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This is the start of a narrative campaign that I am looking at running with my friends down my FLGS. I wanted to give the campaign a bit more context so thought I would write up a bit of a backstory to make it interesting.

Let me know what you think, and thank you for reading!


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Chapter I
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Acrid sand temporarily swirled across the visor of Brother-Captain Bellerophon as the logic engines of the Stormraven ‘Righteous Vengeance’ orientated the thrusters back into space-flight pattern. Filth-encrusted grit scratched at his Aegis and the purity seals affixed to his blessed armour whipped and flapped madly in the upthrust as the mighty war machine began its ponderous climb into the heavens. Bellerophon watched until the gunship was a mere speck in the gradually darkening sky. Taking in his surroundings he sniffed in distaste. This was it?

The planet of Agraxis V was a remote dustbowl situated far from any location of strategic value. It would be entirely unremarkable were it not for the vast quantities of high-grade ceramite that lay beneath its sun-blasted surface. The tithes that the Imperium placed on the world were vast, and meeting this demand was a daily concern for many of the low-class Governors and Stewards that made up the ruling hierarchy. The desire to fund their lavish existence coupled with the extortionate toll required by Terra had resulted in the average miner eking out a miserable existence shrouded in poverty and neglect. Birth rates were only mirrored in their number by the butcher’s bill that the mines claimed on a daily basis.

Such is human nature.

Bellerophon stood immobile. No-one had been able to adequately explain the deployment of his Brotherhood to this far-flung, miserable world. The Prognosticars of the Augurium had proffered little in the way of reasoning, the only decipherable phrase emerging from their eternal murmuring and muttering was that a world would be:

‘submerged in fire and blood. And a being of darkest shadow would stride
forth surrounded by the cacophony of the damned.’

Despite his knowledge and experience as to the power of the predictions generated forth from the Augurium, Bellerophon could not help but feel the slightest twinge of skepticism regarding his deployment. Here? Here was where the future of the system hung? On this back-water planet aeons from any location of importance? Ridiculous. Immediately Bellerophon purged such a heretical thought from his psyche and penanced himself to 10 days of fasting and meditation for the offense.

Taking in his surroundings, Bellerophon observed the area past the landing pad now occupied by his Brotherhood. It wasn’t much. Hab-blocks that barely provided the basic function of human shelter were in generous supply, and appeared to have been constructed more based on the given population at the time than with any forethought to organization or efficiency. Rusty, fifth-generation mining tools were scattered throughout the settlement; picks, shovels, and mag-welders were in abandon and all looked like they had seen far better days. An entrance to one of the mines lay off in the distance; regular tunnel collapses and the threat of poisonous gas had taught the populace the benefits of giving the mines a wide berth.

Bellerophon felt rather than heard the heavy tread of footsteps behind him and, turning, greeted one of his Justicars, Rasaniel, with a slight incline of his head. Arrayed in battle formation his Brotherhood was an awe-inspiring sight.

Two squads of Grey Knight Terminators stood resplendent in their glimmering Aegis armour, handed down from Battle-Brother to Battle-Brother, only upon death. Even as he watched, the Grey Knights checked their weapons and intoned the rites of war. Rasaniel and Taril were the ones responsible for these elite, each a Grey Knight of exceptional reknown, each tempered in the fires of a thousand wars on a thousand worlds.

Shifting his gaze skyward, Bellerophon took in a true spectacle; a living conduit of the holy light of the God Emperor, a Dreadknight. Aphael was the Knight who piloted this mighty war machine, and there were none who could doubt his claim to the honour. Bellerophon himself was witness to Aphael’s triumph when, his armour rent and torn, and bleeding from a score of wounds, he cast the Daemon Prince Mel’rash’ahk from real-space with a single uttered word of banishment.

Bellerophon held up his arm, fist clenched. The settlement, so abandoned and silent since their arrival, had changed. Not physically, but an alteration of atmosphere; imperceptible to normal humans but not to the genetic augmentation of the Astartes. Something was amiss. In synchronized harmony, an act driven to perfection from a hundred different battles on a hundred different worlds, the Grey Knights drew their weapons.

Then the world went mad.

From every corner they came. From every crumbling hab-block, rubble pile and shadow they came. Frothing, screaming and cursing, barely even recognizable as human; what were once miners but were now something altogether more unholy, they came. An almost numberless horde, driven by an insatiable desire to eradicate all before it. Amongst the masses, now incapable of rational thought, Bellerophon saw him. Only for a split second, but that was all the experienced Grey Knight needed.

Chaos.

‘Brotherhood of the Sword. Now is the time. Look to your wargear and the
Battle-Brother beside you. The Emperor protects.’

Bellerophon watched the range-finder on his eye-lens tick down. Too fast, far too fast. Readying his storm bolter he prepared himself to send the mental impulse to fire his weapon. Suddenly, the range-finder went green.

‘Purge the heretic!’

L. Wrex

Nice, I like how you discribed the range finder in his optical lense, well writtenmore please