+ inload: Endworlds +

+ Whatever happened to Barbari Kills? +

The cover was up. For whatever reason, humans did not adapt well to the empty night skies of the galaxy's rim. Haim felt it. They all had; though in different ways. She had tried to explain it to Brunski, a few weeks back, as the ship glided silently through the black, empty void. 

"Like... being watched; but not enough? Do you–" She had paused; started again. "It's just as though there's nothing holding me down; no anchor. Nothing secure. It's all too..." she had waved her hands in slow, loose, frustrated circles. 

Brunski had just grunted, got up and left.

+++

Lowering her weatherhood, she cast a glance over her shoulder. A nod to Brunski saw him holster his rifle. He and Castaway turned and went back out; hoods up, eyes down. 

The sign read, in the peculiar glyphs of the backwater, 'Teleroftaels'. It wasn't hard to see the derivation – particularly not for an ideodact like Haim. Teller of tales. A village bard, then, she supposed; some sort of archivist, she dared to hope. A job as old as humanity. 

From the rear of the spare, stone building, came a voice. "Come; come." The voice was surprisingly deep, and rich; though it was cut through with a scratch. Haim was reminded, for a brief, absurd moment, of her father's audiorepeater. "The arrangement details are all in order; you are well come here." 

The woman's smile was warm; her skin folded and tanned like soft leather. Her head was shaved completely bald, save for two tufts at the other edges of her eyes, where the remnants of her eyebrows had been extended into short, beaded braids. A bold stripe, darker brown than the rest of her skin, ran over the crest of her head. Paint? Make-up? Some sort of tattoo? 

If she noticed Haim's vacant look, the teleroftael's face showed no sign. Her smile remained soft, unwavering. 

"Ti?" 

Haim blinked, and embarrassedly demurred the offer; waving away the proffered cup. The water here required adaptation. Inquisitrix Barbari Kills hadn't intended to stay longer than was necessary; and so nor did her team. 

"No, no; thank you. Do you mind if–?" Haim gestured at her own flask, securely gathered on her webbing. The teleroftaels nodded permission. You'll have my gratitude for information, rather than refreshment, mam. Even so; thank-you." At the other woman's gesture, Haim looked for a place to sit. There was a brief, awkward pause before the teleroftaels smiled apologetically, and lifted aside a pile of soiled textiles from what turned out to be a low bench.

Stepping back, the teleroftaels squinted gnomically, assessing Haim. The moment stretched. Just before Haim spoke, the teleroftaels announced, "You'll be want the history." 

Haim nodded. Odd phrasing, but for such an isolated region, it was reassuring to find anyone that spoke anything resembling Gothic. Most of the populations Corewards of Saxa Tarpeia had been utterly incomprehensible to Kills and her team. 

"Thank you, yes. Solid form if you have it. I tell you," she continued. "It's been a hell of a time getting any cartography or records of this entire region." The teleroftael's smile broadened, perhaps in pride. Haim carried on. "It's such a relief to find an historical repository. Even if it's just the local... " She stopped herself as she watched the teleroftaels shuffle backwards towards the back of the room; clearly uncomfortable with  turning her back on her guest. "Sorry; I'm gabbling. It's been a long search. I'm just excited. Should I ask my colleague to help carry them?"

The teleroftael's smile slipped for a moment; wrong-footed. Haim wondered if she had strayed over some cultural boundary. 

"Not think that'll be needed."

Unsure, Haim made a small half-hearted nod; and the teleroftaels disappeared behind a curtain. 

+++

"Rimworlds, you Imperials call 'em. Most here just call it Edgeside. Out beyond the galaxy's rim. It's an... odd place. Liminal; know what I mean? Out beyond it's the big black. Just nothing. Sounds simple when I say that, but it's..." she paused. "Heh. Comes to something when even my words fall into the black."

"Like I say, it's odd. The big black. It's the end of it all, see? Sure, there's other galaxies out there, but they're just like us. Little island universes gradually wearing away. And make no mistake –" she waved a finger in the Rogue Trader's face, "It sure is wearing away." She paused, looking out of the colossal window once more. "Look far enough, and you can see it happening. Slowly, sure, and dust – just dust. Trickling away from the galaxy's edge into the true void. But nothing comes back in."

Her faraway gaze suddenly switched; as though a lever had gone off in the back of her mind. Fear. That was all Taiwo saw in her eyes.

"Nothing you want to meet, anyway."

+++

+ inload: Painting Inquisitrix Barbari Kills +

+ Inquisitrix Barbari Kills +

 There's subtlety in the application of the Emperor's will – just as there's good hard work in interpreting it. 

'Righteousness, willpower, divine grace... You'll hear them all used as justifications for why you should do as an Inquisitor says; but right now, the fact I've got an n-point discharge derringer pressed to your forehead is all I need.'

+++

+ Well, all painted up and ready to wage a one-woman war on the Endworlds – I'm pleased with how Barbari Kills has come out. My notes on building the conversion are here [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], so I'll concentrate on painting in this inload. +

+ The first thing you'll notice is the drab scheme. The plan was for the poncho to be a muted brown leather, with a bright inner lining – the idea being that this anonymous-looking figure suddenly threw back her cloak to reveal a big gun and bright colours. In the end, I think I got a bit carried away with the detailing and washes on the lining, so it's more muted than I had intended. +

+ The heraldic ermine pattern has got a bit lost, and has ended up looking a bit blurry... but them's the breaks when you experiment. I'm still pleased with the result, which has plenty of impact and contrast, if not precisely how I'd planned it! +

+ The face came out well, I felt. I've experimented with a lot of different skintones in the Gatebreaker project, but with the marines I'm guaranteed a contrasting tone near the face owing to the quartered bright yellow and dark green scheme. Not so here, so I had to work carefully to make sure her dark skin didn't get lost against the fabric. Note the embroidered details on her collar (touches of freehand help to identify something as non-skin), and the use of the brighter inner lining of the cloak near the collar, too. +

+ A few flashes of colour are dotted around the figure to make things slightly less realistic and more obviously sci-fi: the orange band on the gun; the gold Inquisition symbol on her loincloth; the red rubricising (see what I did there?) and bookmark ribbon on the book; and – of course – her blue hair. +

+ Typically, eye-catching 'hot spots' are bright, warm colours; but as long as they contrast with the overall scheme, they can be any colour. The scheme here as a whole is a warm sepia-yellow tint; almost nicotine-stained. Blue (or green, or pink) would all work to contrast. +

+ The image above shows the skin best, too. Subtle spot-glazes of red applied to the lower lip and cheeks are all that are needed to give a healthy complexion. Kills doesn't strike me as a striking make-up sort of girl. +

+ Another little flash of red; the Inquisitorial sigil of the Ordo Propter. Again, hidden beneath the cloak until the dramatic reveal. Note the profusion of pouches and webbing; I wanted Barbari Kills to look prepared for anything. This shot shows the ermine decoration on the cloak a little better, too. +

+ The basing is similar to most I do; a warm brown highlighted up with cream, then dotted with a mix of flock tufts and scatter foliage. +

+ ... and here she is pictured alongside Castaway, Coriolanus and Septival. She's starting to build up a little entourage. I must return to Haim and Brunski soon. +

+ inload: Building Inquisitrix Barbari Kills +

+ Inquisitrix Barbari Kills +

'If you have good sense, you'll quietly put this book back where you found it and creep away. You'll find more questions than answers inside – and that's exactly what got me started pulling on a thread that led to this accursed rosette.'

– Preface to Inquisitor B. Kills' Comments, 1st edition

'If you find, written in my obituary, that I led a blameless life, look for the footnote. I'd like it made clear that I regard being blameless as an act of cowardice bordering on deviance. Every moral agent must make account for her actions – that is, after all, at the root of the Inquisition's mission.'

'Oh, and make sure that I'm buried with my boots and a knife – y'know, just in case.'  

– Preface to Inquisitor B. Kills' Comments, 2nd edition

+++

+ Models of characters +

+ It's always tricky making a model of a character you like, and Kills has a healthy dose of humour and punky irreverence that makes her quite refreshing for this fairly po-faced setting. On top of that, quite a lot of the narrative of my little corner of 40k revolves around a scant few characters, of which Kills is one. Clearly I had my work cut out. +

+ When in such a situation, one approach is to call for back-up. Working out who your character works with is often easier, as this supporting cast can be much simpler archetypes – the medic, the soldier, the brute, the wizard, the bard. By making these, you immediately start to explore their relationship with the central character, which goes some way to cast light on the way you can portray them. +

+ Practicality and adaptation are keywords for Kills – what better companion to reflect that than a Squat? Coriolanus and Septival similarly serve to blend the Inquisitor in with the broader army.  These characters fill different spaces around the character, and start to fill things in by reflecting on her. +

+ For example, I initially toyed with having Kills in long robes, but the more I built her entourage, the more I felt she needed more of an action pose. The poncho suggested itself, and that became the keystone to the conversion. +

+ Regular inloaders might remember Brunski and Haim, another two followers. They have models sketched out, but I'm considering revising them in light of Kills' completed model. Keeping things flexible and fluid enough to respond to changes is useful. +

+ Anyway, once you've got an image in your mind, it's time to pick a model. You may be lucky and find something stock that requires only a little tweaking, but I really enjoy going all out on my Inquisitors (Unfortunus Veck is another example [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]), and pushing my skills to best reflect the unique qualities of these exceptional individuals.  In particular, I'm very keen that these conversions fit two criteria:

• They look unique – while parts might be identifiable, I don't want it to be immediately recognisable as a conversion of another model. Ideally, it should look like a model you could buy, rather than a conversion.
• It gets the character of the figure across.

+ The results are below, so I'll leave you to judge whether I've been successful! +

+ The poncho is the most obvious thing here, and I think it is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of composition. It adds dynamism and movement to an otherwise fairly staid pose, and creates a sense of drama; suggesting the pistol has just been whipped out from beneath it. Secondly, it reveals something about the setting: it has a frontier feel, like a cowboy or prospector. This is backed up with the heavy boots and practical all-weather clothing. Finally, it being blown up reveals a mass of unusual equipment and pouches, which speak to Kill's self-reliance and preparedness. +

+ Complementing the revealed pistol is the Inquisitorial rosette – Kills strikes me as the sort of Inquisitor who realises that by the time you reveal your identity, it's best to have a gun drawn too! I also liked the fact that the rosette would normally be hidden beneath the poncho; again telling us something about her character and methods. +

+ The pistol is a good example of hiding the provenance of something. The stock bit is from the Primaris apothecary, but trimming away the bells and whistles leaves it as a simple, stocky, brutal-looking handgun. +

+ It's worth noting that this is pre-greenstuff. It's been too hot to work comfortably recently, and in any case, it's sometimes nice to step back, consider the figure in front of you, and build a plan before ploughing on with putty. Having a bit of breathing space can help you see the composition more objectively. +

+ I'm tempted to do some hair; perhaps something asymmetrical, to distance the head from the stock bit. At the very least I'll fill in the hole left by trimming away the back socket; and likely fill in a couple of the boles in the poncho. +

+ Visible here, attached to her belt, is her extendable power maul. Besides being easily hidden, I thought this brutal club seemed much more in keeping with Kills' slightly punky character than an elegant sword. It's also a nice nod to the Gatebreakers, the army with which she is associated for this project. +

+ The book, I think, is an important prop – it stops her looking too 'combatty'. She is, after all, an Inquisitor (or Inquisitrix, to use her preferred appellation), and her role is primarily investigative. +

+ Overall, I'm really pleased with how she came together. The conversion work itself was time-consuming, but it's so satisfying when parts that you've identified end up working together well. As mentioned above, while I'm going to go in with some greenstuff, there's not nearly as much gap-filling and sculpting work necessary as I had initially planned for. +

+ For those interested: Van Saar upgrade head; neck and collar from Necromunda Enforcers, along with the maul and most of the pouches; Elysian left arm and hand; right arm is from a Frostgrave cultist, I think; right hand is from the Elysian Valkyrie passenger kit; upper torso and poncho from the Genestealer gunfighter character; abdomen and legs from a Blood Bowl Dark Elf linewoman; rosette is from the Luminark/Hurricanum kit; and the pistol, as mentioned above, is from the Primaris apothecary kit. +

+ Creating your own character +

+ If you're making your own model, you can, of course, buy everything new, but besides being ruinously expensive – the infamous 'wallet-bleed' class conversions – I find my creativity is channelled best by the challenge of limitations. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all, and starting to work with bits you already have will often guide you down a route you wouldn't otherwise have found. +

+ Most of the parts used for Kills (indeed, most of my projects!) are thus spares, left over from other projects. If there is a critical bit (like the poncho here), then check bits sites or second-hand swap shops as a first port of call. You are, after all, going to cut them up substantially, so a cheap, damaged model can be just as useful for parts as a new on sprue one, after a bit of cleaning up. +

+ Finally, it's worth pointing out that most of these pieces could be easily substituted for much the same effect. Dig through your bits boxes or have a chat with your friends – the Enforcer sprue was a swap with Ilmarinen, and the right arm came from a giant bag o' plague bits Lucifer216 kindly gave me, left over from his own Death Guard project. +

+++

+ I hope that she matches up with your mental images from the colour text that's she's appeared in. I'd love to hear what you think. +

+ inload: Gnostic and Gatebreaker infantry +

+ Endworlds: Landfall +

+COMPILERCOMPILERCOMPILERCOMPILERCOMPILERCOMPILER+

+Chronostamp:ABSENTIA+

+SPOOLING transmission.+

+–re you picking this up? Respond. All channels occup–+

+–that infernal noise? Sounds like... like clockw–+

+++

According to the Gnostic's masterpiece auspex-organ, nothing was coming back from the gate. Quite literally. Not even static. The background radiation was utterly absent; a literal zero. Doubtless this accounted for the chill.

Kills shivered. In her heated, sealed, stuffy atmosphere suit, it was quite unnecessary. However, like coughing to break a silence, it felt somehow humanising; as though introducing some measure of useless movement, of entropy, would break the hex of this perfect, disquieting order. 

Though his vox-clicks were muffled by the dead air, the Gnostic was busy. At his words, the Strikeforce coiled back in, ghosting back towards Kills and her team.

The monolithic structures were straight, and clean. Again, disquietingly so. These were not straight in an ordinary, everyday architectural way, but suffused with an unsettling purity of geometry; as though the walls and corners themselves were manifested mathematics; avataric emblems of some unaccountably Other reality.

Absently, she brushed her hand against the Inquisitorial seal, concealed beneath her cloak. It felt like wax, and vellum, and familiarity. For a symbol powerful enough to end worlds, she thought, with a grin, you feel positively wholesome.


+++

+ Painting +

+ Besides the Chapter markings, gunsights and tufts on the bases, the next batch of Gatebreakers are complete (hurrah). +




+ Two are on assignation to Inquisitrix Barbari Kills, one's the Strikeforce's Gnostic (a sort of non-psychic Librarian/Lieutenant hybrid, in charge of battlefield organisation and record-keeping). The remaining four are more Intercessors to bulk out the squads. +




+ I'll hold off background and names until they are genuinely finished (looking at the Gnostic above, a bit of battle damage needs further refining), but I wanted to show 'em off! +







+ Member-Ordinary with boltgun +






+ Member-Ordinary with boltrifle and auxiliary grenade launcher. +






+ Member-Ordinary with bolt rifle +




+ Coriolanus, specialist +






+ Septival, specialist +


We looked at these two a bit more closely in the last inload [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and they've received only minor updates. Still, it's sometimes surprising what a difference basing can make. +




+ I haven't yet added their Chapter markings (or the black purity seals that will mark them as seconded to the Ordo Propter), but I did add a specialist symbol in place of the usual Tactical/Devastator/Assault/Fire Support/Close Support symbol. I took this crescent moon device from an early edition of Epic. It's a nice clear symbol, with some mystical associations. +

+ inload: Barbari Kills and the Bridge of the Ẹtì Alubarika +

+  A short story today, intended to illuminate the characters accompanying  the Primaris Gatebreakers. I've got plans to build and paint a few of these – I'd love to hear your thoughts on which catch your imagination, and who you'd like to see realised. +

+++

The Ẹtì Alubarika wallowed, the void-engines sputtering to a halt as the materium drives took up the slack. The choirmaster retrieved his wand from the podium and began directing the Liturgy of Gracious Thanks.

From her standpoint near a navigation-organ, Kills stretched lazily. The headache that warp travel inevitably brought upon her was already ebbing away, and she smiled with relief. She glanced around, her vision blocked by the two hulking marines that flanked her. Their gleaming power armour was swathed in fabric tabards, picked out with core Imperial decoration. They were in all ways identical, their armour clean and unmarred, polished to perfection. Seeing her move, Septival nodded politely. He stepped backwards to let the Inquisitor see past him. 

The bridge of the Ẹtì Alubarika was dressed stone. Turquoise-studded granite columns soared in a great gallery, and desks of void-whale baleen were piled high with scroll cases, records and dataslates. There were few vid-screens or electronics visible; the crew interacting with the craft through embedded haptics and keyboards more akin to musical instrumentation than the ascetically practical models cradled by the hooded tech-adepts. It was, Kills had noted when she had been invited aboard, quite something. The crew were also singular: smart, clean-limbed and beautiful figures from a dozen different worlds. Taiwo was proud of his bridge crew, whom he demanded to be exemplars of humanity. After all, as he had proudly declared to the Inquisitor: 'These may be the first men and women a species will see. I will have them see us for what we are: Perfect.'

As far as anything was typical for the rogue trader, Taiwo was every inch the commander. He sat, almost lost within the opulence of his command throne, looking out across the bridge. His glittering augmetic eyes drank in every detail, and Kills could see his gaze piercing the stars even as his advisors muttered and proferred reports. Taiwo and Kills had reached an uneasy rapprochement. He was an inveterate explorer, keen to push the boundaries – both literally and metaphorically. The idea of ferrying a proto-Chapter of Primaris Space Marines to an ancient backwater on the very rim of the galaxy had not caught his imagination, until Kills had intimated the lack of Imperial authority over the area. As far as the Ordo could determine, celestial drift had left this region of space unmonitored and unexplored for millennia – possibly since the establishment of the Imperium itself. 

He had agreed – though he remained a Rogue Trader. His demands were large, but payable: exclusive rights to the frontier, colonisation fiefdom guarantees on all inhabitable worlds... and the tip of Kills' little finger. As Taiwo's rich voice rolled around the bridge; directing his staff, the Inquisitor flexed her new augmetic at the memory. The loss of a fingertip was, in the end, a small price to pay – after all, her fingerprints and generunes were banked and warded by the Ordo Propter –  and the Expedition's augmetists were second-to-none. The skinsleeve was indistinguishable from her birth flesh. 

Inquisitrix Barbari Kills had little of the sentimentalist about her. She had taken the opportunity to have a digitial microlaser and elegant vox-thief fitted. If little else sat well with the proto-Chapter she accompanied, that lack of sentimentality was at least in tune. Chapter 333 were new-forged. They had taken their oaths, and were as prepared as Space Marines could be – but what little fighting they had seen was desultory. Kills suspected that accounted for a large part of their obsessive training and fastidiousness. 

She had had the dubious pleasure of serving alongside Astartes before, and had the peculiar feeling that the Primaris soldiers of Chapter 333 were trying a little too hard to impress her. Their armour gleamed. Their steps were perfectly synchronous. A sense of order radiated from them. That easy, knowing smile came to the Inquisitor's face again. It was sweet, in a way. 

Scipius, the Chapter's Interim Master, had assigned Septival and Coriolanus as bodymen to her, and they had – despite her efforts – remained politely but stubbornly glued to her as she wandered the halls of the Ẹtì Alubarika and its accompanying fleet. The presence of the two hulking warriors had prevented her from making any personal progress with in-fleet investigations, and so she had, with resignation, delegated her more shadowy work to her acolytes.

+++

She thought of Master Scipius as she strolled, hands clasped proprietorially behind her back, towards the viewing platforms, where she could – at last – look outside the ship again. Coriolanus and Septival followed a studiedly short distance behind. Barbari Kills was an experienced star-sailor, hardbitten investigative member of the Inquisition, and – when called to be – a ruthless killer. Nevertheless, she had never lost the thrill of wonderment at the galaxy. It was at the heart of her; and seeing stars and planets never failed to stir a sense of the divine in her. It almost made up for the damn headaches, she thought.

Ratings and crew members parted before the trio as Kills advanced towards the main Observatorio, hidden as yet behind a curve. Before reaching the cyclopean window itself, she paused, and looked back. Past the colossal green-and-yellow Space Marines, beneath the decorated black granite, she could see humanity. Bustling, busy, engaged in tasks – as complex as clockwork, as heaving as an anthill.

Closing her eyes in anticipation, she prepared herself for the glittering beauty of the stars; the soaring columns of nebulae, the painted beauty of illuminated stardust...

When she opened them again, her breath caught in her throat. She felt the overwhelming need to grasp something; anything. Her hand briefly snaked out towards Septival, but she snatched it back, angry with herself. A rolling, tumultous sense of vertigo claimed her, as though she – and the rest of the bridge; the ship; the species – were teetering on the brink of an infinite precipice. 

For before her eyes, from edge to edge of the colossal Observatorio, was what lay beyond the rim of the galaxy. An occasional miniscule pip of light; a faint dusting of gas – and then, between the galaxy of Man, and its impossibly distant neighbours, nothing. Nothing for ever. A blank, black insanity of absence.

She turned away, disappointed and disquieted – though her rigid self-discipline revealed nothing. She looked instead to Coriolanus and Septival, studying those identical helms as they regarded her impassively in turn. Would their sense of order survive here? she wondered. Could anyone's? 

+++

+ Painting has also progressed, and I couldn't resist setting up the parts to preview what the resulting marines will look like. Pleased with the results – I'm fired up to get these polished off and completed! +