The Vadinax Campaign: Dramatis Personae

Goonhammer’s running a global Crusade campaign for Warhammer 40k and this week we’re kicking off our previews and information about the event. Today we’re talking about some characters who are important to the campaign, with whom players may interact or fight directly.

Yesterday we talked about the system and its locations. Today we’re introducing some of the major characters acting as NPCs in the campaign. While ultimately the players control the outcomes, these additional characters are involved in some of the key narratives of the campaign, and at times players may interact with them or even fight them.

General Angstrom Forsythe

Lord-Commander of the Imperial Forces of Kyrene

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

On a nameless world, he was a Lieutenant. The world was condemned to Exterminatus by the Inquisition, but his deeds were great enough to get him off that world with his battalion before the fire and promote him twice. He was a Lieutenant Colonel on Gorgon Favorius, a Colonel on Saggitarii Holus, a Reserve General who charged his men and women over the walls first during the push atop Fangol Crucible, and now he enjoys the privilege of rank even with a great, literal hole in his heart — he still lives by the grace of the Machine God, and he oblates to that great and supplicated God with all of his replaced cardiology. His hair is as long as the Guard barbers will allow; his smile is as wide as his superiors will tolerate. He suffered a dire blast from some forgotten las delivery to his face: one eye screams faith and justice; the other refactors and refocuses with a bright blue shining fake pupil. He has pushed the idea of his death beyond any reckoning, and so he is willing to theoretically allow anything. Eight aces serve him in his inner circle, helping him manage the fronts and the backs of the Guard logistically. He is aggressive strategically and he’s downright rabid tactically. Angstrom Forsythe wants to meet the battle — be ready to meet him in return.

Shanker Gord

Supreme High Dark Apostle of The Scourged

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Serve the sick, my lad. My lady. My Lady HHhh go. Hhhhhaaaa hahha. Good god! Good golly! God loved Molly. Molly loved Ben, and we’ve Been talking far too long. You know what Ben Gordon did, that man, that Hive-worlder, thirty-five thousandth and fifth of his name? He went looking for Molly out in the dark, and what happened to her? What happened to Ben? Well, one thing led to another, led to another, led to another, led to another, led to another, led to another, led to another, led to another, led to another, and sometimes a man has to stand up and become a thing singing in the absence of a star. Sometimes when you put your hand on the face of a thing, the face comes back. Sometimes you can feel yourself pulled four ways and that unites you. Sometimes you go too long and too far. Sometimes there’s nothing left of what you used to be. Sometimes you end up worse than where you started. But sometimes you end up better.

Starguyz Kommandgertz

Warboss of WAAAGH! Kommandgertz

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Oi! We boyz are driving hard and fast into the system, and spreadin’ as we can! We boyz live in a great big thing, a vessel, driving ourselvez in from the outsider space, coming awake from the deep sleep, and letting our boyz off where we can! The Boss is quiet and still on the throne, unless you boyz try to pull him off it, and then he’ll hit ya! Big strikes and big hitterz, we seen it! Kommandgertz is tranquility and violence, and he don’t have no eyes! Boss don’t need ’em! Boss is always grinning! Boss is always here! Boss is saying: Get ready to land! Get ready to build the greatest big thing for war! Get ready to become WAAAAGHHHHHHH!

 

 

Farseer Guylia of Nal’Shara

Nal’Shara’s Light

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The thing you should know first is that she doesn’t want to talk to you. To the extent that she wants to interact with you, she wants to examine you, and it’s not personal. The thing you should know second is that if she does talk to you, that means she thinks you’re important enough to kill. It’s not unheard of to escape Guylia’s eye without dying, however; she’s soft. She doesn’t murder Mon-Keigh on the crossfire unless she’s given a reason. She doesn’t murder Mon-Keigh at all unless she’s given a reason. If you give her a reason, though, she’s unrelenting. But why isn’t she ordering every human and abhuman executed? Is she more discerning than a doctrine of ‘Immediate Death?’ Maybe that’s why her Craftworld seems so weak. Maybe that’s why you think you can take Nal’Shara from her. Maybe that’s why she’s won so many engagements over the last standard century. Maybe that’s why her forces are so loyal.

Lords Grimnyr Sêykr and Fyndr

Lords of the Kinhost

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

These lords of the League are what they are, and that’s something both more organized and more dangerous than most. Intelligence gathered by the Imperium over many years has been clear: the abhumans have established themselves in core galactic space; there have been alarms raised, and alarms ignored. Frankly, the hardy and harrumphy space dwarves aren’t a threat on the border of the Imperium, and these great unwieldy clans have been downright helpful from time to time. But they’re getting rowdy. They’re expanding. They’re here, in the Vadinax Sector, looking for something important to the League. And these two lords specifically are always appear together. Sometimes they look the same one way; sometimes they look the same the other. Is it the bodies that are the same or the costumes? Hard to tell from far-reaching reports. But the Kinhost know what they are, and power isn’t something they’ve ever lacked. This wouldn’t be the first time that the League and the Imperium clashed — and it won’t be the last.

Inquisitor Nirobe Vant

Puritan of the Ordo Xenos

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

With youth comes impudence, but fervor. A combination to be reckoned with when further leavened with talent. Inquisitor Vant has been developing a reputation for herself as the one who does things that are simply not done, or at least done with caution — commandeering dreadnaughts, gainsaying Chapter Masters, acts that Inquisitors can get away with in the moment thanks to the badge of their office but which come home to roost when they’re summoned back by their lord superiors for…performance review. Vant’s luck, or perhaps curse, so far is that all three of her great usurping acts — that language was used at least twice when complaints were filed about her — paid off. Once with a stemmed Ork incursion that required Exterminatus on one world instead of a whole system, again with the saving of a Forge World through a decapitation strike on a debauched elite Slaanesh cult dedicated to turning it into a ‘Machine for Pigs’ — a bio-industrial orgy to tear a hole in the warp — and a third time by outing an Inquisitor who had turned to heresy and was using his position to claim Exterminatus on key strategic worlds that had not fallen. She laid Jaine Bessereth low in single combat and brought his body, without needless extremities, to be examined and then convicted. Vant’s mission in-sector is unclear so far, but she intends to make it four for four.

What’s Next: Arks of Omen

That’s a few of the characters you’ll meet in Vadinax, but we’re not ready to reveal them all just yet. Come back tomorrow when we’ll talk about how Arks of Omen and Boarding Actions games factor into the campaign. Until then, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.