lead swaths of the population into the arms of chaos, and he immediately set up a screening point to meticulously check refugees from the planet before they got offworld. Although this reduced the number of survivors, Kurlin was reassured that those who survived, actually deserved to.
However, Kurlin’s open declaration to imperial forces of both his presence and his intention to openly attack any imperial force making pacts with xeno powers caused consternation and friction within the planetary leadership. Some forces declared in favor of Kurlin and his methods while others immediately defied him and sought to make deals with the alien races to secure their objectives.
Kurlin made good on his threat and attacked space marine and imperial guard forces alike. Upon descending to Medusa V, an ordo minoris returning from the destruction of their planet by the tyranids crossed paths with him. He appropriated leadership of the Order of the Weeping Martyr through Inquisitorial decree, and together, he and Canoness Alsatia du Prillon prosecuted a war on heresy against their own people on the surface of Medusa V.
Debate raged wildly about Kurlin and his methods. A cadre of Inquisitors attempted to strip Kurlin of his command and rank, but failed to produce effective results. When Inquisitor Baptiste publicly reaffirmed the imperial stance against alliances with xenos, Kurlin was not only restored fully to his rank, but officially promoted to Inquisitor Lord for his ferocious devotion to the imperial cause.
Actions against imperial forces planetside doubled, but Kurlin and du Prillon did not shirk their other duties. The former acted as a mouthpiece and political point of contact for allied forces supporting the Ordo Hereticus while du Prillon lead military actions against the Tau and Eldar.
While operating in the unlit depths of Hive City Sybilla Primus, Kurlin came the closest yet to complete destruction. The Tau had led a brilliant feint to put a force of Ultramarines on a collision course with the Sisters of Battle. The Tau then jammed their transmissions, blocked the imperial transponder codes, and let fate take its course.
The forces clashed with casualties on both sides before anyone realized what was really happening. Kurlin and du Prillon found themselves in a pitched battle with Chaplain Vangelis of the Ultramarines in a burned out tenement building. Kurlin and du Prillon fought well but the Chaplain was a master of open warfare. The Canoness was wounded but Kurlin himself was mortally injured – the Chaplain’s crozious Arcanum had gone through the left side of his body and destroyed it utterly.
A force of allied Blood Angels and Sisters of Battle fought a holding action at the medicae in which Kurlin was undergoing extensive operation. Blood Angel and Battle Sister casualties were also present in the concentrated medicae, making it a choice target for the forces of Chaos. A large chaos force attacked, throwing wave after wave at the building, but the combined competence of the imperial warriors won out easily.
Meanwhile, Canoness du Prillon opened a dialogue with Vangelis and formed an alliance with his strike time to seek revenge against the Tau that hounded them. A momentary allianced was formed to hunt the tricksters in the bowels of Sybilla Primus. Together, the Ultramarines and Battle Sisters wiped out the aggressors who had played them for fools.
Inquisitor Kurlin rose from his medicae suite sometime after dramatically changed. His entire body was encased in life support armor adorned with purity seals, rank icons and inquisitorial seals. His left leg had been removed in favor of a bionic replacement. His left arm suffered the same fate. The left side of his face was ravaged by the coruscating energy of the chaplain’s weapon and also had extensive bionic reconstruction. Scoured of eyebrows or hair, the new Inquisitor Lord Kurlin was frightening enough a visage by this alone.
But the crowning achievement was the Puritan. A combi-melta weapon had been grafted to his right side, replacing the right arm that was too damaged to save. Bulky yet elegant, it served not only as a meltagun and bolter, but the golden blades flanking the barrels were force weapons. The perfect weapon for a zealous inquisitor who survived the pull of the grace.
Kurlin had drawbacks, however. His life support systems made him more vulnerable than some Inquisitor Lord were renowned to be. He had to be tended day and night by two sister hospitallers who were charged with maintaining his systems in a constant vigil. He could only ingest liquefied compounds now his movements were more lumbering then graceful in times of old, making him a softer target for cunning enemies. Intimidating as his new look was, it granted Kurlin no power – instead, he was a wrecked man clinging to life, dependant on the ministrations of those around him to survive.
It was then that Inquisitor Kurlin’s ferocity doubled. He personally executed imperial guard traitors with creative uses of razorwire (which he was rumored to have become entangled in when devastated by the chaplain’s attack). He dragged Eldar prisoners behind the sisters’ rhinos in razorwire and his leading protégé, Solan Vacht, took razorwire whips to be his personal trademark in tribute to his master.
When the Tau brought forth the Hammer against Ice Station Alpha, Kurlin’s response was as horrific as it was simple. Captured Tau and Eldar prisoners were hastily moved to the crash site. Loyal guardsmen who had suffered too much to continue life productively were assigned to hold the base as the asteroid crashed down. The end result was a staggering loss of life for the xeno forces and a blow to their morale that was difficult to forget.
Further, Kurlin poisoned many of the prisoners with radioplasmic emitter dust and tracked them through appropriated, modified weather satellites when rescue missions freed some of the condemned prisoners. This lead to hunt and kill missions that only added to the body count.
Kurlin narrowly escaped Medusa V with his sisters allies ahead a tyranid swarm that nearly overran them as they fled. While regrouping on Metas Thuron V, a genestealer cult erupted among the populace. Kurlin traced the cult to a contaminated member of the sisterhood and took appropriate measures.
While studying the source of the outbreak, heretical black books known as the Dacian Heresy came to Kurlin’s attention. They had been circulated among the imperial guard regiments on the planet at the same time the genestealer cult was rising to prominence. Kurlin traced the books origin point through Tiorl 7 and took his forces there for further investigation. As he purged the guardsmen there of taint and puzzled over the tyranid’s erratic behavior, he came up with a strong lead pointing toward the planet Erudalis IV.
Kurlin led his forces to Erudalis IV and during this time, he was contacted by his fully grown daughter. Anathema was a palatine in the Order of the Argent Shroud, and was manifesting the same psychic abilities her father had. It wasn’t unusual for Adepta Sororitas to become Inquisitors, and when she approached the Ecclesiarchy for this purpose, they researched her background and uncovered her heritage. Upon a study of her father’s life, she decided to petition him for formal instruction in the Inquisitorial arts.
Delighted with the qualities his long lost daughter had shown, Kurlin accepted. During her actions in screening the population of Erudalis IV, she proved herself to have the same ruthless perspective and monodominant leaning of her father, and rose to the rank of Inquisitor promptly.
The Erudalis IV purge yielded its own surprises and power plays. Heresy was thick on the world, and while Kurlin and his retinue navigated its Byzantine coils, evidence of the Dacian Heresy showed up on the planet Centarius, an obscure world on the edge of imperial space.
Leaving much of the Order of the Weeping Martyr on Erudalis IV, Kurlin took a strike force to Centarius while putting out a general summons to loyal imperial forces who could bolster his military action there. Strangely, it was a force of Dark Angels acting in the nearby Duvoscot system that responded. Wary of their participation, Kurlin nonetheless accepted their help, and landed on Centaurius with a combined force.
The purge continues as the Dacian Heresy unfolds…