Just Because She Asks Nicely Doesn't Mean You Can Say No (Grimdark Sci Fi WIP) (Patreon)

Hello!

Sci Fi Alternative Month is here with a little sprinkling of Grimdark!  So let's start with a fan favorite, Amberley Vail.  She is a member of the Ordos Xenos and one of the very few Inquisitors that's actually good at her job.  I know I dump on the Inquisition a lot but their track record makes Herman von Strab look like Macharius.  

Anyways, Amberley is sort of Ciaphas Cain's biographer.  In universe, she has collected notes written by the "Hero of the Imperium!" and released them in volumes for the amusement of her Inquisitorial colleagues.  Actually she wanted them to learn from Cain's adventures but they all think it's just hilarious reading material.  

So Amberley meets Cain in his first novel For The Emperor where he's dealing with the T'au for the contested world of Perlia.  Things get dicey with a Genestealer infestation and so begins a life long trend of Cain getting dumped into terrifying situations only to somehow come out of them smelling of roses.  And most of those messes start because Amberley asked Cain for a favour.  And while Cain knows he doesn't really have a choice, this partnership is mutually beneficial in more ways than one if you catch my drift. 🤭

So regardless of which Ordo or ideology an Inquisitor follows, you can roughly categorize them into three groups in terms of job approach.  There are the 'Emperor botherers', the nutjobs who scream how awesome Big E is while setting everything on fire.  There are the puppetmasters, Inquisitors who never show their face, use false aliases and only act through their agents.  Then there are the actor types, the Inquistor who likes hide in plain sight.  They usually assume the role of a minor adept and just fade into the background (or they can be bombastic ridiculous personalities that no one takes seriously) until the appropriate moment to reveal their true identity.  

Amberley fits into the third category as she was masquerading as a diplomat when meeting Cain.  Notably, she is one of the few people that sees through Cain's false persona immediately so she's an excellent judge of character.  Amberley also stands out as one of the few Inquistors that is actually pretty friendly by 40K standards and prefers soft diplomacy over forcing an issue with a bolt gun to your head.  But don't let her cheerful demeanor fool you.  At the end of the day, Amberley is an Inquisitor and they are all ruthless agents of the Throne who would cull an entire world for heresy and none of them would bat an eye.  

Style wise, I stuck pretty close to her concept art which I think captures her character perfectly.  I also gave her a members only jacket because how else are players going to know you belong to a very exclusive club? 😄

Onto the Titanfall Mech!  I've never played the series but by all accounts it's excellent.  Plus I'm a big fan of all things robot related so I'm always glad when I get a chance to do stuff like this.  After a bit of digging, I realized the Bison mech was a concept art that was never actually used in the games.  But all Titanfall mechs have the same general profile so it wasn't too hard to make my own version.  I especially like the concept art which shows how the pilot seat so I included a version of that.  I will also give it an appropriately cool weapon to use.

Also, while I was designing the mech, a thought occurred to me.  This thing looks a lot like a Dreadknight if the chassis was built by a Tech Priest that didn't huff the fumes from their censers.  I'll have to see if I can fit it in this month but I might include a Dreadknight variant of the mech.  

Okay, next up is Judge Dredd!  Stay tuned!